by Jay Atkinson
But the trial itself was far from over. Under Peisch's steady hand, Preston Clarridge was a reliable witness: he told the jurors that he and Donald Allen were both frequent visitors to 242 Mountain Ave., that they each had committed illegal acts with a significant number of young boys (two former victims testified in the trial, corroborating this), and that they had paid the boys small amounts of money, between five and twenty-five dollars, in exchange for their pleasure.
A short rotund man who wore black-rimmed glasses and had a timid, halting manner, Clarridge looked like someone cast to play a child molester in a movie. On the stand he had a tendency to speak softly while addressing his shoe tops, and all McCain's efforts to convince the vice headmaster of the Fessenden School to look the jurors in the eye and project his testimony to the rear of the courtroom were in vain. Sitting there as Clarridge described what had gone on at Richard Peluso's house in that quiet, effeminate voice, McCain was struck by how Clarridge was so respectful of everything and everyone— with the exception of little boys.
Donald Allen's trial was wearing on big Joe. He made it a point to walk and talk like a professional, maintaining his composure even while he chatted with Dr. Allen during recesses, trying to get inside his head and pick up bits of information that would prove useful to the D.A. in subsequent cases. But McCain would walk across Pemberton Square at the conclusion of the day's testimony like someone who had lost the grounding weight of everything he had ever believed in and was in danger of floating away. Sometimes on his way home, he would stop at the Venice Café near Teele Square, where he had courted his wife twenty-five years earlier. Joe would sit by himself, surrounded by what he called “real men,” the teamsters and longshoremen and truck drivers he'd grown up with, throwing down a shot and a beer with one eye on the Bruins game playing above the bar.
All the Venice Café regulars were following the trial in the Herald or on TV. Gore Vidal did, in fact, visit Boston, hosting a fund-raiser for the Revere defendants. (In a surprise twist, Robert Bonin, the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, attended Vidal's event and later was censured and forced to resign.) Inevitably one of the teamsters hunkered over the Venice Café bar would send McCain a drink, calling out, “Hey, Joe, why don't you bring that fuckin' bum, that big witness of yours, Preston Clarridge, over here, and we'll chop him up and throw him in the Dumpster.” And Joe McCain would join in their chorus of laughter, and for a while he'd feel human again.
The nights were the worst. In the later stages of the trial, anticipating Larry O'Donnell's cross-examination of his star witness, Joe would drop into a fitful sleep, only to be awakened by Helen at two or three o'clock in the morning. His entire body was trembling, Helen said, and the involuntary motion of the bed threatened to toss her onto the floor.
Joe would go sit in the kitchen and drink a glass of milk, reminding himself that Allen and Clarridge and Peluso were sick— in fact, they were out of their minds— and consequently, what they had done in that house in Revere felt unnatural to him but not to them. Joe McCain had made it this far as a cop by never taking things personally. It was his job to build a tryable case on the facts, as he always had done, and then let the jury decide.
When the big day arrived, Larry O'Donnell didn't disappoint. Every seat in the courtroom was taken, with the overflow standing against the back and along both sides, and as they had each day of the trial, Dr. Allen's estranged wife and three handsome children occupied the front row of the spectators' gallery. Preston Clarridge sat high in the witness box, perspiring onto his sensible gray suit and replying to O'Donnell's preliminary questions in a tiny voice. The defense attorney was making his way past the jurors as he spoke, and when he turned to face the witness, O'Donnell was standing forty feet away, at the end of the jury box.
“Mr. Clarridge, you've been speaking like you're a nice little man,” said O'Donnell. “Isn't that right?”
“Yes,” said Clarridge.
“You're an intelligent man, you're an intellectual, and you're a pedophile, isn't that right, Mr. Clarridge?”
The witness looked down at his feet. “Yes.”
“Let's understand one thing, I'm way down here and I can't hear you,” said O'Donnell. “Speak loudly, so all of us can hear.” O'Donnell turned to face the jurors. “It's been established, Mr. Clarridge, that you carry what is often referred to as a doctor's bag. And in your little black bag, you had your handcuffs and your rope and your marijuana cigarettes, which you gave to these boys. Isn't that right, Mr. Clarridge?”
