Boston Criminal Attorney Blog

In my previous post, I discussed the events surrounding the unsolved murder of Dr. Linda Goudey and the successful wrongful death lawsuit brought by her family, against Dr. Timothy Stryker, whom they believe murdered Dr. Goudey in 1993. Earlier this week, Dr. Stryker was arrested by police and charged – but not with murder. Instead, he was charged with multiple counts of perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury, bribing a witness as well as multiple counts of subornation of perjury (“subornation of perjury” means orchestrating a plan of perjury with another person.) Why these charges? Read on.

The charges against Dr. Stryker surround what police say was an elaborate plot by Stryker to escape the $15 million civil judgment that Dr. Linda Goudey’s family previously obtained against him, in their wrongful death suit brought in Middlesex Superior Court. Police investigators say that Stryker hatched a twisted scheme to find and pay someone to come forward and claim that he (the new witness) saw Dr. Goudey with another man the evening of her murder, not with Timothy Stryker as has been reported. Investigators say that Stryker attempted to use this man’s sworn but false affidavit to re-open the civil case that Dr. Goudey’s family won against him, hoping to secure a new trial, and using the “new” witness’ testimony, void the resulting $15 million judgment the court had ordered him to pay to her family. To secure such a witness, Stryker allegedly solicited his handyman and longtime patient to help assemble the plan, allegedly promising him $100,000 in cash and a ready supply of Oxycontin, a powerful painkiller often used to treat cancer patients.

This handyman, Richard Chambers, allegedly reached out to a friend in Derry, New Hampshire, who then contacted a player from his (the friend’s) hockey league, named Craig Pizzano. Prosecutors have alleged that Pizzano was ultimately sought out to play the role of the “new witness” because he had recently lost his job and needed some “easy money”. Via Chambers, Stryker allegedly offered to pay Pizzano another $100,000 if he testified in court (at the new civil trial Stryker hoped for) that he Goudey with another man the night of her murder, and not with Stryker. Carefully coached in advance complete with maps and diagrams of the crime scene, Pizzano appeared in 2006 with a sworn statement that Stryker’s lawyer then used to try and re-open the civil case that Dr. Goudey’s family previously won against him. Soon after Stryker’s lawyer admitted that sworn statement to the court, Pizzano testified before a grand jury that he had seen Dr. Goudey in her car the night of the murder, with a man who resembled Boomer Esiason, a retired NFL quarterback who has blond hair, and not with Stryker, who has brown hair.

However, police investigators, suspicious of the ‘new witness’, uncovered various phone records, medical records and bank statements connecting Stryker, Chambers and Pizzano. When authorities approached Pizzano with this evidence, he broke down and revealed the elaborate plot. In exchange for his testimony against Stryker and Chambers, prosecutors agreed not to charge Pizzano. Not so lucky Stryker, however: He was charged with multiple counts of misleading a police officer, perjury, subornation of perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury, bribing a witness, and was held on $100.000 bail. Chambers was also charged with similar counts and was ordered held on $50,000 bail. Both pleaded not guilty.

Will these new developments and criminal charges against Stryker lead to what Linda Goudey’s family hopes are long past due murder charges against him? That’s not so easy a leap. If convicted of these charges, all such convictions would arguably demonstrate, is that Timothy Stryker is a dishonest person who concocted lies to avoid a $15 million civil judgment against him. Convictions on the charges he now faces, if such convictions occur, would not necessarily constitute admissible evidence that he committed this murder. However, there is no statute of limitation on murder in Massachusetts, so time is on the police and prosecutors’’ side in this case.

Stay tuned.

It’s not unheard of for murder cases to go unsolved. This only makes the pain even worse for the victim’s loved ones and family. Such was and has been the case for the family of the late Dr. Linda Goudey, who was found strangled to death in the trunk of her car in the parking lot of the New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts, in October of 1993. Dr. Goudey had worked as an obstetrician at the hospital. She had also dated another doctor for the previous four years, an endocrinologist by the name of Timothy Stryker. Prior to her death, Goudey had confided to friends and family that she feared Dr. Stryker would “kill her if (she) didn’t accompany him on an upcoming trip to the Caribbean.” Shortly after making those statements, Dr. Goudey was found murdered.

