Freelancers bag cheap office space
Three or four days a week, Boston-area entrepreneur Hooman Hodjat stops into a second-floor office just across the street from Boston’s South Station.
One day, he’ll use the conference room to meet with potential investors. The next day, he may be found at a table, working the phone lines, with a fresh cup of coffee in hand.
And for all this, he pays just $100 a month.
He’s a member at WorkBar, a pioneering new business that offers office space, like a gym offers exercise space.
Hodjat and other WorkBar members sign up, pay monthly dues and come in as often as they want to work.
Instead of treadmills and free weights, WorkBar has laptop charging stations, lounges and free coffee.
WorkBar director Bill Jacobson said the concept evolved after he realized that today’s offices don’t reflect today’s workers.
“The people who are working at home say they miss the other people from the office,” he said.
So far, WorkBar, which officially launches next month, offers two types of memberships. Community members pay $100 a month and must sign on for a six-month commitment. They get to use almost all the services, except the private desks, which are set aside for dedicated members, who pay $400 a month.
The 129 South St. shop is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
And at least three days a week, Hodjat is there.
He is one of the founders of Pickup Zone, a new service aimed at offering consumers relief from unattended package deliveries. With PickUp Zone, people can have their packages delivered to a neighborhood retailer, who will hold them until the person can pick them up.
As a result, Hodjat said, he’s often in the city, meeting with retailers and potential clients.
The convenience is great, said Hodjat, who lives in Framingham.
“My target market is in the city, so I get on the commuter rail, get out at South Station, and walk across the street for my meetings,” he said.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1191126
Christy Mihos aide: ’Financial advantage’ key in 2010 race
BOSTON — The chief political consultant for Cape Cod businessman Christy Mihos said Tuesday his client lost the 2006 gubernatorial race solely because he ran as an independent.
Conservative commentator and author Dick Morris also predicted that Mihos will beat fellow Republican Charles Baker in the 2010 GOP primary and Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, in the general election because of his opposition to Big Dig spending and the “considerable financial advantage” the multimillionaire brings to the campaign.
“I don’t think Baker is going to be a serious problem,” Morris told The Associated Press in an interview. “I think he’s subject to many of the same negatives that Patrick is. Patrick raised our taxes; Baker raised our tolls.”
The criticism harkened back to Baker’s work in the Weld and Cellucci administrations, when he served as the top finance official in the Cabinet from 1994 to 1998. During that time, the state sought to finance the $15 billion Central Artery tunnel project, which has triggered toll increases.
More recently, Patrick signed a 25-percent sales tax hike into law.
Yet Morris didn’t limit his attack there. He criticized Baker, who went on to become president of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, for helping negotiate a state receivership for the troubled insurer and then taking a $1.5 million salary package from the now-profitable company until he resigned in July to run for governor.
“I wonder how popular health insurance companies are,” Morris said. “Let’s put it this way: I’d rather run a hedge fund.”
A Baker spokesman dismissed the complaints.
“Looks like Christy Mihos is back negatively attacking Republicans again,” Baker spokesman Andrew Goodrich said. “Christy’s negative campaign is one reason elected Republican officials from across the state are flocking to support Charlie Baker and see Charlie as our only hope to defeat Deval Patrick.”
Mihos garnered only 7 percent of the vote in 2006, when he squared off against Patrick and Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. The Christy’s convenience store magnate is running as a Republican this time around.
Mihos has hired Morris to develop strategy. He is a newspaper columnist and Fox News analyst who once served as Democrat Bill Clinton’s political adviser.
His work with Mihos is not the New Yorker’s first venture into Massachusetts politics. He previously ran Ed King’s successful campaign against Democrat Michael Dukakis, and also worked on state campaigns to limit property tax increases and elect William F. Weld as governor in 1990 and 1994.
Morris said Mihos’s candidacy will resonate with voters because he fought against cost escalation in the Big Dig project while a member of the Massachusetts Turnpike board of directors. The consultant also said Mihos knows how to cut government spending but won’t be afraid to spend his own money promoting his candidacy — perhaps as early as this fall.
He said Mihos lost 2 1/2 years ago only because he ran as an independent.
“It was a basic mistake to think that as an independent in a highly polarized, partisan year,” Morris said. “I think that people were not in the mood for a third choice.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1191857
Globe says readers to pay for Web site
The Boston Globe will soon begin charging for its Web site, publisher P. Steven Ainsley told the paper’s union bosses yesterday as the Globe’s parent New York Times [NYT] Co. confirmed in a regulatory filing that the money-losing Hub broadsheet is for sale.
News of the Globe’s intention to charge for Boston.com came a day after News Corp. [NWS] Chairman Rupert Murdoch announced his company would start charging for content at all of its news Web sites, including the New York Post, The Times of London and The Sun, a popular British tabloid. News Corp. already charges for some access to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site.
Globe spokesman Bob Powers said charging for Boston.com appears inevitable.
“It’s going to happen one way or another,” Powers said. “We are looking at several different options, and the goal would be to generate revenue.”
Ainsley also told Globe union bosses the combination of price increases and labor cost reductions, including $20 million in union concessions, have put the paper on better financial footing.
He said union concessions, plus $8 million in Globe management givebacks and the $18 million the company expects to save by closing its Billerica printing plant, have all helped, sources said.
The Times’ quarterly report filed yesterday shows the company spent $30 million to close its Billerica printing plant. Sources have told the Herald that at least one outside party was interested in the plant, but was rebuffed.
Ainsley refused to answer questions about the potential sale of the Globe at yesterday’s meeting, saying his Times Co. overlords had ordered him to keep mum.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1189673
News Corp. plans fees for newspaper Web sites
/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1189759
Nonprofit Globe no easy fix
/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1188720
Questions raised about George Regan award Hub PR exec denies using ethnic slur
An ex-Boston magazine scribe insists Boston PR man George Regan called him an ethnic slur, and now there’s a call to block one of the country’s biggest civil rights organizations from honoring the Hub spinmeister.
Regan denies calling John Gonzalez a “wetback,” but the writer is sticking by his story.
“It’s 100 percent true,” Gonzalez told MediaBiz yesterday.
Gonzalez said he was working on a piece about the Herald’s Inside Track reporters in 2006 when he called Regan for a comment. Regan represented both the Herald and Boston magazine at the time. (The Herald is no longer a Regan client.)
“I call him for a comment, and he freaks out and he starts screaming at me. We’re going back and forth, and it just escalated out of nowhere and he said, ‘You listen to me, you (expletive) wetback,’ ” Gonzalez said.
Regan said he never called Gonzalez a wetback. “I told him he was very wet behind the ears and I know I’m right,” he said yesterday.
Gonzalez said Boston magazine brought Regan in for a sitdown and the PR king said, “if I said what you think I said and that offended you then I’m sorry.”
Regan said yesterday that he never apologized. “I never apologized because I did nothing wrong. I apologized for losing my temper,” he said.
“I know my business very well,” Regan added. “I know how words can hurt. You don’t have to say anything discriminatory to make your point. And if you have to resort to name-calling, you probably don’t belong in the business.”
