Courthouse missing trial tapes

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/05/missing_trial_tapes_spawn_an_impasse/


Missing trial tapes spawn an impasse
Stenographer denies she has themBy Jonathan Saltzman Globe Staff / March 5, 2009


When they do their jobs right, court stenographers attract little attention. They tap quietly on a shorthand machine at more than 200 words a minute to make a record of testimony or repeat verbatim everything said in court into a tape recorder. But among the cast of characters, they seldom play a starring role.Jeanne Lentini, however, is getting a close-up, and not a flattering one. After working in the state courts under contract for eight years, she left Massachusetts in the spring of 2007 with tape recordings she made of 17 criminal and civil trials, court officials said. Despite demands to provide transcripts or return the tapes, which belong to the state, the officials said, she has sent back only seven recordings and some blank tapes.Transcripts are the lifeblood of the appeal process, so the missing tapes have stymied litigants in 10 criminal and civil cases, preventing them from challenging the verdicts. The individuals range from a former State Police sergeant convicted in 2006 of stealing cocaine from his department's drug unit to a 68-year-old Newton man who lost a malpractice lawsuit against a urologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.Lentini, 60, could soon be facing her own legal problems, although she insists she has sent the tapes back and has done nothing wrong.Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, whose office represents the trial courts in legal matters, wrote Lentini last summer demanding she return all the tapes. Coakley is "currently reviewing the matter" be cause of Lentini's failure to comply, a spokeswoman for the AG said yesterday. And a judge has ordered Lentini to attend a March 26 court hearing to explain why she should not be held in contempt - and face possible criminal charges - for disobeying court orders to return the tapes.Lawyers involved in the untranscribed trials are also taking action. The appellate attorney for the convicted state trooper asked a Norfolk Superior Court judge yesterday to free her client from prison on bail because 2 1/2 years have passed since she requested the transcript."This case is more than just a mere delay," Rosemary C. Scapicchio, the Boston lawyer for the former trooper, Timothy White, said in the motion filed in court. "It is a 30-month delay, and it appears that the missing transcript will never be produced." The judge has referred the request to a colleague on the bench.Court reporters convert their stenographic notes or tape recordings into transcripts and provide them to lawyers, who typically pay $3 a page.Lentini, who lives in Virginia Beach, Va., said yesterday that she has returned all the tapes sought by the courts and is baffled and irritated by claims to the contrary."I thought this was taken care of," she said in a telephone interview. "I sent them all back. I did that last summer."She said further that the court system treated so-called per diem, or contracted, court reporters with such little respect that she plans to send to the state all the tapes she saved from other trials she worked on since 1999 - hundreds of recordings - and reverse the postal charges. Contracted court reporters are authorized to keep recordings from trials for which they prepared transcripts, she said.Lentini said she has no intention of returning to Massachusetts for the court hearing about whether she should be held in contempt.The unusual dispute hardly marks the first time court reporters in Massachusetts have come under fire. In 2003, a committee of judges and lawyers appointed by the state Supreme Judicial Court issued a blistering report saying Massachusetts ranked among the worst states in providing timely, accurate transcripts.The median time for a transcript to be delivered for appeals in criminal cases was 300 days and 141 days in civil cases. The committee headed by Appeals Court Judge Mark V. Green faulted "inadequate resources, systemic inefficiencies, and a lack of effective management."But the allegations against Lentini are extraordinary, say court officials and lawyers involved, because she is thought to have deliberately ignored demands to provide transcripts or return the tapes so that another court reporter can prepare them.In some instances, Lentini was one of several court reporters on a case; the other reporters have provided transcripts for the testimony they heard."These transcripts can't be produced without these tapes being returned," said Joan Kenney, a spokeswoman for the judiciary.Among those who say they cannot file an appeal is William Singer, a Newton man who has been trying to challenge a 2006 verdict in Middlesex Superior Court in favor of a urologist he sued for alleged medical malpractice. Singer said he underwent surgery for a kidney stone but was left with severe blood clots in his legs.He said he paid Lentini $720 three years ago to prepare a transcript and is still waiting. Court officials have told him it might be possible to reconstruct a transcript based on the recollections of lawyers and litigants, but "that's asking people to try and remember what transpired three years ago," he said."The evidence is gone," he added, "and I think I'm entitled to a new trial."Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.

