Ex-firefighter allegedly stalked fire chief

A Whitman man who was fired from the Halifax Fire Department last August for insubordination was arraigned yesterday on charges that he later stalked and threatened to kill the department's fire chief, according to authorities.

Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Kristin Stone said that Robert Mansfield began harassing Chief Lance Benjamino on Aug. 20, two days after he was terminated, and made a threatening phone call to the chief last Wednesday.

Halifax Police Sergeant Ted Broderick said the call was made from a pay phone at a Tedeschi food shop on Route 106 in Halifax to Benjamino's private line at the Fire Department. Mansfield is accused of saying: "You're a [expletive] dead man. I'm gonna kill you."

Police traced the call and then reviewed video from a security camera just above the phone booth. Mansfield was identified from the camera and arrested on Thursday. He posted $2,500 bail the same night and appeared in court yesterday morning.

Prosecutors alleged that Mansfield is a member of a motorcycle club and that he and fellow members of the club confronted Benjamino at a recent Marshfield Fair, circling the chief with their motorcycles as he walked through the parking lot. Benjamino also reported to authorities that following Mansfield's termination, motorcycles began cruising at late hours near his house and those of other department workers.

Mansfield stood motionless and clutched his hands together throughout yesterday's arraignment. Outside the courtroom, when asked if the charges against him were true, Mansfield responded, "Absolutely not."

Benjamino did not return a call seeking comment.

Justice Thomas Brownell issued an order for the court file to be impounded, because it contained the addresses of witnesses whose safety could be jeopardized if they were known. But he did not order a dangerousness hearing as requested by prosecutors. In most circumstances, courts redact the names and addresses of witnesses to make the public records available.

Mansfield worked as a firefighter at the department for two years, but he has been a licensed paramedic for 17 years, his lawyer, Chris Sheehan, said during the arraignment. Sheehan also said that Mansfield was fired from the department for insubordination because he did not undergo physical therapy for a job-related injury last January, despite an order from the town to do so. Sheehan said Mansfield was relying on the advice of his personal physician.

Mansfield is due back in court on Jan. 9 for a pretrial hearing.

Video from WCVB TV-5 was used in the reporting of this story.