The Anti-Defamation League of New England – a Regan client – plans to bestow the media bigshot with its top honor Sept. 9, when Regan will be feted by hundreds at its annual leadership dinner at the John F. Kennedy Library.
The event co-chairs include a bevy of Regan clients, including Legal Sea Foods czar Roger Berkowitz, Suffolk Construction honcho John Fish and Entercom radio exec Julie Kahn.
Berkowitz said he’s known Regan for over 20 years and said he’s never made any derogatory or inflammatory comments about anyone. “It would be completely out of character,” Berkowitz said. “It sounds like someone wants a vendetta.”
Earlier this month, the ADL received an anonymous letter detailing the Gonzalez-Regan exchange.
ADL exec Derrek Shulman said they plan to go ahead and honor Regan because he’s been a tremendous community leader for 25 years. “Apparently, George said no such word or words and there was some kind of misunderstanding,” Shulman said.
Gonzalez says Regan shouldn’t be honored.
“He’s achieved a certain status in Boston through fear-mongering, basically, and somebody needs to stand up to him and call him what he is. He’s a bully,” he said.
Prez’s mea culpa goes over smooth at Irish pub
President Obama’s call to Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley wasn’t only a turning point in a national firestorm – it was also a big hit among the beer drinkers and eavesdroppers who heard Crowley take the call at Tommy Doyle’s Irish Pub in Kendall Square.
“I ran over to grab some drinks, and the bartender told me, ‘Hey, they’re on the phone with President Obama,’ ” waiter Kyle Shearer said with a nod toward the back table where Crowley had been seated with a group of colleagues. “I couldn’t believe it until I got close enough to hear Obama’s voice.”
Shearer said he overheard the president apologize to Crowley and ask if there was anything he could do. Two days earlier, Obama had suggested Cambridge police had “acted stupidly” by charging Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. with disorderly conduct.
Minutes after the phone conversation, the president appeared on the large TV screen on the wall of the bar.
“The president was on TV, talking about the man I was standing next to,” Shearer said. “Even I felt powerful. And I’m just a lowly waiter.”
Afterward, the mood of everyone in the pub lifted, he said, and a couple of cops bought a round of Bud Light.
The brush with history left Maine visitors Brad and Tammy Curtis and Roddy and Karen Rublee awe-struck yesterday. For the past 21 years, the friends have made an annual pilgrimage from Bangor to take in a Red Sox game.
“When we heard the cheer, my husband said, ‘It must be soccer or cricket,’ ” Tammy Curtis said. “I mean, what were the chances of us walking into all that?”
Both Crowley and Gates said Friday they plan to take the president up on his offer to have a beer at the White House.
“I have spent my entire career as an academic attempting to bridge differences and promote understanding among all Americans,” Gates said in a statement released yesterday by his lawyer, Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree. “To that end, I have pledged to do all that I can to help us learn from this unfortunate incident.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1187096
White House hopes Gates, Crowley come for beer
/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1187320
Prez targets finance system
Seeks to prevent Wall St. abuses
President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s financial regulatory system received support yesterday from key Massachusetts congressional members who said changes are long overdue.
Saying America had allowed a “culture of irresponsibility” to grow within the financial industry, Obama proposed giving the Federal Reserve more regulatory powers and creating a new consumer watchdog agency to review new financial products peddled by firms.
“This was a failure of the entire system,” Obama said at a White House event, referring to last fall’s near collapse of the nation’s financial system. “An absence of oversight engendered systematic, and systemic, abuse.”
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), chairman of the influential House Financial Services Committee, said the plan is an important step toward overhauling the regulatory system. He predicted Congress will have a bill on Obama’s desk before the end of the year.
Frank, who has parted with the administration over some issues, said there will be changes to Obama’s plan, but he said Democrats agree with the “fundamental” thrust of the package.
U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. William Delahunt (D-Quincy) won a major victory when Obama agreed to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, something the two Bay State pols have pushed for in recent months.
“The plan announced by the president today will protect consumers and investors by restoring much of the regulatory oversight of our financial system that has been systematically dismantled in recent years,” said Delahunt.
But business leaders and Republicans didn’t like most of the proposals.
David Hirschmann, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s capital markets center, said the president’s plan adds an extra layer of red tape without really fixing the problems that led to last year’s Wall Street meltdown.
“We can’t simply insert new regulatory agencies and hope that we’ve covered our bases,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) said the president’s plan could create a cycle of more bank bailouts.
“It perpetuates what we’ve had in the past, said Garrett,” a member of Frank’s Financial Services committee.
The financial industry, including some of Boston’s most powerful mutual-fund companies, have been wary of too much government intervention in the sector, fearing their interests might be hurt.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1179683
US push to overhaul banking worries some
/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1179686
Boston Power Inc.
(Source: Boston Herald)
Jun. 1–About 600 jobs will be created at a new Boston-Power Inc. battery-manufacturing plant in Auburn, contingent on the company securing millions of dollars in defense and federal stimulus money.
Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and chief executive of Westboro-based Boston-Power, Gov. Deval Patrick and other dignitaries are expected to appear at an event today to announce that Boston-Power plans to renovate an old 455,000-square-foot Filene’s Basement distribution facility into a manufacturing plant to make state-of-the-art automobile batteries.
Boston-Power, which already makes lithium-ion batteries for Hewlett-Packard notebook computers, still needs to secure federal money, but it’s already signed a tentative lease agreement in anticipation of federal funds eventually flowing into the project.
The state is prepared to invest about $9 million in matching funds, perhaps from its Clean Energy Center, created last year by the Legislature.
Lampe-Onnerud, a native of Sweden and a post doctorate grad from MIT, said her 4-year-old company, which has already received about $125 million in venture capital, is in a sweet position due to the new emphasis on developing alternative energy products.
“It’s almost like a perfect storm,” she said, adding she hopes a retrofit of the Auburn facility can start later this summer, with up to 600 jobs added over the next three years.
The plant, which other states sought to have built in their regions, will make lithium-ion batteries for all-electric, plug-in cars. Lampe-Onnerud declined to say which automakers are interested in her firm’s cutting-edge battery technology.
State officials, who have been pushing to make Massachusetts a center for alternative-energy development and manufacturing, were ecstatic that Boston-Power is expanding here.
“It’s fantastic,” said Ian Bowles, Patrick’s secretary of energy and the environment. “We see it as a cornerstone of our growing clean-energy sector.”
Among other firms, Marlboro’s Evergreen Solar and Tyngsboro’s Beacon Power have recently announced expansion plans in Massachusetts.
—–
To see more of the Boston Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bostonherald.com.
Globe’s a tough sell
Newspaper hawked to hometown corporate elite
Several Hub business leaders have been approached about buying the Boston Globe, but so far there have been no takers, the Herald has learned.
Car magnate Herb Chambers – the subject of a big interview in the Globe over the weekend – said he was asked a week or two ago if he wanted to buy the money-losing broadsheet, but he declined.
“Somebody asked me if I would have an interest if it were for sale, but I said no,” said Chambers. “If we were still big advertisers in the Globe, maybe it would make sense, but it would be an expensive proposition. I really don’t have any interest.”
