Nathan Williams

A real-estate investor yesterday sued Andrew Collins, who owns a series of commercial parcels along Dorchester Avenue in the area of D Street, over the more than $6 million he says Collins and two of his LLCs now owe on a promissory note in default since the spring.

Through his Ayoba Capital, Peter Russell alleges that Collins - brother of state Sen. Nick Collins - solicited him to invest in two projects: One to do something about all the commercial property Collins has amassed along Dorchester Avenue - the "Dot Ave. Assemblage Project," - the other "a group of multi-family homes" Collins had bought intending to fix them up and then sell them, some after converting them from apartments to condos, through two dozen different LLCs that Collins controls.

In his suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, Russell says he loaned money to Collins's LLCs involved in the two projects between May, 2022 and September, 2023 - $3.4 million in all. In 2024, he alleges, Collins began telling him he'd soon be getting a large infusion of cash that would let him repay the loans and interest, specifically,a $160 million investment from a Winchester investment concern. Based on that, the suit continues, Russell drafted a new promissory note that Collins signed committing to repay the $3.4 million, plus 20% interest, by March 1, 2025.

"The maturity date of March 1, 2025 has come and gone," the complaint adds. "There is no dispute that Defendants have made no payments on the note. ... As a result of Defendants' default on the Note, Plaintiff has incurred significant damage, including attorney's fees and costs, that Plaintiff brings this suit to recover.

The $6.05 million represents the original amount of the loans, plus interest, costs and attorney's fees.

Last month, the Globe reported several other investors have also sued Collins to try to recover their money - a total of $143 million in original loans plus interest and costs - and said that in those cases Collins would allegedly borrow money, then default on the loans, or resulting settlements. Through his attorney, Collins said the amounts are overblown because they include the supposed costs of interest, that he has repaid most of the money he owns and that the suits are all just accusations.

Gov. Healey and Dr. Robbie Goldstein, state commissioner of public health, wasted no time blasting a vote by a panel handpicked by the nation's most prominent anti-vaxxer today to stop recommending all parents have their newborns vaccinated against Hepatitis B.

In a statement, Healey said:

This vote by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s handpicked advisers is dangerous and wrong. I want the people of Massachusetts to know that your state Department of Public Health -  led by an actual doctor and guided by science and data - continues to recommend that newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine. We are going to continue to work with other states to ensure that all of our residents can receive the vaccines they need and want to keep them and their children healthy.

Goldstein added:

As an infectious disease physician, I cannot overstate how reckless this move is. Removing the newborn hepatitis B vaccine from the routine schedule is a decision driven by ideology - not science - and it ignores decades of irrefutable evidence that this dose saves lives. For more than three decades, the birth dose has been one of the safest, most effective, and most powerful tools we have to prevent lifelong infection, liver failure, and liver cancer. Turning away from a proven, lifesaving intervention puts infants at unnecessary risk and undermines the very foundation of evidence-based public health. Despite this misguided decision, the hepatitis B birth dose will remain available in Massachusetts, and the Department of Public Health continues to strongly recommend that every newborn receive a dose just after birth.

The regime announced yesterday it nabbed that visiting Harvard Law professor who decided to hunt rats on Beacon Street in Brookline with a BB gun but instead blasted out a car window near Temple Beth Zion as Yom Kippur was starting in October.

Rather than trying to fight deportation after the State Department revoked his visa - which might leave him locked up in an ICE gulag for months - Carlos Gouvêa agreed to get on the next plane back to his native Brazil, Homeland Security said.

The regime alleged that Gouvêa wasn't hunting rats, that he was an anti-Semite out to terrify Jews, and never mind that the temple itself said "We have no reason to believe this was an antisemitic event:"

From what we were initially told by police, the individual was unaware that he lived next to, and was shooting his BB gun next to, a synagogue or that it was a religious holiday. We were told he said he was shooting rats; the window of a car parked on Beacon was shot. It was potentially dangerous to use a BB gun in such a populated spot, but it does not appear to have been fuelled by antisemitism.