Massachusetts Clerk gets screwed in court

http://www.boston. com/news/ local/breaking_ news/2009/ 02/chelsea_ court_o.html
Chelsea, Mass. court official allegedly had sex in courtroom; get screwed BY court, get SCREWED IN COURT!!!February 27, 2009 12:50 PM Email Comments (0) Text size + By Shelley Murphy, Globe StaffAn assistant clerk at the Chelsea District Court was arrested by the FBI this morning on charges that he had sex with an accused prostitute in an empty courtroom while promising to help get a charge against her dismissed.James "Jim" Burke, 41, of Chelsea, made a brief appearance this morning before US Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman, who released him on $10,000 unsecured bond and ordered him to return to federal court March 26 for a probable cause hearing."It's a perversion of the legal system and a gross abuse of power,'' said Assistant US Attorney Brian T. Kelly, head of the US attorney's public corruption unit.The accused prostitute was in the Chelsea court with her lawyer in December trying to get prostitution charges dismissed when she saw Burke and confided to her lawyer that Burke had approached her when she was in the lockup at the courthouse on similar charges in February 2005 and offered to get her case dismissed if she provided sex, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court.The woman said Burke took her into a courtroom, where she performed oral sex on him.After her lawyer alerted the FBI, the woman began cooperating with agents and secretly recorded conversations with Burke, who allegedly acknowledged their earlier sexual encounter and offered to help her get the new charges dismissed if she helped him again, the affidavit says. During a call that was secretly recorded by the FBI on Dec. 8, Burke said they were able to have sex in the courtroom three years [ 2005] earlier "because it was late in the day and the only judge left was not going to go downstairs,' ' the affidavit said.Burke asked the woman if she thought it was "hot" that they had sex in a courtroom and told her, "It's good because it's like it's so bad,'' the affidavit said.Burke also said that there was another room in the courthouse where he had been with someone else, "just hookin' up,'' but he was upset because that person later told someone about the encounter.During a secretly recorded meeting at the court on Dec. 18, Burke, who claimed to have spoken to the district attorney's office, told the woman that she was "all set'' and had gotten off too easy. He suggested they "do it right now,'' but the woman declined.

Judges on Recess at the Middlesex Probate and Family Court

http://cbs4boston.com/iteam/local_story_317105213.html

http://cbs4boston.com/iteam/local_story_320125532.html

Many of the Judges listed were handeling the case in which I am involved. Good thing I didn't take a recess!

Eliminating Case Backlog

http://www.mass.gov/courts/press/pro061004.html

Keeping the honest!

Bye - Bye Buonomo

New England in brief: Ex-official indicted on larceny charges
...for allegedly stealing money from copy and cash machines at the Registry of Deeds in Cambridge. A grand jury indicted John Buonomo yesterday on 12 counts of breaking and entering into a depository with intent to commit larceny, eight counts of theft... (Page B2, 685 words)
Date: Oct 1, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/10/01/ex_official_indicted_on_larceny_charges

Middlesex Register of Probate is Untrustworthy

Middlesex official accused of stealing funds from machines
WOBURN - John Buonomo, the Middlesex County register of probate, was arrested yesterday after allegedly stealing thousands of dollars from government... (Page B4, 737 words)
By: Milton J. ValenciaDate: Aug 7, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/08/07/middlesex_official_accused_of_stealing_funds_from_machines



http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185143625/bctid1705272424

Leisha Appeals Ex-Parte Gag Order

APPEALS COURT ~ Single JusticeCase Docket

PETER TRINGALI
vs.
LEISHA TRINGALI

2008-J-0138

Case Status
Disposed: Case Closed

Status Date
04/08/2008

Nature
GLc 231, s 118, p 1

Entry Date
04/07/2008

Pet Role Below
Plaintiff

Single Justice ~ Cohen, J.

Case Type
Civil

Lower Ct Number
99P-5181

Lower Court
Middlesex Probate & Family Court ( Cambridge, Massachusetts )

Lower Ct Judge ~ Judith Nelson Dilday, J.

INVOLVED PARTY
ATTORNEY APPEARANCE
Peter TringaliPlaintiff/Petitioner
Kevin P. O'Malley, Esquire
Leisha TringaliDefendant/Respondent

DOCKET ENTRIES

Entry Text
04/07/2008

#1
MOTION to waive entry fee, filed by Leisha Tringali.
04/07/2008

RE#1: Allowed.
04/07/2008

#2
PETITION purs to GLc 231, s. 118 w/attach, filed by Leisha Tringali.
04/08/2008

RE#2 The single justice is without authority to grant the relief requested. To the extent that petitioner claims she did not receive notice of the order of February 16, 2007, she will have an opportunity to make that argument at the hearing scheduled in the trial court for May 14, 2008. (Cohen, J.) *Notice/attest/Dilday, J..