The New York Times [NYT] Co. expects the Globe to lose $85 million this year after finishing last year $50 million in the red. The Times Co. is demanding $20 million in concessions from the Globe unions by Friday.
Suffolk Construction honcho John Fish said the Globe’s fate has been the talk of the city’s corporate set. “There have been conversations in the city about whether someone would step in and buy it,” he said.
Fish echoed countless others when he expressed hope that a new owner would be someone local who values the paper more than its out-of-town parent company.
“I would hope that somebody locally would acquire it,” said Fish.
But, like nearly everyone else, when asked if he would step forward to buy the Globe, regardless of price, Fish declined.
“No,” he said. “It’s not my line of business.”
In fact, Fish said he didn’t know anyone who was interested in saving the paper. This is even after Beth Israel Deaconess boss Paul Levy’s blog rally, Boston Foundation head Paul Grogan’s focus group and public relations firm O’Neill and Associates’ “Save the Globe” rally on behalf of the Boston Newspaper Guild.
New England Patriots [team stats] owner Robert Kraft, another name that comes up when discussing possible Globe saviors, declined to comment on the paper’s fate, but a source said the Kraft family “kicked the tires and ran away.”
The Times Co. bought the Globe for $1.1 billion in 1993. A couple of years ago, former GE CEO Jack Welch and others looked at buying the Globe, valuing it at around $600 million.
Sources have said the price tag for the Globe that has been bandied about – ranging from $130 million to “what’s your best offer” – is still too much, given how far the paper’s costs and revenues are out of whack. Plus, no one wants to wrestle with the unions.
“The negotiations are so volatile right now that I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on,” said Fish.
Yesterday’s news that the Globe’s circulation continues to fall didn’t help to loosen any wallets. The paper’s average daily circulation in the six months ending March 31 dropped 13.6 percent to 302,638 copies and its Sunday circulation sank 11.2 percent to 466,655. (The Herald’s circulation dropped by 17.3 percent to 150,688 daily and 9.7 percent to 95,392 Sunday, while visits to bostonherald.com jumped 14 percent.)
But at least some investors see value in newspapers.
Last month, Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Platinum Equity signed an agreement to purchase the San Diego Union-Tribune for an undisclosed sum.
Spokesman Mark Barnhill, who cautioned that the deal is not yet final, said, “In general, as we look at the newspaper industry, we think there are businesses in this industry that would present opportunities.”
When looking at possible investment opportunities, he added, the firm looks “to see if we have the resources to stabilize the business, and we also look to see if we can get it for the right price.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1168545
Globe unions locked in tough talks
/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1168809
Union leaders mum on talks as dissension spreads at Boston Globe
/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1168802
Blame aplenty for Globe’s decline
/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1168799
Margaret M. Greer, Smith Barney Financial Advisor, Waltham, MA, Arrested
After airport arrest, driver apparently trolled Craigslist for witnesses
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The posting on Craigslist by a user named “Matron” appeared at 3:59 a.m. on Monday, just hours after a high-powered Wellesley portfolio manager had been released from police custody following an explosive parking altercation with a state trooper at Logan International Airport.
Margaret M. Greer |
Matron described herself as “a middle aged lady driving a silver van” and explained that she had, “an altercation with a Mass State Cop outside terminal B around 8:15 pm.”I am seeking witnesses who were there and saw the State Trooper bang on my car and try to get through my door,” Matron wrote in a posting that was deleted this afternoon following this story’s publication on Boston.com. “Several State Police cruisers pursued me and arrested me on the Mass Pike. Please help me, if you saw this event.”
The description nearly matches the arrest Sunday night of the portfolio manager, Margaret M. Greer, who is accused of hitting a trooper with her side mirror, driving at him so he had to run backward for 15 feet, and dragging him for a short distance as she drove away. The one exception: Greer’s “silver van” was a silver Mercedes Benz ML320 sport utility vehicle.
There is no definitive evidence that Greer used the alias Matron and trolled Craigslist for witnesses who saw her dispute with the trooper. Greer did not respond to a message yesterday seeking comment. Her attorney, Carol Ann Starkey, declined to discuss or confirm “anything about any discussion that occurred on the Internet.”
“Mrs. Greer is taking these allegations very seriously,” Starkey said. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t have our own side of the story. It doesn’t mean that we don’t strongly refute what the government’s recitation of the facts has been to date. We are going to let our facts unroll in a courtroom, not in the court of public opinion.”
Authorities confirmed that they are scrutinizing the Craigslist posting and the string of responses that followed.
“Prosecutors are aware of the postings and are examining them for any potential connection to our Logan Airport case,” said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney’s office.
If Greer did post the solicitation on Craigslist, she did not uncover any witnesses — or sympathy — in cyberspace.
“You fled the police?” wrote a user with the name “justanotherpost.” “I am sorry but just by what you have written here, I would suggest you give up looking for ‘witnesses’ to bolster some kind of entitlement you seem to think you have, and, instead, cooperate with the police as much as possible to straighten the mess you have gotten yourself into.”
A poster named “golf22″ chimed in: “I’m sure the District Attorney appreciates your help in rounding up witnesses to testify against you as to the several illegal actions you took.”
And Mr_Twister added: “We’ll all be ‘VERY’ happy when the judge throws the book at you.”
Matron defended herself, saying she was “blocked in by a bus on one side, and cars parked in front of me, and behind.” The chase on the turnpike “was slow speed, and required five state cruisers,” Matron wrote, “I was freaked out and traveling at 50.”
When the posters turned nasty — and one recognized the story from the news — Matron sharpened her rhetoric.
“Wake up people, you are being controlled by a government who thinks they can do anything … When has it become a crime to pull up to the curb to pick up your husband at the airport? Oh, in a bus lane?” she wrote. “I am very disappointed at the antipathy I have received from this forum. I thought the craigslist community was more empathetic and dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
A lecture followed.
“Why did the State Police come after me?” Matron wrote. “Because it’s so easy! The same reason that the IRS audits every pizza parlor owner in town, but never audits Enron Corporation. The same reason the SEC audits all those you know who are registered brokers, but never audited Bernie Madoff. Why do the police logs in your town fill up with teenagers and immigrants? Because it’s easy for the cops to pick on these helpless people, and so much more difficult for them to go after the really hard criminals. I am distressed that you cannot see this. Please do not think you are holier than me, because you are not.
“When it happens to you, I hope I can be there to support you.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Airport dust-up got nasty, trooper says
Motorist in SUV accused of assault
Perhaps you’ve been there, idling in front of an airport terminal hoping your family member or long-lost college buddy appears before the approaching state trooper shoos you away. Margaret M. Greer was told to move along Sunday evening as she waited for her husband at Logan Airport, but police say she didn’t go quietly – and ended up in court because of it.
Greer, a portfolio manager from Wellesley, allegedly lowered the window of her Mercedes Benz ML320 SUV just an inch when the trooper, Sergeant Danial Wildgrube, approached and told her she would have to move because she was obstructing traffic in a bus lane. Greer merely pointed to a nearby vehicle and told him to take care of that motorist first, Wildgrube said in his report of the incident. He said he repeated the demand, but she shut her window and ignored him.
