A federal judge yesterday rejected requests from the city of Cambridge and Sig Sauer to dismiss a lawsuit by retired Cambridge Police Lt. Thomas Ahern, who charges the city kept him from advancing in the ranks because he complained about allegedly crappy guns from Sig Sauer that were prone to easily firing - as he claimed happened in 2019 while he and other SWAT officers and two firefighters were in a van at the annual Mayfair celebration in Harvard Square in 2019.

US District Court Judge Denise Casper agreed with Ahern's contentions that his allegations about the safety of the model P320 gun was a matter of public concern that he was addressing as a private citizen and so protected by the First Amendment - and a Massachusetts whistleblower law - and that the guns are covered by a federal law about warranties on items sold to the public, since Sig Sauer sells the specific model to the public.

And in making his case, Ahern raised questions that could only be settled by a jury, such as whether Cambridge prevented him from rising above the rank of lieutenant because of his ongoing gun criticism, rather than anything to do with finding him negligent for taking his gun out of his holster in a van packed with other officers, Casper ruled - adding that at trial, the city can make it's case why Ahern is wrong. Also for a jury to decide: Whether Sig Sauer was negligent in selling guns that, as Ahern alleges, went off way too easily, Casper ruled.

In seeking a dismissal of his suit, Cambridge argued that Ahern was criticizing the gun model in his role as an employee - and that employee speech, unlike statements by members of the public, are not protected by the First Amendment, specifically, what the city said was his refusal to accept responsibility for the van incident - in which Ahern suffered a bruise, but nobody else was injured.

Casper, however, concluded that Ahern refused to accept responsibility for unholstering his gun, which then went off, because he claimed it was proof of his earlier criticism of the gun in general - which he had said started when another SWAT officer pointed him to a video showing one of the guns going off after it was dropped to the ground.

She continued that Ahern's job had nothing to do with the selection of specific guns to buy, so nothing he said about the gun fell under his specific "job responsibility," or even that his job included speaking publicly on behalf of the department, all of which would be unprotected "employee" speech.

For all these reasons, the Court concludes that Ahern was speaking as a private citizen concerning the safety of the P320.

She added:

For all the reasons, on the present record, the Court concludes that there are genuine disputes of fact concerning whether Ahern’s speech was a substantial and motivating factor in the subsequent adverse employment actions Ahern experienced.

Similarly, Casper dismissed Sig Sauer's contention that federal and state warranty laws don't apply in this case:

Under [federal law], a "consumer product" is defined as "any tangible personal property which is distributed in commerce and which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes." On this record, the P320 meets this definition. Although Ahern's use of the firearm was in professional capacity, the record otherwise supports that the P320 is a consumer product as it distributed broadly in the United States and Canada, mostly through distributors, but is sold directly to consumers in New Hampshire.

In addition to punitive damages, Ahern is seeking money to cover what he alleges are the lost income from not getting promoted.

Signs at the Tufts Medical Center Orange Line stop still direct people to Don Bosco Technical High School, some 26 years after the school closed and got turned into a DoubleTree hotel.

Founded in East Boston by the Salesian Order of Don Bosco in 1945, the school eventually moved across the harbor to a larger building between Warrenton and Tremont streets in Chinatown.

1956 photo from the Boston City Archives:

With enrollment declining, the school closed in 1998. Last year, alumni and and former teachers gathered at the DoubleTree for the unveiling of a plaque honoring the school.

In 2010, the MBTA replaced almost all all the signs in the station that read New England Medical Center after Tufts changed its hospital's name to Tufts Medical Center - and after Tufts paid $150,000 for the work. But they left the Don Bosco pointers up.

Brighton Main Streets reports that Scoop N Scootery at the corner of Washington Street and Chestnut Hill Avenue in Brighton has closed. Fans will now have to trek all the way to Linden Street in Allston for some of its ice cream. Brighton Main Streets adds, though, that another ice-cream place might be moving in.

An engineer who worked at Analog Devices was arrested today on charges of violating US export laws, helping provide technology to what the US considers a foreign terrorist organization - a wing of the Iranian military known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, 42, who lives in Natick and who has both Iranian and US citizenship, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on a charge of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economics Powers Act, which bans the sale of sophisticated technology to Iran.

An Iranian executive, Mohammad Abedini, arrested in Italy today, who allegedly set up a company in Switzerland to help Sadeghi evade US export restrictions, faces up to life in prison on charges that also include providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death - for the Iranian drones for which his company provided guidance systems that killed three American service members in an attack on a Jordanian listening post in January.

According to the US Attorney's office in Boston:

As alleged in court documents, Abedini, Sadeghi, and others conspired to evade U.S. export control and sanctions laws by procuring U.S. origin goods, services, and technology from, among others, U.S. Company 1 and causing those goods, services, and technology to be exported or otherwise supplied to Iran and, in particular, Abedini’s Iranian company, SDRA.

Analog Devices, formerly in Norwood, now based in Wilmington, builds a series of products that can be used to pilot drones to targets. Sadeghi started working there in 2019, after getting a PhD in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, where he led two projects to develop "3D inertial sensors and flow sensors" used in the navigation of micro-air vehicles, or very small drones, according to his LinkedIn page.

According to an affidavit by an FBI agent on the case, Abedini began trying to procure US technology for drones in 2014 - and quickly realized that while companies would not ship anything to him in Tehran, he could get deliveries with no problems in Switzerland - where he did post-doctoral work and from where he would hop on a plane to Iran.

