Friends of Justice

I spent many years in Berkshire County practicing law. I have since moved out of Massachusetts.

Martha Coakley badly mishandled the Fells Acres alleged child abuse case in Malden, Massachusetts, with the Amirault family, causing the premature death of Violet Amirault and lasting personal and professional harm to Cheryl Amirault LeFave and her brother Gerald, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years. Violet and Cheryl each served 8 years in prison, after which Violet developed and died from stomach cancer.

Coakley is a disgrace to the legal profession, a prosecutor without any feel for justice or truth.

Many Berkshire County residents are leery of Coakley, as well they should be. It is bad enough that she got elected chief legal officer of Massachusetts (attorney general). It would be a travesty for her to be elected to the United States Senate.

Judge Isaac Borenstein kept Cheryl from being retried, but only at the cost of her most fundamental personal liberties, including the right to speak publicly about the case until a mere three weeks from now WHEN IT IS TO BE HOPED THAT SHE WILL CASTIGATE MARTHA COAKLEY PUBLICLY FOR HER DISGRACEFUL ROLE IN THIS CASE.

In 2008 Judge Francis Fecteau issued a lengthy opinion freeing Bernard Baran, another wrongfully imprisoned purported child sex offender from Berkshire County, after 22 years of imprisonment in a similar case that was complicated by the fact that the Baran is gay. Homophobia ran rampant. Only the concurring opinion of the Massachusetts Appeals Court convinced Martha’s colleague David Capeless, Berkshire County DA, from retrying Baran, who suffered horrendous abuse during his long imprisonment.

Keeping children safe from sexual abuse is one thing. Persecuting innocent caretakers is quite another kettle of fish. Coakley still doesn’t know the difference. She is unfit for ANY public office.

I’m not thrilled about how they edited it.

I particularly didn’t like their substituting “Many halfway intelligent people have come to believe that no crimes were committed in these instances, and that unreliable evidence was used” for “Halfway intelligent people who have looked into these cases have quickly realized that no crimes were committed and that the Amiraults and Souzas were convicted on fabricated unreliable evidence.” I’d have little problem if they had just omitted the word many, which drains the sentence of meaning.

I’m somehow reminded of the routine in which Peter Cook defends his taking a job with the Beaverbrook newspapers by saying, “Just because my name appears at the top of the column you mustn’t assume that I’m in some way connected with it.”

-Bob

Dear Friend of Justice,

Today the Boston Globe published this predictably adulatory article about Martha Coakley.

There is no mention of her signing the amicus supporting absolute prosecutorial immunity. Nor is there any mention of her prosecution of Ray and Shirley Souza, a case that thrust her into the public eye long before she prosecuted Louise Woodward.

At least it mentions (at the end of a long article) her disgraceful role in the Amirault case, which she still defends.

“I am as convinced [as I am of] anything that those children were abused at that day-care center by the three defendants [Violet, Cheryl, and Gerald Amirault], and if I weren’t, I would be the first to acknowledge that,’’ she said.

This statement alone is ample proof that Coakley is either an idiot or a liar. In either case, she is unfit for public office.

Please write to the Globe. The email address is letter@globe.com.

I will send them a modified version of my letter to the Phoenix. But the more letters they receive, the more likely it is that they will run one.

-Bob Chatelle