What ensued before shocked onlookers was a protracted confrontation in which, court papers allege, Greer nearly ran the trooper over as she repeatedly drove out of reach, only to be chased down by the trooper as he tried in vain to wrest Greer from her car.
“I’m not stopping the car! Get away from me,” Greer shouted repeatedly, according to one witness, George Kaniwec.
Greer, 57, was charged yesterday in East Boston District Court with assault and battery on a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, and failure to stop for a police officer. Her lawyer, Carol Starkey, entered a plea of not guilty on her behalf, and Greer is to return to court May 13 for a preliminary hearing.
“Mrs. Greer is a highly respected member of the community and has pled not guilty to all allegations,” Starkey said later. “There are two sides to every story, and we strongly contest the facts as presented by the Commonwealth and look forward to presenting our side of the story. It’s very upsetting and traumatizing to her. . . . Anyone who has picked up or dropped off anyone at the airport may understand there’s two sides to the story.”
Wellesley Town Clerk Kathleen Nagle said Greer served two terms on the five-member elected School Committee, from 1995 to 2000, and served from 1995 to 2003 as an elected member of Town Meeting. Greer did not return calls made yesterday to her home and to her employer, Citi Smith Barney.
Greer’s driving record is mostly clean, with one “at fault” accident in 2004, according to the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
On Sunday, Wildgrube’s report says, the trooper got out his ticket book after she refused to move her car and walked to the front of the vehicle to take down the license number. Then, he reported, Greer gunned her engine and sped off, clipping him with her side mirror and forcing him to leap out of the way.
Wildgrube said he yelled at Greer to stop, but she continued driving until she was stopped by traffic a short distance away. The trooper approached again, opened the driver’s-side door, and told her to get out because she was under arrest, but Greer refused and drove away again, he alleged.
Wildgrube said he caught up to her a third time as she sat in traffic in front of the terminal. He moved to the front of the vehicle and put his arms up. She allegedly hit the gas again, causing the trooper to place his hands on the hood. “She pushed me approximately 15 feet while I ran backwards fearing that I would fall under the car,” Wildgrube wrote. “All the while she was looking directly at me.”
Wildgrube said he was forced away from the car again, falling to the ground. He got up, opened the driver’s-side door, and attempted to undo her seatbelt, he alleges, but she started driving away, dragging him along.
Wildgrube said he broke free and Greer drove away, but he radioed in her plate number.
Greer was stopped by other state troopers on the Massachusetts Turnpike, near the entrance to the Copley tunnel.
Although troopers said they noticed a slight odor of alcohol on her breath and found a small glass in the vehicle containing an alcoholic beverage, they did not ask Greer to submit to a field sobriety test. David Procopio, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety, said Greer did not appear to be impaired.
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said: “If a trooper asks you to move your car from a bus lane, you do it. . . . The trooper gave her every opportunity to do the right thing and she blew it. Now she’s looking at a felony charge.”
Brian R. Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com. 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dragged trooper: Wellesley woman smelled of booze
A state trooper attempting to shoo a Mercedes Benz SUV illegally idling in a bus lane at Logan International Airport was hit and dragged by the obstinate driver, a 57-year-old Wellesley woman, as she allegedly sped off to avoid getting a ticket.
Investment manager Margaret Greer was released on personal recognizance yesterday following her arraignment in East Boston District Court on charges of assault and battery on a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon and failure to stop for police. An automatic plea of not guilty was entered on her behalf by the court.
According to state police Sgt. Danial Wildgrube’s report, Greer had a “slight odor of an alcoholic beverage” on her breath.
Greer’s defense attorney, Carol Ann Starkey, declined to answer questions about the alleged incident, but told the Herald today her client “is a highly respected member of her community and she pled absolutely not guilty to all of these allegations.”
“There are two sides to every story,” said Starkey, “and we strongly contest the facts as presented by the commonwealth in this case. We take the allegations very seriously and we look forward to presenting our side of the story in a court of law.”
Sunday night, Greer, parked in a marked bus lane, told Sgt. Wildgrube she was waiting for her husband and rolled up her window to ignore the officer when he first gave her the option of circling Terminal B or relocating her vehicle to a cell phone lot, according to the police report.
When she allegedly refused, Wildgrube approached the Mercedes ML320 to write her a ticket. Greer allegedly hit the gas, clipping him with her passenger side mirror, the Suffolk District Attorney reports.
While she was blocked by oncoming traffic, Wildgrube opened the driver’s side door and ordered her out, but Greer allegedly drove on and shut the door, prosecutors said.
Stopped in traffic again, Wildgrube made another attempt to get Greer out, but she allegedly accelerated directly at him, forcing him to run backward about 15 feet, prosecutors said. He managed to get the driver’s side door open, but as he was unfastening her seat belt, Greer allegedly sped away with him, a report states
The trooper freed himself and broadcast the vehicle’s plate and description to fellow police, who stopped and arrested Greer on the Massachusetts Turnpike.
“I had about 60 people on my bus. They were terrified by what they saw. My legs are still shaking,” a bus driver who witnessed the alleged assault at Logan told investigators.
A Newburyport man who had just stepped off a flight from Dallas said he saw the trooper “shouting for the woman to stop” with his hands extended.
“She kept the car in gear and shouted repeatedly, ‘I’m not stopping the car, get away from me’ ” the witness told police. “Then she gunned the engine and took off.”
Prosecutors said when Greer was booked, she refused to answer questions about whether she had ingested drugs or alcohol.
They also said she denied having been at the airport, claiming instead she was driving home from her work at Merrill Lynch in Boston. Yet, according to her online profile, Greer works at Citi Smith Barney.
Reached at her home today, Greer took a business card from a reporter but declined to comment.
Greer is listed as a portfolio manager at Smith Barney’s Waltham office with a finance license in 18 states. The Harvard Business School graduate and former Wellesley School Committee member lives at 24 Windsor Road in Wellesley in a mansion with an online assessed value of $1.5 million. Her husband, Gordon Greer, also 57, is a stock broker, according to public records.
As a condition of her release, Greer has been ordered to stay away from Logan. She is due back in court May 13.
Joe Dwinell and Marie Szaniszlo contributed to this story.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1162499
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Margaret Greer – The Wicked Witch of Wellesley
http://rockthetruth2.blogspot.com/2009/04/wicked-witch-of-wellesley.html
“a portfolio manager from Wellesley…. a highly respected member of the community…. served two terms on the five-member elected School Committee…. and served… as an elected member of the Town Meeting”
Seems like a nice lady, right?
“troopers said they noticed a slight odor of alcohol on her breath and found a small glass in the vehicle containing an alcoholic beverage, they did not ask Greer to submit to a field sobriety test…. did not appear to be impaired”
WTF?!!!!!
As you read this account of elite excess and arrogance, ask yourself if you would receive the same treatment?