Brookline Police initially charged him with vandalism, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and discharging a BB gun.

Brookline.News reported last month that he agreed to a plea deal with Norfolk County prosecutors in which the first three charges would be dropped, he would be subject to six months of probation and he would pay $386.59 to repair the car window he blew out.

Mary Ellen captured the moon yesterday perfectly balanced on one of the posts that have sprung up along the walking path at the bottom of the hill at Millennium Park in West Roxbury.

A federal judge in Boston today dismissed a Jewish Harvard Business School student's suit against Harvard that alleged Harvard let its anti-Semitism fly by failing to do anything about what "an antisemitic mob of students and student-employees" he says physically assaulted him at a pro-Gaza "die in" at the business school in 2023.

In his ruling dismissing the suit by Yoav Segev, US District Court Judge Richard Stearns wrote:

While the court does not condone an assault on a fellow student by campus protestors, nothing in the Amended Complaint plausibly supports the notion that his assailants' conduct was motivated by race-based antisemitism. At best, Segev notes that he was overtly wearing a blue bracelet symbolizing his support for Israel. But it is not clear that protestors understood the import of his bracelet or that, if they did, they were acting based on antisemitism rather than disagreement with the underlying political message. ...

Segev cannot transform his assailants' anti-Israel sentiment into antisemitism based on their use of certain rhetoric - for example, chants of "from the river to the sea."  The relevant question is whether the protestors chanting these slogans viewed them as antisemitic. See Stand With US, 158 F.4th at 19 (rejecting the argument that chants such as "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and "intifada revolution" established an antisemitic mindset without additional factual support suggesting the protestors construed them as such). Nothing in the Amended Complaint plausibly permits the inference that they did. Segev also cannot rely on the fact that other individuals were permitted to film the protest without official interference. He does not allege any factual support for his contention that any official failure to intervene in either circumstance was motivated by antisemitism.

He added:

That other students and even some faculty members characterized events in a way that Segev viewed as inaccurate does not alter the calculus. Segev does not plausibly allege facts which would allow the court to reasonably infer that any misreporting by these students and faculty members was motivated by antisemitism, or more to the point, reflected any official policy fostered by defendants.

It is a closer call whether antisemitism can be inferred from a college administrator's act of separating Jewish students from other students attending an event on campus and denoting them as "protestor" or "peaceful" (without appearing to take further action or deny anyone access to the event). The court need not decide the issue, however, because a single, isolated incident of antisemitism is insufficient to establish severe and pervasive harassment. 

Stearns dismissed the suit without prejudice, which means Segev could try to bring it again with additional arguments and assertions of facts.

WHDH reports two Orange Line passengers plunged to the tracks yesterday when their train suddenly stopped, the doors opened and they stepped out - to the air rather than the Roxbury Crossing platform they expected. One suffered minor injuries, the other emerged unscathed according to the MBTA, which says it is now investigating.

A now former Boston Police detective was released on personal recognizance today on charges he crashed a city-owned pickup in East Boston while drunk and packing his service revolver, then ran away in October, 2024, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Greg Walsh, 51, of South Boston got caught in large part because the driver of the car he's charged with backing into around 2:30 a.m. on Sumner Street on Oct. 22, 2024 blocked the road, forcing Walsh to stop, the DA's office says - adding that an arriving on-duty BPD sergeant who detected alcohol on his breath then declined to conduct any sobriety tests and  then had him driven home after conferring with a BPD lieutenant.

A Suffolk County grand jury indicted Walsh last month on charges of OUI, leaving the scene of a property-damage crash, negligent operation and carrying a licensed firearm while intoxicated.

The DA's office says the sergeant, after reviewing bodycam video from the first on-duty officer to arrive on the scene, did issue a ticket to Walsh for OUI and leaving the scene of a crash and sought criminal charges, but that a clerk magistrate at East Boston Municipal Court then declined to issue criminal charges, saying it was a matter for BPD Internal Affairs.