“Yes . . .”
O'Donnell raised his voice. “And isn't it a fact, Mr. Clarridge, that you turned these boys against their God-given inclination for the exquisite female form?”
The little man sank even lower in his chair. “I suppose so . . .”
Tom Peisch and Joe McCain shot a look at each other: Judge Ford was giving O'Donnell enormous latitude in tearing Arthur Preston Clarridge a new asshole. But given that neither man had a shred of affection or sympathy for this admitted pedophile, and since other testimony had incriminated Donald Allen to the point where all of Larry O'Donnell's gyrations might well become moot, Peisch and McCain settled in to watch the fireworks.
“You had all kinds of sexual aids in your little black bag, didn't you, Mr. Clarridge?” asked O'Donnell, trying to underscore Clarridge's perversion and, by extension, his unreliability.
“Yes.”
“And I bet you've had all kinds of sex, haven't you, Mr. Clarridge?”
Off came Preston Clarridge's eyeglasses. “Well, I . . .”
O'Donnell turned back toward the bench, straightening his tie and the cuffs of his jacket before fixing his gaze on the witness. “Mr. Clarridge, have you ever had sex with a goat?” he asked.
McCain looked at Peisch: Did he just say sex with a goat? He looked over at the court artist; he looked at the ceiling; he looked for somewhere to put his head.
The question hung there in the packed courtroom. Peisch started to his feet in order to object, then shrugged as if to say What the hell? and sat back down.
Clarridge mumbled something like “Well, whoa— ”
Before he could finish, Judge Ford looked over and said, “That question is irrelevant. Continue.”
This sort of raucous testimony continued until just a few days shy of Christmas, when both sides made their final arguments. Judge Ford, while instructing the jury, said, “These are superb lawyers who have tried this case in front of you, ladies and gentlemen.”
The jury deliberated for quite some time, returning to the courtroom on Christmas Eve. Judge Ford asked for the verdict, and as several jurors wept, one of the women stood up and in a clear voice announced that Donald Allen was guilty on all four counts.
In the end, twenty-four men were indicted on over one hundred felonies in the Revere Sex Ring, thanks to Joe McCain's nose for a big case. And although the investigation took its toll, hastening his exit from the SCIPP unit, big Joe had a tremendous ability to absorb a blow and keep chugging forward in good humor.
Late one night during the trial, Joe and Tom Peisch and Preston Clarridge were in the office, going over their strategy for the next day. The men were exhausted, and as they sat at a desk strewn with court documents and fast food wrappers, McCain asked Clarridge about the Fessenden School and his duties in the mathematics department.
“I have a son, Joey, who's not too sharp in math,” said McCain. “Do you think you could tutor him?”
Clarridge was amazed. “Would you really consider me as a tutor for your son?”
“Oh, sure,” said McCain, enjoying his ruse. He glanced at Peisch, who was staring across the desk at him. “Is there a problem, Tom?” he asked.
“Oh no, Joe,” said Peisch. But when Clarridge was otherwise occupied, Peisch shot a look at the big detective that said, You fucking wise guy, McCain.
Joe McCain often remained on good terms with the men he put in jail. It reflected his belief that anyone could be redeemed tha
t sought redemption. But there's an exception to every rule. Several years after the Revere Sex Ring case, when even the vilest perpetrator had finished his sentence, a man recognized the old detective as he went into the Statler Building in downtown Boston.
“Hey, Joe McCain, how are you?” said the fellow, coming the other way.
But Joe sailed past without a word or sign of recognition, the other man's hand extended as he stood frozen in the doorway. It was Donald Allen.
TWENTY-ONE
All You Need to Know
BEFORE HOOKING UP WITH KEVIN MCKENNA on the Wednesday following our first case together, I leave my car at Wellington Circle and ride the T into the city. It's one of several trips I've made into various quarters, digging for information on the past conduct of Jimmy Hyde and his vendetta against the McCains. Just last week, a federal judge refused to dismiss Timmy Doherty's whistle-blower's lawsuit against Hyde and the P.D. Judge Nancy Gertner noted that several of Doherty's peers have been tormenting him since the night of the Henderson beating nearly a decade ago. In her opinion, Judge Gertner wrote, “Doherty's allegations are sufficient to permit an inference that all of the defendants conspired to retaliate against him.”