“Airport dust-up got nasty, trooper says; Motorist in SUV accused of assault” by Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | April 1, 2009Perhaps you’ve been there, idling in front of an airport terminal hoping your family member or long-lost college buddy appears before the approaching state trooper shoos you away. Margaret M. Greer was told to move along Sunday evening as she waited for her husband at Logan Airport, but police say she didn’t go quietly – and ended up in court because of it.
Greer, a portfolio manager from Wellesley, allegedly lowered the window of her Mercedes Benz ML320 SUV just an inch when the trooper, Sergeant Danial Wildgrube, approached and told her she would have to move because she was obstructing traffic in a bus lane. Greer merely pointed to a nearby vehicle and told him to take care of that motorist first, Wildgrube said in his report of the incident. He said he repeated the demand, but she shut her window and ignored him.
What ensued before shocked onlookers was a protracted confrontation in which, court papers allege, Greer nearly ran the trooper over as she repeatedly drove out of reach, only to be chased down by the trooper as he tried in vain to wrest Greer from her car.
“I’m not stopping the car! Get away from me,” Greer shouted repeatedly, according to one witness, George Kaniwec. Greer, 57, was charged yesterday in East Boston District Court with assault and battery on a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, and failure to stop for a police officer. Her lawyer, Carol Starkey, entered a plea of not guilty on her behalf, and Greer is to return to court May 13 for a preliminary hearing.
“Mrs. Greer is a highly respected member of the community and has plead not guilty to all allegations,” Starkey said later. “There are two sides to every story, and we strongly contest the facts as presented by the Commonwealth and look forward to presenting our side of the story. It’s very upsetting and traumatizing to her. . . . Anyone who has picked up or dropped off anyone at the airport may understand there’s two sides to the story.”
Wellesley Town Clerk Kathleen Nagle said Greer served two terms on the five-member elected School Committee, from 1995 to 2000, and served from 1995 to 2003 as an elected member of Town Meeting. Greer did not return calls made yesterday to her home and to her employer, Citi Smith Barney. Greer’s driving record is mostly clean, with one “at fault” accident in 2004, according to the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
On Sunday, Wildgrube’s report says, the trooper got out his ticket book after she refused to move her car and walked to the front of the vehicle to take down the license number. Then, he reported, Greer gunned her engine and sped off, clipping him with her side mirror and forcing him to leap out of the way.
Wildgrube said he yelled at Greer to stop, but she continued driving until she was stopped by traffic a short distance away. The trooper approached again, opened the driver’s-side door, and told her to get out because she was under arrest, but Greer refused and drove away again, he alleged.
Wildgrube said he caught up to her a third time as she sat in traffic in front of the terminal. He moved to the front of the vehicle and put his arms up. She allegedly hit the gas again, causing the trooper to place his hands on the hood. “She pushed me approximately 15 feet while I ran backwards fearing that I would fall under the car,” Wildgrube wrote. “All the while she was looking directly at me.”
Wildgrube said he was forced away from the car again, falling to the ground. He got up, opened the driver’s-side door, and attempted to undo her seatbelt, he alleges, but she started driving away, dragging him along. Wildgrube said he broke free and Greer drove away, but he radioed in her plate number.
Greer was stopped by other state troopers on the Massachusetts Turnpike, near the entrance to the Copley tunnel. Although troopers said they noticed a slight odor of alcohol on her breath and found a small glass in the vehicle containing an alcoholic beverage, they did not ask Greer to submit to a field sobriety test. David Procopio, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety, said Greer did not appear to be impaired.
I think THREATENING to RUN OVER a COP is IMPAIRMENT, don’t you?
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said: “If a trooper asks you to move your car from a bus lane, you do it. . . . The trooper gave her every opportunity to do the right thing and she blew it. Now she’s looking at a felony charge.”
WHY no BOOZE CHARGE?
What, he forget!!!!?
WTF?
–more–”
Update: This lady must have been SOMEONE VERY, VERY IMPORTANT to have gotten THIS AMOUNT of PRINT in the Globe. Somebody down there know her or something?
Meg Greer
Second VP – Wealth Management, Financial Advisor
Portfolio Manager, Smith Barney Div., Citigroup Global Markets
Margaret (Meg) Greer is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and holds the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School. She joined Smith Barney as a Financial Consultant in 1997, and has thirty years of individual investing, corporate and small business experience. Meg is a frequent public speaker and has appeared on “Good Morning America,” “Good Day New York,” The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes Magazine and Money Magazine. In addition to her business success, Meg is committed to community service and education. She has served as Vice Chairman of the Wellesley MA School Committee and an elected member of the Wellesley MA Town Meeting. She has been a Board Member and Troop Leader for Patriots’ Trail Girl Scout Council, with whom she created the Smith Barney Financial Camp for Girls. Meg lives in Wellesley, with her husband, Gordon, has two grown children, and works in the Waltham, MA, Smith Barney office.”
And check out the SELECTED PHOTOGRAPHS!!
Globe:
Margaret M. Greer has pleaded not guilty to charges of assaulting a police officer. (WBZ-TV)
Other:
Let’s see if something (booze) is missing from the Globe report…
“After airport tiff, a plea for help on Craigslist; Witnesses sought to confrontation” by Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff | April 2, 2009
The posting on Craigslist by a user named Matron appeared at 3:59 a.m. Monday, just hours after a high-powered Wellesley portfolio manager had been released from police custody following an explosive parking altercation with a state trooper at Logan International Airport.
Matron described herself as “a middle-aged lady driving a silver van” and said she had “an altercation with a Mass State Cop outside Terminal B around 8:15 p.m.
“I am seeking witnesses who were there and saw the State Trooper bang on my car and try to get through my door,” Matron wrote in a message deleted, along with a rambling missive, yesterday after Boston.com published a story about the postings. “Several State Police cruisers pursued me and arrested me on the Mass Pike. Please help me, if you saw this event.”
I ALWAYS LEAVE MY STUFF UP!!!!!
The description nearly matches the alleged confrontation Sunday night involving the portfolio manager, Margaret M. Greer, who is accused of sideswiping a trooper with her side-view mirror, driving at him so he had to run backward for 15 feet, and dragging him for a short distance as she drove away. The one difference: Instead of a silver van, Greer was driving a silver Mercedes Benz ML320 sport utility vehicle.
There is no definitive evidence that Greer used the alias Matron and trolled Craigslist for witnesses. Greer did not respond to a message yesterday seeking comment. Her lawyer, Carol Ann Starkey, declined to discuss “anything about any discussion that occurred on the Internet.”
“Mrs. Greer is taking these allegations very seriously,” said Starkey, adding that Greer “strongly refuted” the accusations and had her own side of the story for ready for a courtroom.
Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney’s office, said: “Prosecutors are aware of the postings and are examining them for any potential connection to our Logan Airport case.”
If Greer did post the query on Craigslist, she apparently did not uncover any witnesses, or sympathy, in cyberspace. A poster named golf22 wrote: “I’m sure the District Attorney appreciates your help in rounding up witnesses to testify against you as to the several illegal actions you took.”
Mr_Twister added: “We’ll all be *VERY* happy when the judge throws the book at you.”
