Teenager dies after being struck by car

February 6, 2007

A 16-year-old Leominster High School student was killed after school yesterday when he was hit by a car driven by a fellow student, officials said. Sophomore Brandon Martinez, 16, was walking along Kingman Drive near the rear of the school when the accident occurred, Superintendent Nadine Binkley said. The driver, Rebecca Richard, 17, a senior at Leominster High School, lost control of her sport utility vehicle while trying to pass a car in front of her on the right side of the road, Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early said. Witnesses told authorities the SUV spun several times, crossed into the opposite lane of traffic, jumped the curb, and landed on the sidewalk, where it struck Martinez. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Richard and her passenger, whose name was not released, sustained minor injuries. The faculty was scheduled to meet this morning to receive a statement to read aloud to their classes. The accident is under investigation.

FRAMINGHAM

A Framingham District Court judge yesterday denied a newspaper's request to make public the items authorities sought and confiscated in connection with a murder charges against a Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School student. GateHouse Media Inc., owner of the MetroWest Daily News, had asked the judge to release documents related to the investigation of 16-year-old John Odgren, who is accused of fatally stabbing, James Alenson, 15. But Judge Paul J. Healy Jr. ruled that releasing the papers would compromise the two-week-old investigation. "Leads could be altered or destroyed if certain individuals learned of the impounded information, and sources could dry up," Healy wrote.

SPRINGFIELD

A key figure in the Springfield Housing Authority scandal was sentenced yesterday to nine years in prison, drawing the most severe punishment among a slew of defendants who pleaded guilty in the case. US District Judge Michael Ponsor also ordered Arthur Sotirion, 58, to pay $150,000 in fines. The Housing Authority's onetime assistant director has already paid $178,000 in restitution to make up for a portion of the $2.5 million he and 11 codefendants swindled from the taxpayer-funded agency. Along with shaking down contractors who were given jobs in exchange for bribes and favors, Sotirion stole $50,000 worth of quarters from the laundry machines put in housing authority apartments.

AUGUSTA, Maine

The president of the University of Southern Maine was selected yesterday to be chancellor of the University of Maine System. System trustees voted unanimously for Richard Pattenaude after a search committee presented feedback about the three finalists but offered no recommendation on which to choose. Finalists also included James Applegate, vice president for academic affairs at the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, and Warren Fox, executive director of the Office of Higher Education, Policy & Planning for the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. (AP)

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is proposing to loosen rules designed to protect sandpipers, plovers, and other migrating coastal birds. The DEP determined that the coastal birds could still be protected with smaller buffer zones designed to protect them from contact with people. The department has proposed reducing the buffer zone for shoreland birds' feeding areas from 250 feet to 75 feet. Lawmakers adopted the original rules to protect shorebird habitat last June, but an outcry surfaced as property owners learned of the 250-foot buffer from the high tide line in areas frequented by migrating birds. (AP)

NEW HAVEN

The Connecticut Supreme Court yesterday upheld the state's smoking ban in restaurants and bars by a 4-to-1 decision. The ruling upholds a 2003 law that banned smoking in bars and restaurants, but not in private clubs or the state's two tribal casinos. The law was challenged by a group of bar and restaurant owners who asserted that the statewide ban on smoking in those establishments is unconstitutional and hurt their businesses. But efforts to repeal or revamp the law have fizzled. The group argued that the ban violated their equal protection rights because it excluded private clubs and casinos. The Supreme Court determined that the Legislature had the right to make exemptions to the law. (AP)