The DA's office says Walsh was driving a city-owned pickup made up to look like a utility vehicle for use in undercover operations, several hours after his shift ended when:

Walsh backed the truck into an occupied Tesla on Sumner Street, damaging the car hood, then drove away and around the block onto Marginal Street. The Tesla driver, knowing that the only other egress from the area was a cross street nearby, positioned the Tesla to block that intersection. Walsh soon approached on the cross street, stopped and retreated to Marginal, and drove back around to the crash location on Sumner so the two vehicles were now facing each other.

The Tesla occupants saw that Walsh, while out of their sight, had used paper towels to cover the truck's front license plate and hung a piece of clothing over the rear plate. The Tesla driver called 911 and the passenger recorded several minutes of the encounter with his phone. The video showed a standoff in which that Walsh drove back and forth and waved for the civilians to move out of the way. The Tesla driver instead urged Walsh to park so they could talk and exchange papers. Walsh briefly exited the truck and, when told that he had smashed into the car, said, "I know that, it's obvious." He returned to the truck and at one point called the Tesla occupants "assholes."

The DA's office continues that the Tesla driver called 911 again, and this time an on-duty BPD officer responded:

As this happened Walsh exited the truck and ran away on Sumner Street, through a passageway onto Marginal, and down that street until he reached a dead end at a fence. The Tesla passenger pointed out Walsh's direction of flight to the officer, who caught up to Walsh in time to see him vault a gate into an alley. As he did so the gate swung open and Walsh fell face down in the alley.

As captured by the officer's body camera, Walsh stood up with difficulty. The officer handcuffed Walsh, frisked him and removed his duty weapon, a loaded Glock handgun, from a holster on his hip. Walsh confirmed that he was a BPD officer and was licensed to carry the firearm. He answered safety questions cooperatively, but slurred his words and was unsteady on his feet. Walsh said that he left the crash scene because the Tesla occupants were "very aggressive ... I thought they were gonna beat me up," even though he was an armed detective in a large vehicle and the civilians made no threats or belligerent movements toward him.

The officer called for a supervisor as required by BPD rules. A sergeant arrived and spoke briefly with Walsh, who repeated his claim that he left the crash site because he feared for his safety. The sergeant noted Walsh's slurred speech and a slight odor of alcohol from him. The sergeant conferred by phone with a lieutenant and they decided not to attempt field sobriety tests or arrest Walsh. Instead they directed the officer to drive Walsh home pending further investigation. Later that day after reviewing the officer's body camera footage, the sergeant issued a citation to Walsh for operating under the influence and leaving the scene, and applied for a criminal complaint in the Boston Municipal Court, East Boston Division.

The DA's office reports that after the clerk magistrate declined to issue criminal charges on Nov. 6, 2024, the BPD Anti-Corruption unit gathered additional evidence, which they and prosecutors then presented to the grand jury, which "considered evidence the clerk magistrate never received, including testimony from the Tesla occupants and video from the officer’s body camera and the Tesla passenger."

Innocent, etc.

A man with an MIT chemistry degree and his husband won Licensing Board approval today for a distillery and tasting room on Heath Street on the JP line that will focus on home-grown, high-end versions of Korean soju, gin and other spirits - some flavored with the botanicals they will grow on site.

At a hearing yesterday, Josh Moss said he and Will Blessing plan to combine "the terroir of Korea and New England in creative and new ways" at their Namu Distilling Co., 89 Heath St.

Moss's PhD work was in atmospheric chemistry, in particular the chemistry of smog, but he told the board his BA was in chemical engineering, which he noted focused on distillation.

Moss said the building has two dozen parking spaces, "more than any other bar or restaurant in the area," so he's not expecting to cause any parking issues along Heath Street.

The license approved by the board is only for distilling and pouring alcohol; the couple said they would return with a separate request for a food-serving license once they firm up their dining program.

Through an aide, City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who represents much of Mission Hill, supported the proposal. Nobody spoke against.