Greer, 57, pleaded not guilty Monday in East Boston District Court to charges that included assault and battery on a police officer. She is accused of closing her window and ignoring an order to move out of a bus lane from the trooper, Sergeant Danial Wildgrube.
What followed was described in court papers as a battle of wills between a trooper with a ticket book and an executive in a hulking SUV. Matron defended herself, saying she was “blocked in by a bus on one side, and cars parked in front of me, and behind.” The chase on the turnpike “was slow speed, and required five state cruisers,” Matron wrote, “I was freaked out and traveling at 50.”
When the posters turned nasty, Matron sharpened her rhetoric.
Hey, LYING ASSHOLES DESERVE IT!! They BRING IT ON THEMSELVES!!!!!!
“Wake up people, you are being controlled by a government who thinks they can do anything,” she wrote. “. . . When has it become a crime to pull up to the curb to pick up your husband at the airport?”
A rambling lecture followed.
“Why did the State Police come after me?” Matron wrote. “The same reason that the IRS audits every pizza parlor owner in town, but never audits Enron Corporation. The same reason the SEC audits all those you know who are a registered brokers, but never audited Bernie Madoff. . . . Because it’s easy for the cops to pick on these helpless people. . . .
“Please do not think you are holier than me, because you are not,” Matron continued in her posting. “When it happens to you, I hope I can be there to support you.”
Yeah, yeah, CRY ME a RIVER, lady — and THEN GO TAKE a DRINK (that was KINDLY OMITTED from the Globe’s follow-up report, imagine that).
–more–”
And the SYMPATHY does NOT STOP THERE, folks(?)!!!
The full-size pickup truck was there only seconds when the burly State Police trooper approached and blew a whistle that echoed throughout Terminal C at Logan Airport, urging the car to move.
But Paula Anderson just waited. “I was trying to get my son’s attention,” the Saugus woman said, as her son loaded his luggage into the truck yesterday. Then they were off.
Her timing was perfect. But for others, the system of picking up a relative or friend at an airport terminal can be confusing, frustrating, even intimidating.
With federal policies banning parking outside airport terminals, state troopers are quick to move cars picking up passengers who are not yet waiting by the curb with their luggage ready in carts that ironically read, “Go Ahead and Push Me.”
The question is where do you go? Drivers who do not correctly time their arrival, whether they are early or their passenger is still retrieving luggage, can expect to pay to park at a rate of $3 just to enter the lot, and $6 for those who are there for more than 30 minutes. Few know about a cellphone lot where drivers can wait at the other end of the airport.
Some choose to just drive in circles around the terminal until their passenger is curbside. Melissa McCagg of Malden circled the busy roadways three times to pick up a relative after a trooper shoed her away from Terminal C yesterday, after she was there for just seconds.
“They have been moving us constantly,” she said. “They should at least give us a minute.”
This is a “newspaper” I’m reading a reporting on?
Luis Falcon, 27, of Puerto Rico found a perfect spot away from troopers’ view in between two terminals, where parking is still prohibited but in an area that seems to get less scrutiny. Falcon, who had already been shoed away from Terminal C while waiting to pick up his aunt, was checking the rearview mirror for approaching troopers.
“They just told me I got to move,” but never said anything about that spot, he said.
David Procopio, a State Police spokesman, said the federal Transportation Security Administration prohibits curbside parking at terminals as a safety and security policy. He said troopers do have discretion in letting drivers park momentarily, letting them wait if they can see their passenger nearby or if the passenger is just grabbing luggage. Many times the decision depends on the traffic, he said.
But in today’s post-9/11 world, troopers remain vigilant, he said, pointing out cases in which people have parked their car, got out, and entered the terminal, leaving the car alone.
Did she OPINE about THAT WHOPPER of a LIE, Globe?
See why you need to FACE UP to 9/11 TRUTH, readers?
“In this day and age, that’s a red flag and something we can’t allow,” he said. “We have a job to do; one is to keep the traffic moving and, two, to keep the safety and security of the airport.” For some, the system can be intimidating, as state troopers in uniform whistle and holler at cars to move. Some see it as confusing and many as frustrating.
I’m tired of the Globe playing good cop, bad cop.
This guy was a BAD COP in the Globe’s eyes and WE KNOW WHY!!!!
State Police allege a Wellesley woman refused to move her sport utility vehicle Sunday, then drove at a trooper who tried to record her license plate number. The woman, Margaret M. Greer, 57, a former Wellesley School Committee member, faces several charges, including assault and battery on a police officer. Through a lawyer, she has disputed the police version of events and has pleaded not guilty.
Nothing about the BOOZE in the CAR, ‘eh?
Bob Cummins of Holliston has perfected the system after 13 years driving limousines. He has been frustrated by some troopers who seem a little overzealous, he said, and confused by the system of roads at the airport.
Unless, of course, they are ending the life of young Mr. Woodman.
But Cummins, who was picking up a relative yesterday, has learned to use what is somewhat of an unknown at the airport: the cellphone lot. The lot seems far from the central part of the airport and difficult to find by following signs. But it allows drivers to wait and contact their passenger for a perfect arrival.
Cummins waited with a coffee and a newspaper, then wasted no time picking up a relative who called to say she was ready. “It took me less than two minutes to get here,” he said. “When you follow the rules, it runs perfectly, it really does.”
A Marblehead investment adviser who allegedly defrauded two of his elderly clients of a combined $750,000 was charged Monday with wire fraud.
Ryan Nestor, 32, formerly was registered with an affiliate of Mass Mutual, according to U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan’s office, which brought the criminal case. He worked out of a Boston office.
Prosecutors said Nestor invested funds in what the government called a “massive ponzi scheme,” planning to keep some of the proceeds. His clients allegedly did not know how the money was being invested.
******************************************
Feds say adviser defrauded elderly clients
By Julie Manganis
Staff writer
MARBLEHEAD — An investment adviser from Marblehead has been charged with defrauding two elderly investors by putting their money in what prosecutors say turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme.
Ryan Nestor, 32, was cited yesterday in a two-count information charging him with wire fraud.
Prosecutors say he defrauded the clients out of more than $750,000 by investing their money in a company that was later sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Nestor, who runs a business called Harbor Point Capital LLC, was a former registered representative for a Mass Mutual-related business. Prosecutors allege that Nestor “misappropriated” the money by investing two clients’ funds in what turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme, without the knowledge or consent of his clients.
The two clients live on Martha’s Vineyard. According to the information filed in U.S. District Court, Nestor, in April and May 2007, invested their money in a California-based company called AOB Commerce Inc., which purported to make loans to businesses in Asia.
Prosecutors allege that Nestor made investments on behalf of both clients, $170,000 for one client and $590,000 for the other in AOB by forging their signatures on authorizations to wire money from their accounts to a bank in California.
Nestor allegedly had an agreement with AOB under which he would receive a portion of the anticipated return on the investment.
A month later, in June 2007, the SEC sued AOB, alleging that it was basically a giant Ponzi scheme that used investor funds to pay other investors.
If convicted, Nestor could face up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine on each of the two counts.