Doherty's suit alleges that the city of Somerville and various individual police officers punished him for breaking the “code of silence” when he testified at the federal civil trial of Jimmy Hyde and others who had been involved in a bar fight and the beating of civilians. Judge Gertner stated, “The temporal proximity between Doherty's testimony and the onset of the harassment as well as the content of the harassment (e.g., calling him a ‘rat') provide a basis to infer a ‘nexus' between the testimony and the alleged retaliation.”
The depositions in the whistle-blower's suit will take months, but the transcript from the 1999 civil trial, accusing Hyde and other Somerville cops of beating a suspect in their custody, is a matter of public record. If I can ferret it out, I'll have a better understanding of what Jimmy Hyde has been up to.
Sifting through trial testimony and quizzing guys like Leo Martini is the most “private” investigation I've undertaken thus far. Joe Jr. thinks I should lay off, as his situation has improved and he's content in the detectives' bureau. But now that I've gotten hold of it, I know I'm on to something and have to keep going forward. As I see it, understanding the root of Jimmy Hyde's seeming infallibility will help determine what he might do next. If his reputation indicates anything, it's that he'll press his luck, even while under scrutiny.
The catacombs of the Orange Line are filled with noxious fumes and on the train, a man with a sparse goatee is coughing up his lung and sneezing like a goat. The underside of the city is teeming with grimy characters and shadows, an apt metaphor, it seems, for what has been going on beneath the gold braid and shiny brass of the Somerville P.D. What I've learned thus far is that on the night of October 8, 1994, a group of Somerville cops, including Jimmy Hyde and John Aufiero, were boozing at a joint called Night Games at the Holiday Inn a short distance from the police station. At the bar, Detective Patrick Irving, who was drinking with Hyde, encountered the thirty-four-year-old Somerville native Michael Henderson.
Detective Irving knew Henderson from a previous arrest and the two men exchanged unpleasantries and began fighting. When the altercation spilled into the parking lot, a trio of bystanders, German Alfonso, twenty-eight, of Los Angeles; Christopher Mittell, twenty-five, of Cambridge; and twenty-four-year-old Joseph Spear of Somerville, not realizing that Irving and his cronies were police officers, got drawn into the brawl. Over the next few minutes, the civilians absorbed quite a beating, sometimes facing two or three cops at a time. Soon Alfonso, Mittell, Spear, and Henderson were on their way to jail in the back of a paddy wagon, which was being driven by Somerville patrolman Timmy Doherty.
In a civil trial four years later, Alfonso and Mittell claimed that they were struck, choked, threatened, referred to as “spics,” and arrested, along with Michael Henderson, as a means of intimidating them into silence. Named in the suit were the Somerville Police Detectives James Hyde, Christopher Ward, and Patrick Irving; Sergeants John Aufiero and Michael Cabral; retired Lieutenant John Bossi; and Patrolmen Joseph Blair and Timothy Doherty.
Although Henderson would later recant his statements and refuse to join the lawsuit, a few months before the trial he told reporters from New England Cable News and The Boston Globe that Jimmy Hyde had beaten him while he was handcuffed and then bit him on the chest. While under oath Henderson denied any of that had occurred, but Timmy Doherty would contradict his testimony and give details of the beating, which by Doherty's estimation lasted for thirty minutes. The implication was that certain parties had convinced Henderson telling the truth was not in his best interest. Using tips garnered from Mark Donahue and a little “due diligence,” I want to find out exactly what happened by reading the pertinent testimony for myself.
Emerging from the train into the welter of State Street, I'm accosted by plumes of steam, hooting taxis, the grinding and whirring of motors, and a maze of Jersey barriers that section off the latest boondoggle in downtown construction. A ruddy-faced hard hat directs me along Atlantic Avenue, and soon I'm tramping over the old Northern Avenue Bridge with the shimmering expanse of the harbor spread out before me. The five-year-old J. Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse stands on the north side of the pier, opposite the Barking Crab restaurant and overlooking one of the priciest stretches of waterfront real estate on the East Coast.
