A few weeks ago I blogged about Carmen Ortiz not doing herself favors by pursuing the civil forfeiture case against the mortgage free low-end motel in Tewksbury. Fifteen drug arrests occurred in thiity thousand rented rooms over 14 years. Yeah, you heard me right.
The evidence showed the feds have real estate experts searching for property with no mortgage or a low one. They then try to build a case to seize it. This case is beyond ridiculous.
Attorney Matt Connelly mentioned this case on his Whitey Bulger blog in the context of the media coverage it has received. Practically none. Does that make sense? Think about it? We know all there is to know about the poor woman with the bad driving history who was this week’s flavor or the month.
And the unfortunate bastard who caused the Green Line rear-ender today will be put on a plate for us to carve into very shortly.
But this flagrant and well documented prosecutorial abuse goes under the media radar. Especially by the Boston Globe.
Why? This case should be the coffee talk. Carmen Ortiz should own this. It’s scary stuff.
Connolly has shown many halve truths, false innuendoes, and at best naive interpretations of facts reported by the Globe over the years that play the precise tune the boys with federal badges like to hear.
Talk about wink wink nod nod. Could historians find files many years from now that document a relationship that would destroy the Globe’s self-written image of purity and integrity?
I don’t know. But Connolly has me thinking. Big time!
Remember a few months ago a Globe columnists was secretly suspended for supposedly plagiarizing a blogger on an benign editorial? It sounded fishy then, but hey, who am I to question what the Globe does? That’s not my thing, right?
Didn’t this same columnists pen a well written piece a few weeks prior criticizing Judge Richard Stearns decision to stay on the Bulger case? (This is one of many strange pre-trial goings on that Connolly questions)
Do I see set-up? Were the bosses sending a message? Did they have a choice? The devil always wants more, right? Am I delusional?
Jesus Christ I’m starting to scare myself. Does this sound like the stuff heard outside the Lindemann Center before it opens in the morning?
Fucking Matt Connolly has me all discombobulated.
“Don’t you see man? They’re all in it together. There’s no place to run. They’re all pods man, they’re all pods……Mind if I bum a butt from ya?.”
By promoting non-stories into stories and non-scandals into scandals on a state level and ignoring and not covering significant local stories occurring at the federal level is the Globe and other local media controlled de facto by the federal government?
Hmmm, just because I’m crazy doesn’t mean I’m wrong, right?
——
So “Contracts Don’t Apply to Me” Howie Carr pointed out today what is pretty much universally agreed upon: Martha Coakley is wrongfully prosecuting Tim Cahill. He did nothing criminally wrong.
But Howie pisses on Tim for his run for governor which may have cost his man Baker the corner office.
So Howie being Howie ends his non-endorsement endorsement of Cahill with
And now Tim Cahill is being railroaded. But it’s hard to feel much sympathy for a boob who got an even bigger boob re-elected.
What a dick! Really. What a fuckin’ dick.
Discuss
12 Comments . Leave a comment below.That story about the motel in Tewksbury doesn’t make sense. Why would Carmen Ortiz go after a motel owner unless they had information that he was either complicit or “turned a biind eye” to what was happening in his establishment? It just seems to me that we don’t have all the facts in this story. We’re only getting one side.
Carmen agrees with the stats and a government agent testified that was his job to locate valuable pieces of property to go after.
The owner of the hotel took it over from his dad who built it in 1950s.The mans never been arrested and had very few problems for that type of business.
But unlike the Marriotts and Hampton Inns owned by big corporations with complicated lease deals the feds probably couldn’t get their property for the wrongdoings going on there.
But they have a patsy here.
The facts I cite jim, not my opinions, are confirmed by Ortiz.
If the newspapers reported it perhaps you and others would know more about it.
where the Craigslist killing happened? This story made me very uncomfortable as well- it definitely seemed like picking on the little guy because he can’t fight back. Lots of hotels have been unwitting headquarters for illicit activity, but this is the only place Ortiz is trying to seize.
…I believe the legal claim on this motel, which I can say from living in the area does have a rather unsavory reputation, is that property involved in such activities can be seized. Not necessarily defending that logic mind you.
Also, Ernie will be pleased to know that Howie Carr has beaten him for the title of most sexist journalist.
nuff said
I certainly hope that we are not yet in a nation where having “a rather unsavory reputation” merits confiscating real estate. If so, I suggest that there is a long list of properties in that area that are far worse than the one in question (Mac’s II in Billerica comes to mind, as does the Blue Moon in Tyngsboro).
No, this is a setup and EB3 is right to call out the feds (and the Globe) regarding it.
People’s property can be taken even when they have a savory reputation. The “asset forfeiture” provisions for seizing drug-dealers’ property have for years been an egregious expression of police-state tactics. If you want a really thorough and really disturbing overview of the practice, have a look at this:
THE ASSET FORFEITURE MANUAL If you want your hair raised and your rage outed, check out the section titled HOW BUREAUCRATS PRESUME YOU’RE “GUILTY”.
I was surprised to learn that Mac’s 2 and the Blue Moon were still open. Guess it’s because I don’t go by them anymore. I believe Mac’s lost their liquor license some years ago and has been operating as a juice bar.
Motel Caswell does appear in the news – even the non-Globe news – with some regularity. There are a number of other motels in the area, including several in Tyngsboro, and the only other one I can name due to reports of criminal activity is the Motel 6, and that only because of something in the past week. Does the activity at the Motel Caswell justify seizure? No. I don’t think that’s the way to curb criminal behavior.
I was responding more to Christopher’s implication that the threats are perhaps justified.
Can I just point out that the article you cited is more than twenty years old? I am optimistic that we are collectively moving in a direction to bring some sanity back to our drug enforcement activity.
During the late seventies, the Concordian Motel, on route 2 in Acton, was locally notorious both for its frequent prostitution arrests and also for the thriving business philandering Digital employees brought to it (it was far enough away from Maynard to be a tiny bit discreet, but close enough to be convenient). Nobody ever talked about shutting it down. I know about that because I lived in an apartment complex just behind it (now condos). Several of the women who plied their trade there were my neighbors. My fellow Digital colleagues have no clue about how fortunate they were and are that I was never into gossip about such things — I recognized (and pretended not to see) many high-profile managers and executives coming and going. There are frequent prostitution and sex-trafficking arrests at several Brookline and Somerville hotels — nobody threatens to confiscate those properties.
All in all, I hope that justice will prevail in this unfortunate situation, so that the Caswell family can get on with its life.
Or maybe you should use Google before you hit post
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/north/2012/11/29/tewksbury-motel-owners-fight-federal-government-save-their-property/8LNEhimgw0FnjpRAixqmJO/story.html
one article in the Metro North section says all we need to know.
I said I was NOT defending the logic behind the legal claim, and though I couldn’t quite put my finger on the justification, the asset forfeiture references cited by kirth is what I was getting at. Having never been proclaimed dictator I’ve certainly learned over the years that what the law is and what I wish it to be don’t necessarily coincide. My comment about the facility having an unsavory reputation, while true, should not have been construed as support for the methods on my part.
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