Prosecutors are also seeing the forfeiture of Nestor’s home at 51 Bubier Road in Marblehead, which he purchased in 2007 for $725,000.
Generally, when prosecutors file an information, it means a defendant has waived his right to have the case presented to a grand jury for indictment.
His lawyer, Peter Krupp, said last night that Nestor “had no knowledge the investment he made on behalf of his clients was not legitimate. In fact, he invested and lost his own money in that investment.”
“Mr. Nestor has cooperated with the government throughout this investigation and deeply regrets the losses suffered by his clients,” Krupp went on to say.
**************************************
Wicked Local Marblehead
Marblehead – A Marblehead investment advisor was charged today with wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud two of his clients.
Ryan Nestor, 32, of Marblehead has been charged in a two-count information alleging that Nestor defrauded two investment clients out of more than $750,000, announced United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Warren T. Bamford, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Boston Field Division.
According to the information, Nestor, a former registered representative for a Mass-Mutual-related entity, misappropriated more than $750,000 in client funds by investing those funds, without the knowledge or consent of his two elderly victims, in an entity that turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme. According to investigators, Nestor invested the client funds pursuant to an agreement whereby Nestor expected to receive a portion of the returns on the improper investments.
If convicted, Nestor faces up to 30 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release and a $1,000,000 fine on each charge.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation Boston Field Division investigated this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah E. Walters of Sullivan’s Economic Crimes Unit is prosecuting it.
*****************************************
Boston Herald
BOSTON — A Massachusetts investment advisor has been charged in a scheme to defraud two clients out of more than $750,000.
Ryan Nestor of Marblehead was accused Monday of misappropriating the money by investing it in California-based AOB Commerce Inc., which purported to make loans to companies in Asia.
In 2007 the Securities and Exchange Commission accused AOB of using invested funds in a Ponzi scheme, to repay interest due to other investors. Prosecutors said Nestor expected to receive part of the returns. AOB has said it believed it was following the law.
Nestor’s attorney, Peter Krupp, said Nestor did not know the investment he made on behalf of his clients was not legitimate and “deeply regrets” their losses. Krupp said Nestor also lost some of his own money and is cooperating with the government.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1157415
Adviser leading ‘double life’ stole $57M for planes, mistress
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts yesterday indicted John Doorly, who has managed the trust funds left behind by wealthy New England industrialist Frederick Ayer, on charges that he looted millions of dollars from the family for more than a decade.
The Ayer family, which has several hundred million dollars in trusts held for more than 100 of the industrialist’s descendants, began asserting in 2006 that Mr. Doorly had stolen family money for his personal use.
And through a family attorney, the Ayer’s noted that the federal indictment now “clearly spells out how Doorly led a ‘double life’ and exploited the trust of his victims” to provide personal extravagances to “himself, his wife and son, and his mistress.”
The attorney went on to put Mr. Doorly in some dubious company: “Doorly looted this family out of tens of millions of dollars and joins the likes of disgraced money manager [Bernard] Madoff,” stated Will Nystrom, an attorney a Boston-based law firm Nystrom Beckman and Paris LLP. Marc Salinas, an attorney at Andrews & Updegraph P.C. representing Mr. Doorly, said his client denies all of the allegations in the indictment and will plead not guilty to all of the charges. Mr. Salinas said that his firm is in the process of reviewing the indictment and is planning for a trial, although a specific date for a court hearing has not yet been set.
Mr. Doorly, 60, allegedly pilfered the assets from the Ayers family trust through various different tactics, according to charges in the indictment. He is said to have stolen roughly $10 million over the course of eight years when he “systematically overcharged” the trusts for accounting and administrative fees that were 60% greater than the trusts’ actual operating expenses, according to the indictment.
Mr. Doorly, who was also responsible for managing the cash portion of the Ayers’ family trust, allegedly managed to steal another $13 million from an internal money market fund he created and oversaw for the family.
The money was then used by Mr. Doorly to fund a number of personal purchases and business ventures, according to federal investigators. Aside from buying real estate, three airplanes, timeshares and golf club memberships, the indictment claims that Mr. Doorly put the money toward the “payments of extravagant credit card expenses,” investments in side businesses, real estate, and construction projects, and also to make “unsecured loans to friends and acquaintances.”
If convicted on the charges brought by federal investigators, Mr. Doorly faces up to 20 years in prison, followed by five years of supervision and a fine of up to $250,000.
*****************************************
Attorney Marc Salinas:
Marc Salinas is a trial attorney whose practice areas include criminal defense, civil litigation and domestic relations. Marc was born in Boston, Massachusetts and attended Suffolk University and Suffolk University Law School where he was a member of the National Trial Teams.
Marc has successfully represented individuals and small companies throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
He is admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
|
Case highlights family office risk
Boston Business Journal – by Craig M. Douglas & Todd Wallack Journal staff
Lowell industrialist Frederick Ayer Sr. and his descendants built a $600 million fortune over more than a century. But a family confidant allegedly siphoned about $58 million away in a few years, exploiting his position with the family office that manages the estate, according to a lawsuit by the firm.
That case, being played out in the Business Litigation Session of Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, offers a rare glimpse at the inner workings of the clubby and highly guarded world of family offices, the corporate entities often tasked with managing the day-to-day operations of large family trusts and other wealthy estates. The saga also highlights a little discussed but unavoidable fact in the arena of wealth management: Many family offices are vulnerable to fraud, especially by trusted insiders.
“It’s a fear that every wealth owner has,” said John Benevides, president of Family Office Exchange LLC, a Chicago company that advises more than one-tenth of the estimated 3,500 family offices in North America.
Adds Carrie Seligman, director of U.S. Trust’s estate and financial planning division in Boston: “If a trustee is bad, fraud isn’t difficult. It’s like giving away the keys to the safe.”
In the case of the Ayers, court documents and interviews indicate the trusts may have been especially vulnerable because of the complexity of the estate, relaxed oversight and what the family claims are auditing failures.
Tenens Corp., the family company charged with managing the estate for more than 100 relatives, operated in relative obscurity for years under the name Essex Street Advisors from a woodsy, non-descript group of offices in Beverly.
But the tranquility was shattered in March 2006 when Essex Street CEO Caleb Loring III terminated a longtime employee, John F. Doorly, after learning about a suspicious transaction, according to court filings.
Within days, Essex filed suit against Doorly, accusing him of stealing millions of dollars from the family fortune — money he allegedly spent on everything from a Gulfstream jet to gifts for his mistress and family, including a luxury condo in Boston’s Back Bay for his son’s girlfriend.
Doorly, 57, denied stealing any money, insisting many of the withdrawals were used for loans and investments that are still earning money for the Ayer estate. In fact, he argues that the jet and other properties were long on the family’s books, but were simply unnoticed due to lax oversight.
Doorly, a graduate of St. Mary’s High School in Lynn, joined Essex Street in 1973, when he was a self-described computer operator. He never earned a college degree, but he eventually became the company’s chief operating officer, managing most of the company’s daily operations, including the payroll and some of the family’s investments.
