Accused Hub fire official held without bail

Boston Deputy Fire Chief Peter Pearson, who is charged with sexually assaulting six women in Brockton, was ordered held without bail yesterday, Brockton District Court officials said. Pearson, 51, was first arrested Aug. 18 when one woman accused him of sexually assaulting her. Following that arrest, five more women came forward and alleged that he assaulted them while posing as a state trooper. All six said that Pearson impersonated a police officer and either raped or attempted to rape them during the attacks, which allegedly took place between 1997 and this year. At least four of the women said he flashed a gun. Yesterday, a Brockton district court judge ruled Pearson was too dangerous to be released on bail and ordered him held for the next 60 days.

The president of Cape Cod Community College says she is stepping down. Kathleen Schatzberg said Tuesday that she will resign at the end of next summer after more than a decade on the job. Schatzberg raised millions of dollars to add and renovate buildings at the school, boosted ties to area industries and politicians, and pushed for diversity. Schatzberg, who was inaugurated in May 1999, said that community colleges "thrill my soul" but that she is getting burned out by the "24/7 treadmill" and wants to move on while still feeling strong. (AP)

Salem State College has said syndicated columnist George F. Will would replace former presidential hopeful John Edwards at its lecture series. Will, who also writes for Newsweek magazine, has won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary and regularly appears on television news shows. He writes on foreign and domestic policy and has written numerous books on baseball and political philosophy. He will speak Sept. 23 at the college's O'Keefe Sports Center. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and presidential candidate, was set to speak with his wife, Elizabeth, about her bout with cancer and the presidential election. However, the college said Tuesday that the Edwardses had canceled, which came after John Edwards admitted to an extra-marital affair.

A Worcester woman involved in a crash on Route 9 in Leicester last week that resulted in the death of a couple married for 65 years has been cited on two counts of negligent motor vehicle homicide. Prosecutors said Adwoa Gyamfi, 41, was also cited with a marked lanes violation and negligent driving. She will be summoned to district court in East Brookfield, where she can choose to be arraigned or have a clerk magistrate's hearing. Police said Gyamfi was driving east last Thursday when her vehicle crossed into the westbound lane and collided with a car driven by Russell Mosman, 83, of North Brookfield. His wife, Dorothy, 89, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her husband died the next day. (AP)

A Woburn woman was sentenced yesterday for tampering with children's vitamins with intent to cause serious injury to a business, according to the office of US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan. Denise Shannon, 38, was sentenced to two years probation with six months of home detention, a $2,500 fine, and $4,500 in restitution. Between 2004 and 2005, Shannon tainted Flintstone's children's vitamins by substituting candy in at least eight bottles at various local retail outlets.

New Hampshire is on the verge of raising its cigarette tax 25 cents a pack. Last spring, grocers pleaded with lawmakers not to raise the tax to help deal with a budget gap. They said they could generate the same revenues if given a chance to market the state's lower cigarette prices to neighboring states. Sympathetic lawmakers postponed the increase to determine whether the marketing would bring in the promised money. But the grocers never launched a marketing campaign and the revenues aren't enough to avoid triggering the tax increase on Oct. 1. (AP)