Suspicion immediately focused on her boyfriend, Dr. Timothy Stryker, and while police and prosecutors never obtained enough information to formally charge Stryker with Goudey’s murder, he has always remained a suspect. Frustrated, and perhaps inspired by the family of Ron Goldman, one of the murder victims in the O.J. Simpson trial, Goudey’s family, led by her mother, Marguerite Rafuse of Concord, Massachusetts, filed a “wrongful death” suit against Stryker, seeking to hold him civilly liable for the death of Linda Goudey. If you click on the wrongful death link immediately above, you’ll be taken to that page of my web site, where it will explain more about that type of suit. As you can see, a wrongful death suit seeks to hold a person civilly liable for someone’s death, and seeks damages for the lost companionship, society, and/or support of that person. In murder cases like Ron Goldman's and Linda Goudey's, it can afford the families "another way" to hold a suspect who has either been criminally charged and found not guilty, or never criminally charged, civilly responsible for the murder.

Why would a family like Ron Goldman’s or Linda Goudey’s family, file a civil suit, when there is either insufficient evidence to charge a suspect criminally, such as with Dr. Stryker, or when a suspect has been charged, but found not guilty, as with O.J. Simpson? Because of two reasons: 1) Most importantly, the standard of evidence required for a plaintiff to prevail (win) in a civil case is much lower than the standard required to convict in a criminal case. In a criminal case, the state must prove their case – i.e., that the defendant is guilty of all the elements of the crimes charged – “beyond a reasonable doubt”. That is the highest standard of proof that exists in our judicial system, and for good reason: If someone is to be found guilty of a crime, perhaps a serious one where a criminal record and/or imprisonment could result, the standard of proof should be very high.

However, in a civil case, the evidentiary standard is much lower: There, the plaintiff need only prove their case by “clear and convincing” evidence, or in some cases, by “a preponderance of the evidence”. Both of these evidentiary standards are much easier for a civil plaintiff to reach, than is required for a prosecutor to reach in a criminal case. 2) Also importantly, monetary (financial) damages can be awarded against a defendant who has been found liable (which is not the same as “guilty”) in a civil case. In the Ron Goldman case, that family was awarded a multi-million dollar civil verdict against O.J. Simpson, holding Simpson liable to pay Goldman’s family millions of dollars in damages for the death of Ron Goldman. (The downside to that particular story is that Goldman’s family has seen little to none of that money. Simpson has demonstrated to the court that issued the judgment that he doesn’t have the money to pay the judgment, and in legal terms a person like this is known as “judgment-proof”. (In non-legal terms, you can’t get money out of a stone.)

Linda Goudey’s family won their wrongful death suit against Timothy Stryker, to the tune of $15 million. I’ll detail what allegedly happened next, and what Stryker has been charged with, in my next post.

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in several days. I’ve been down with a bit of a summer flu, but hope you’ve been visiting, nonetheless.

A major legislative effort has come to a head up on Beacon Hill, which would reform the current child rape statute by increasing the mandatory minimum sentence for some sex offenses against children, and it is heading to Gov. Deval Patrick's desk. Some people are happy about this development, and some not so happy. Most people would think that everyone would support tougher laws against child sex offenders, wouldn’t they? So why wouldn’t someone be in favor of this? Well, as with most answers, the devil is always in the details, and if you look closely, you might see some cause for concern on the issue of mandatory minimum sentences (which I’ve blogged about previously).

The current effort began to gain traction in June, when the Massachusetts House passed legislation modeled after Florida’s “Jessica’s Law.” That law in Florida provides for a mandatory minimum 25-year sentence for child rape in that state, and many advocates of tougher child rape laws here wanted just such mandatory minimum sentences. And predictably, it has been that issue of mandatory minimum sentences that has caused the most debate in this effort.

Child protection advocates and those pushing for stronger, tougher child rape laws argue strongly for the mandatory minimum sentences, in which a judge, following a guilty finding on certain charges, has no discretion in sentencing: He or she must impose the mandatory minimum sentence, in state prison. (It is the state prisons in Massachusetts, such as Walpole or Cedar Junction State Prison, which house some of the worst, most violent offenders in Massachusetts.) If at this point in your reading this post, you’re strongly in favor of this change and wondering why anyone in his right mind would oppose this measure, read on: Many members of the criminal defense bar in Massachusetts, point out that mandatory minimum sentences pose the potential for even greater injustices. As an example, many criminal defense attorneys cite the possibility of what could happen under this bill to a 17 year-old high school student who has sex with his 15 year-old girlfriend. Were that to happen to your child, would you want your son or daughter to face a mandatory state prison sentence, with no sentencing discretion on the part of the judge? The potential problems now become clearer, don’t they?