But over the last 14 months, Essex Street said in the lawsuit, its forensic accountants uncovered evidence that Doorly used a variety of schemes to steal more than $58 million, far more than Essex initially thought was missing.
Even more troubling, Essex Street alleged the embezzlement began at least a decade ago without detection.
According to court papers, it appears Ayer family members didn’t identify the missing money earlier for several reasons. Among them:
- The complexity of the trust. According to the lawsuit, Essex Street maintained a network of 300 trusts for more than 100 family members, making money difficult to track.
Rather than operate as a single trust, the Ayer estate was set up as a so-called “separate shares” trust, whereby new trusts were added as the family tree grew. And each of the trusts requires trustees. But trust experts say separate-shares trusts can be complicated as the number of beneficiaries grows, as trustees often run into roadblocks when making decisions that require input from all family members.
“Some beneficiaries are very passive,” said Bob Holdway, a vice president with Fiduciary Trust in Boston, speaking generally. “As a good trustee, you try and reach out to them. But there are always some who are used to running on auto pilot.”
- Inadequate oversight. Doorly testified that Loring, the CEO, and other trustees were rarely in the office, leaving Doorly to manage the operation largely on his own.
“I would be the first one in, last one out, seven days a week averaging 70 hours doing my work as well as work that should have been performed by Caleb Loring III,” Doorly said in his sworn affidavit.
A Loring associate, speaking on the condition he not be identified, said the characterization is unfair.
- Auditing failures. Although Essex hired outside auditors, it appears they didn’t catch the missing money. Essex accused one auditor, Vitale Caturano & Co., of following Doorly’s instructions to ignore many of the accounts, leaving Essex Street vulnerable. Vitale said it did what it was hired to do.
Essex has sued Vitale and others in the case to try to recoup the missing money. But it has saved most of its ire for Doorly, calling him in a prepared statement a trusted employee who “abused that trust by looting the family’s cash accounts to enrich himself.” The family also vowed to pursue any parties who benefited from or aided the alleged theft.
Benevides says there are a number of safeguards families can put in place to protect themselves, including annual audits, strong internal financial controls and the screening of new hires. His firm’s research indicates that nearly three-quarters of its members had audits in the last two years, though audits can vary widely in scope.
But Benevides warns: “As any auditor will tell you, if someone has the intent to defraud, it is very difficult to detect.”
Essex Street has recovered around $9 million in cash and real estate from Doorly and Doorly-affiliated entities, according to court filings. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Allan van Gestel recently ruled that Doorly defied a court order to disclose and freeze his total income and assets. Doorly has since been forced to roll hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash into an escrow account.
It’s unclear, however, how much more Essex Street will be able to recoup. As of January, Doorly said he had an annuity worth $1.4 million, a time share at the Ritz Carlton in Jupiter, Fla., and two Cadillacs and a Jaguar. He also has claimed that Essex Street’s accounts hold around $2.5 million of his money.
Meanwhile, his personal life appears to be unraveling. Earlier this year, Doorly’s wife of 34 years, Maryjane Doorly, divorced him after learning through court filings that Doorly had a mistress. And as of a few months ago, John Doorly, who now lives in Peabody, was unemployed.
Meanwhile, the office of U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan has issued a number of subpoeanas as it investigates the matter, a person directly involved in the case said.
Craig M. Douglas can be reached at cdouglas@bizjournals.com. Todd Wallack can be reached at twallack@bizjournals.com.
U.S.: Exec John F. Doorly jetted off with $20M from Ayer trust
A Topsfield man has been charged with stealing $20 million from a family trust and spending it on Gulfstream jets, a waterfront condo in Florida, golf club memberships and girlfriends.
John F. Doorly faces up to 20 years in jail on multiple counts of mail fraud and money laundering arising from an alleged scheme to defraud more than 100 descendants of 19th century industrialist Frederick Ayer, according to the indictment filed in District Court by U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan.
Ayer and his family built a $600 million fortune over more than a century. The Ayers include descendants of World War II hero Gen. George Patton, who married into the Ayer family in 1910.
Authorities allege that Doorly, the 60-year-old former chief operating officer at Tenens Corp., used his position to steal funds to buy himself, his family and his girlfrends real estate, cars, three airplanes, timeshares and golf club memberships at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club & Spa in Jupiter, Fla. Doorly was fired in March 2006 after the company said it learned of his alleged scheme.
In a separate civil lawsuit, the Ayer family alleges Doorly engaged in “systematic looting” of $57 million from the trust.
Similar, though on a much smaller scale, to the case of Bernard Madoff – the former Nasdaq chairman who has been charged with a $50 billion Ponzi scheme – investigators allege Doorly hid the theft by manipulating internal accounting systems and sent false statements to trust beneficiaries.
The indictment says that from 1999 to 2006 Doorly transferred millions of dollars from the trust for his own purposes, including payments of extravagant credit card expenses.
Doorly’s attorney, Marc R. Salinas, said his client denies all the allegations and will plead not guilty.
Through a spokesman, the Ayer family said they are pleased Doorly has been indicted.
“Doorly led a double life and exploited the trust of his victims, stealing their money for personal extravagances for himself, his wife and son, and his mistress,” the statement said. “He looted this family out of tens of millions of dollars and joins the likes of disgraced money manager Madoff. We are heartbroken by Doorly’s personal betrayal and stunned by the scope and audacity of his criminal acts.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1156521
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The United States Attorney’s Office
District of Massachusetts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, March 9, 2009
WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/MA
CONTACT: CHRISTINA DiIORIO-STERLING
PHONE: (617)748-3356
E-MAIL: USAMA.MEDIA@USDOJ.GOV
FORMER CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER OF TRUST MANAGEMENT COMPANY INDICTED FOR FRAUD
BOSTON, MA – A Topsfield man was charged yesterday in federal court with multiple counts of mail fraud and money laundering arising from his scheme to defraud the clients of his former employer, Tenens Corporation.
United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Jerry Cormody, Acting Postal Inspector In Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division; Warren T. Bamford, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Joann Zuniga, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Internal Revenue Criminal Investigation – Boston Field Division, announced today that JOHN F. DOORLY, age 60, was charged in an Indictment that alleges that DOORLY misappropriated more than $20,000,000 from trust beneficiaries whose wealth was managed by Tenens Corporation. The Indictment alleges that DOORLY, Tenens Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer and an employee for more than thirty years, used his position of trust with the company to steal funds for his own purposes including the purchase of real estate, cars, three airplanes, timeshares and golf club memberships for himself, his family and friends; investments in businesses, real estate developments, and construction projects for DOORLY’s benefit; and unsecured loans to DOORLY’s friends and acquaintances. DOORLY concealed his misappropriations by means of wrongful manipulations of the internal trust accounting system, and caused false accounting statements to be mailed to trust beneficiaries that further concealed his actions.
If convicted on these charges, DOORLY faces up to 20 years imprisonment, to be followed by 5 years of supervised release, and a $ 250,000 fine.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori J. Holik of Sullivan’s Economic Crimes Unit.
The details contained in the indictment are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