Inside the vast stone cavern of the Moakley, the architectural proportions are on a Brobdingnagian scale and everything from the height of the atrium ceiling to the width of the staircase has been designed and calculated to make the individual feel small. In here, no one person is larger than the ideal that's central to our system of jurisprudence: serve the truth.
I wend and wangle my way through a series of security guards and metal detectors and checkpoints, up to the clerk's office and finally to the fifth floor and a tiny office adjacent to Courtroom 17. Inside is a petite, silver-haired woman named Antonia Larson, a court reporter with thirty years of experience; she's bespectacled, wearing a floral print dress and a pale green jacket, with her hair pinned up in a bun and the demeanor of somebody's feisty aunt. Courtroom stenographer is a semifreelance position, and I've been directed to Ms. Larson's office because she was the reporter for Civil Action No. 97-12252, German Alfonso et al., v. John T. Aufiero, et al., which began in January 1999 before the Honorable Patti B. Saris and a jury. I'm surprised to learn that trial transcripts must be purchased from the reporters who made them, not from the district court itself.
Searching through records can be hit or miss, as they are sometimes affected by human error while being compiled or cataloged. And my hopes are further deflated when Ms. Larson says that there might not be a typewritten account of the Alfonso-Mittell trial after all. Complete transcripts are produced from a stenographer's notes only if a verdict is appealed, she says, and to the best of her recollection, neither side in the case wished to challenge the decision. This is disappointing, but Larson announces from the outer office that she'll try anyway, and see if there's paper testimony from any of the witnesses.
Apologizing for the glacial speed of her computer, Larson boots up and scrolls through the list of files. “Huh. That's strange,” she says. “All I have is one hundred twenty-seven pages of testimony from a witness named Joseph Spear.”
A high school dropout and petty criminal, Joe Spear was also arrested in the fracas outside the Holiday Inn. He knew the Somerville cops and they knew him; Officer Aufiero walked up to Spear when he was smoking a cigarette and asked if he had any warrants. By all accounts, Spear was a friend of victim Michael Henderson and took a beating himself that night. Larson skims through her book to see who originally asked for a transcript of Spear's testimony, but she has no record of it.
I already know that the jury found in favor of German Alfonso and Christopher Mittell, awarding them $129,903.38 in legal fees and da
mages of $36,757.67. In rendering their verdict, the jurors stated that Detective James Hyde had used “excessive force” against one of the plaintiffs. No criminal charges were ever filed against Hyde or the other police officers, however, nor was Hyde disciplined or sanctioned by the Somerville P.D. (Long after unearthing these documents and conducting my interviews, I sent an overnight letter to Jimmy Hyde, offering to hear his side of the story. He didn't reply.)
“It was an injustice,” says Larson, who has served as court reporter for hundreds of trials. Alfonso and Mittell “won, but I remember thinking that the judgment was too small.”
Spear's testimony is worth the $106.24 that I'm required to pay for it. Throughout his appearance, which was compelled by a subpoena, the twenty-four-year-old stock clerk is inarticulate and halting, speaking in a voice so low that Judge Saris has to tell him to talk louder on several occasions. But there's something elemental, almost childlike, in Spear's descriptions of what he saw outside the Holiday Inn that night and what he experienced.
Q. The next thing you can remember is you were in the parking lot, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. What's happening in the parking lot?
A. I was getting beat up.
Joseph Spear goes on to testify that he and Mittell and Alfonso and Michael Henderson were loaded into the paddy wagon and that James Hyde entered and began screaming at Henderson and grabbed him by the throat. He described Hyde and the other cops named in the suit— with the exception of Timmy Doherty— as drunk, violent, and out of control. Once inside a holding cell in the Somerville police station, Spear says, he and the other prisoners, bound in handcuffs, were offered a deal: if they could fight their way out, they were free to leave. Faced with an enraged posse of off-duty cops, they declined.