On Tuesday July 15, the state Senate approved the proposed law, and it’s now on its way to Governor Patrick’s desk. The final version would create a new mandatory-minimum sentence of 20 years in prison for repeat offenders who are convicted of raping a child with force. Sentences would also be increased for the rape of a child involving a weapon and for aggravated indecent assault and battery of a child. The proposed law would also expand the definition of aggravated rape to include providing drugs or alcohol or a person misusing a position of trust, such as a teacher, a coach or a member of the clergy.

The measure has the backing of Attorney General Martha Coakley and Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe, the president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association. Senate Republicans also supported the final version of the legislation, even though they ideally wanted mandatory-minimum sentences modeled on Jessica's Law, which imposes a 25-year sentence for child rape in the state of Florida. They had to drop their demands on that provision.

This is an emotional issue – and understandably so. Child sex abuse is an extremely serious social and legal problem. It’s hard to talk calmly and reasonably about differing positions on this difficult issue without charged feelings erupting. But deal with this we must, and in the most responsible, balanced way we can.

Everyone wants child rapists and sex offenders, especially repeat sex offenders, to be dealt with swiftly and severely. As a Massachusetts sex offense attorney, I believe the best way to achieve this goal, is to do it in a manner that doesn’t catch otherwise “innocent” people in its wake (think of the high school lovers example,) and that assures that less-serious offenders (non-violent, non-repeat offenders) are rehabilitated, rather than mandatorily incarcerated for minimum state prison sentences.

Recently in Massachusetts, there’s been a lot of discussion and activity surrounding reform of the current CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) law. The law was originally designed to make it much easier for employers and private citizens to obtain information about whether a given person had a criminal record. When the original CORI law was conceived, it was felt by many that too many persons convicted of crimes could too easily hide their criminal past, either following a criminal conviction of a crime with no jail time, or upon release from jail or prison. Hence, the CORI law was passed to make it much easier for persons to learn if someone had a criminal record.

But to many advocates of the present reform effort, a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to a ‘better’ system: Either too many people convicted of relatively “minor” offenses ended up with a CORI record, damaging their chances for employment and many other essential needs, or in the view of the opposing factions, the law was not strong enough to begin with. For some time now, both sides in the debate have squared off, but the issue appears to be coming to a head in the legislature.

As a columnist in the Boston Globe wrote recently, one problem complicating reform efforts, is that different people – especially employers – have different needs for this kind of information. Some need very extensive, detailed information, such as, for example, public safety employers, financial institutions or child-care providers. Other types of employers don’t typically need such extensive, detailed records. So what should any new law require – how “far” should it go in providing information about a person’s criminal past? Law-and-order types want a bill that mandates that each person convicted of any crime at all, must carry a detailed record, accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Other people feel that someone who has been found guilty of a relatively minor offense, should not have to carry a “Scarlet Letter” for that offense, potentially foreclosing a number of opportunities for them in the future.

As a Massachusetts criminal defense attorney, my opinion is that what is needed, as always in important legal issues such as this, is balance. Let’s hope that whatever comes out as a final product in the legislature is as balanced an effort at reform, as possible.

Looking ahead to possible legislative changes to criminal law in Massachusetts, in November voters here are going to have an opportunity to vote on more than just the presidential election alone. One of the ballot questions in Massachusetts will ask voters if possession of a small amount of marijuana (one once or less) should be de-criminalized. The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy (CSMP) has secured over 20,000 signatures in support of placing the measure on the November ballot. Assuming the state secretary can verify 11,099 of those 20,000 signatures, the question will appear on the ballot, which at this date appears very likely. The voters’ decision on that ballot would be binding (i.e., if passed, the measure would become law.) Last fall, CSMP collected over 80,000 signatures from all 351 cities and towns across Massachusetts, 15,000 more than required by law, in order to place the ballot question before the legislature in Massachusetts (a separate requirement in the initiative petition process.) Representatives of CSMP have pointed to the high amount of signatures received from across the state, as evidence of the broad-based support for changes in this area of law.

Predictably, opinions run strong on both sides of the question. Many people, among them prominent medical and health authorities, believe that marijuana use is less harmful and less addictive than is alcohol use, or cigarette smoking. CSMP argues that each year in Massachusetts, over 7,500 people are arrested for a crime that they contend is harmless and victimless. In addition, supporters of the measure argue that under existing law, enormous police and prosecutorial resources are directed each year in Massachusetts to prosecute this crime – to the tune of $24 million in state and local money annually. Under Massachusetts law presently, the penalty for marijuana possession is a maximum of six months in jail and a fine of up to $500.00. While most persons charged with this crime receive a minimal sentence or probation, offenders do receive a criminal record, and that record becomes part of the Criminal Offender Records Information (CORI) system. CORI records are available to lenders, housing agencies, and employers, who can use this information to deny an applicant credit or housing. Following a conviction for this offense, college and graduate students can be denied student loans or have those loans.

