On Friday, several units within the MBTA’s Transit Police converged on the Back Bay Commuter Rail station for a report of a person armed with a “long rifle.” But the holder of the weapon turned out to be a laconic celebrity from a galaxy far, far away: Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Those waiting for the train may never know if the man behind the helmet is a clone of the Mandalorian or not, the Transit Police gave no indication that he was charged with any wrongdoing, and a photo provided by the agency shows him offering a stoic fist to the heart.
“Officers located a person in character as ‘Boba Fett’ w/a replica firearm,” the agency tweeted. “Officers conversed with the individual & the scene was safe.”
Darel Galorenzo, 35, of Readsboro, Vt., was charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment of a child, negligent operating of a motor vehicle and operating under the influence after police say he dropped his toddler in a brook in Berkshire County while fleeing from the scene of a car crash he caused.
State Police troopers were dispatched to a crash on Middle Road in Clarksburg at around 1:58 a.m. Saturday where they determined a small child had been in the Subaru Crosstrek driven by Galorenzo and that the child was now missing.
Troopers and EMS began searching the brook area for the child, who they found in the water at around 2:20 a.m. They immediately began life-saving measures and then took the child to Berkshire Medical Center in North Adams, where doctors pronounced the child dead.
Galorenzo was also taken to the medical center under police guard for examination — troopers say that he was clearly drunk — and then released into State Police custody.
He made his initial appearance in a court in Berkshire County. He is being held in lieu of $100,000 cash bail.
The Essex County DA’s office has “tentatively identified” Susan Frey, 79, of Gloucester, as the woman who died when the 2003 Volkswagen Beetle she was driving crashed on a private driveway in the 900-block of Haverhill Street in Rowley shortly before 1 a.m. Friday.
First responders found the car fully engulfed in flames. The DA’s office said that the vehicle “has no immediately known connection to that address.”
Details of what happened are a little murky, as Rowley Police Chief Scott Dumas said one of his officers spotted the vehicle about an hour ahead of the crash when it was parked across town on Stackyard Road.
“The officer spoke with the driver, assessed the driver as capable of continuing to drive and gave the driver directions back to the road leading to their home. The officer then followed the driver on Route 133 into Ipswich before alerting Ipswich Police that the vehicle was passing through their town,” according to the DA office statement. “Rowley Police had no further contact with the vehicle until receiving the crash report at the location back in Rowley.”
A 27-year-old Maryland man is charged with blackmailing two eastern Massachusetts men who hired him for sex — and at least for one of them actually following through on his blackmail threats.
“A thousand or two every few months isn’t worth losing your career & I’ll attack your wife too. Don’t think I don’t have a video of her as well. I will send these complete videos to [Victim 1’s spouse’s employer] as well,” Brandon Kane, who prosecutors said was moonlighting as a gigolo called Tommy Fontaine at the time, allegedly texted his first victim, after that victim had already paid him at least $1,000.
Kane, 27, of Silver Springs, purportedly met his victims on a dating app and came up to the Boston area for sex work. In late October 2021, he met up with a Massachusetts surgeon — who remains unidentified in court papers — and then surreptitiously recorded their interaction in the doctor’s home office, where the victims “academic degrees were displayed on the wall and cocaine was on a desk.” The doctor “was too intoxicated to have intercourse with Tommy” but paid him $150 for his visit and ordered him a ride home.
That wasn’t the end of their interactions, however, as prosecutors say Kane continued to ask for more and more money and threatened to send the video of the doctor having drugs to the state medical board and to his employer. And then the threat to his wife. He ended up sending the video to the employer.
Victim 2, who Kane allegedly encountered in May 2022, was not too intoxicated. Kane, this time using the fake name “Eric,” did have sex with this victim n a hotel in Woburn, and once again recorded the interaction and did the blackmail scenario all over again.
Both victims met with federal investigators, who tracked down Kane as the owner of the various email address and CashApp accounts connected in the scheme. He was charged in federal court in Maryland on Thursday with making extortionate threats in interstate commerce and will make an appearance on the charge in Boston at a later date.