It is important to note that the proposed measure would not ”legalize” possession of marijuana –it would decriminalize possession of one ounce or less (an amount which is presumed to be for personal use only, and not for distribution.) The proposed law would replace the current criminal penalties, and substitute in its place a civil system of fines, similar to vehicular speeding fines. Each offense would incur a fine of $100.00. In support of its position, CSMP argues that, in fact, its ballot measure is the more moderate of several marijuana reform efforts currently being debated. MassCann, which is the sate’s chapter of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML,) endorses CSMP’s goal, but believes even broader, more substantive changes in this area of drug law should be made. Specifically, MassCann believes that marijuana should not just be decriminalized, but be simply legalized and taxed appropriately, just as are alcohol and cigarettes.

As a Boston criminal defense attorney, I must say I see an enormous amount of police and prosecutorial resources currently directed toward arresting and prosecuting people for this crime. A credible argument can be made that these significant efforts divert police officers and prosecutors away from protecting people from “real” criminals. The Massachusetts District Attorneys Association has formally opposed the ballot initiative, arguing that decriminalization of marijuana will increase its use among young people, and citing federal drug control arguments that car accidents are much more likely when a driver has used pot. As a Massachusetts drug arrest defense lawyer, I can see both sides of the argument. However, this ballot measure doesn’t seek to decriminalize marijuana use while driving – that act can and would remain a criminal offense – just as driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs is a crime. The measure seeks only to decriminalize possession of a very small amount of marijuana – an ounce or less – while not operating a motor vehicle - and impose in its place a $100.00 civil fine. When weighing the arguments to come in the months ahead, this fact should not be forgotten.

One thing you can count on for sure: A barrage of television and radio commercials, and large newsprint ads, are headed your way in the fall months. Barack Obama and John McCain aren’t the only ones we’ll be hearing from in late September and October.

My position, again, as a Boston Massachusetts drug offense attorney, is this: Let reason and rationale be your guide on this forthcoming issue, not emotion or fear. In any argument, it is the facts that are almost always the most important criteria, not hyperbole.

I wanted to post some final comments on this trial. I’ve been hearing a lot of talk in the past few days, about the “winners” and the “losers” in this case. I think that’s highly misplaced language, and mis-prioritized thinking. Yes, it can be said, in a colloquial sense, that the prosecution “won” their case; and that the defense “lost” theirs. Also true, in a not-so-behind the scenes fashion, careers have been enhanced here. Of necessity, many people became prominent in the public eye during this case, due in part to their hard work on this case. I would not think it unlikely that the increased visibility and stature that such a public profile brings, may advance the careers of more than one person involved in this case, even police investigators and members of the media. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, at all. Such players didn’t ask for this tragedy; they were injected into this for various reasons, and most did an admirable job.

But let’s be clear: There are no “winners” here. Two lives were snuffed out cruelly, with the same frigid touch that enveloped the outside of their house that cold January 2006 day. The survivors’ lives have been torn apart forever, never to be the same again. And once again, we have been shown in garish detail how unknowable the human mind (or heart) is: What it is that enables human beings, who otherwise give off not the slightest hint of mental illness or evil, to commit such acts with seemingly no remorse. It is equally horrific – and shameful – to have witnessed Neil Entwistle’s mother, Yvonne Entwistle – stand before a bank of cameras and microphones, and publicly accuse Rachel Entwistle of “murdering” her granddaughter, despite more evidence convicting her son that any prosecutor could ever dream of. How grossly egotistical, and pathetic. But we witnessed the same in the Eddie O’Brien murder case here a few years back, when that defendant ’s father, following the guilty verdicts against his son, was literally dragged out of the courtroom by court officers, screaming that his son had been framed. “Framed”, with his own fingerprints left in blood all over the walls of the murder victim, and his DNA on the knife.

But the “next” heinous case will soon be here, too soon for most of us. And when that happens, whoever is accused of that crime should receive the strongest defense possible, as did Neil Entwistle here. That is our judicial system. It is the best we have. And for those who argue otherwise, they should ponder these questions first: Would you want anything less for yourself? Would you rather have a system where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent? If you couldn’t afford a high-priced lawyer, would you rather be told, “tough luck”?

Neil Entwistle had the benefit of that system, and he will now be punished for life, never again to walk a free man. No, there are no “winners” and “losers” here – only the lost and the dead. But one thing that must never be lost, is the system of justice that we saw work so well in this sad, memorable case.