Between in or about January 2016 to January 2018, ABEDINI used U.S.-based electronics distributors to order electronic components from multiple U.S.-based manufacturers, including U.S. Company 1, for delivery in Switzerland, often to ABEDINI’s university address. At least certain of these parts included microcontrollers that are used in the Sepehr Navigation System [which controls Iran's Shahed drones].

Sadeghi, the affidavit alleges, began working with Abedni in 2016 to procure American technology, including from Analog Devices.

Not long after Analog Devices hired him as a microelectromechanical systems engineer, the affidavit continues, Sadeghi began talking up Abedini's Swiss company as a possible partner on testing of new microchips and systems.

After SADEGHI introduced ABEDINI and Illumove [Abedinis Swiss front company] to U.S. Company 1 [Analog Devices\, U.S. Company 1 Employee emailed ABEDINI about a potential collaboration between Illumove and U.S. Company 1 for Illumove to develop the hardware and software for an evaluation tool that could be used for a wide range of U.S. Company 1 inertial sensors. U.S. Company 1 Employee copied SADEGHI on the email to ABEDINI. ABEDINI returned a signed NDA to U.S. Company 1 on or about September 2, 2019. The NDA stated that the proprietary information that would be shared pursuant to the NDA was subject to U.S. export laws and that each party agreed to follow all applicable export laws and regulations.

Soon thereafter, on or about September 10, 2019, on behalf of Illumove, ABEDINI ordered multiple electronic components, which were subject to export controls, through a U.S. distributor and listed the shipping address as a lab at the Swiss University. According to the datasheets for those parts, the electronic components had aerospace applications. On or about September 11, 2019, SADEGHI sent ABEDINI U.S. Company 1 proprietary information relating to the requirements for a potential project.

ABEDINI left Switzerland and returned to Iran approximately one week later, on or about September 17, 2019. Based on my training and experience and the results of this investigation, including the facts set forth herein, I believe that ABEDINI took the U.S. technology, which had not been publicly released, and the U.S.-origin electronic components with him to Iran, in violation of U.S. export control and sanctions laws.

The project was to develop a Windows-based monitoring system for evaluating how Analog Devices components - including sensors of the type used in Iranian drone guidance systems - would work with customers' existing software. The two companies finally signed a contract in 2021 - even Iranian drone work slowed due to Covid-19.

One the project was underway, however, the two principals had a problem: How to conceal the fact that the Iranians working on the project were actually in Iran, rather than Switzerland when they participated in phone calls or video discussions with Analog employees in Massachusetts?

financial records kept by ABEDINI indicate that, on multiple occasions, ABEDINI purchased Virtual Private Network ("VPN") services for Illumove and categorized the purchases as for the "[U.S. Company 1] Project." VPNs create a secure connection between a user's device and a remote server, which masks a user's IP address and location. Based on my training and experience, I know that VPN services are often used in criminal enterprises to obfuscate the location of a user's device, and I have reason to believe that SDRA [the Iranian company Illumove was a front for] employees, including ABEDINI, were utilizing VPN services to mask their location while working on the U.S. Company 1 project in Iran.

The work also caused some tension at Abedini's Iranian company, at least with one employee, who objected to getting paid in American dollars when he was actually in Iran.

The affidavit continues:

On at least fourteen occasions between in or about March 2022 and April 2024, U.S. Company 1 also shared U.S. Company 1 technology, including datasheets for U.S. Company 1 electronic components—many of which had not yet been released to the public—with ABEDINI while ABEDINI is believed to have been in Iran. For example, on or about December 21, 2023, an employee at U.S. Company 1 emailed ABEDINI's Illumove email account and attached five datasheets for U.S. Company 1 electronic components, three of which were marked as "Confidential." One of those components, which has navigational and direction-finding capabilities, is listed as ECCN 7A994 and is regulated by the Department of Commerce under the “Antiterrorism” designation. At the time U.S. Company 1 sent ABEDINI the five datasheets, travel records indicate that ABEDINI was located in Iran. ...

Throughout the course of the project with U.S. Company 1, ABEDINI also used Illumove to transfer U.S.-origin goods to Iran—goods that he could not have shipped directly to Iran due to U.S. export controls and sanctions laws. Since in or about May 2022, U.S. Company 1 has made at least ten direct shipments of U.S. Company 1 electronic components to ABEDINI at the registered address for Illumove in Switzerland—which is an address at the Swiss university. The shipments from U.S. Company 1 have included integrated circuits, sensors, and evaluation boards for multiple U.S. Company 1 parts. For example, U.S. Company 1 shipped accelerometers, gyroscopes, and inertial measurement units, certain of which have navigation and UAV applications.

And so, the affidavit concludes:

On January 28, 2024, shortly after 5:00 a.m. local time, three U.S. servicemembers were killed and more than 40 others were injured when a drone, later identified as a Shahed-101P One-Way Unmanned Aerial System, struck living quarters at a U.S. military outpost in Jordan (Tower 22).

The drone that struck the Tower 22 site and resulted in the death of the U.S. servicemembers was recovered and was analyzed by the FBI's Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center ("TEDAC").

Among other things, TEDAC was able to extract data from the microcontroller found on the drone that struck Tower 22. The data extraction reflected that the navigation system used in the drone: (i) was manufactured by [Abedini's Iranian company]; (ii) the device was listed as "SPHR"; and (iii) the navigation system operated using the Sepehr v.1.43.023 firmware. Based on TEDAC's analysis, as well as other evidence in this case, there is probable cause to believe that the drone that struck the Tower 22 site and resulted in the death of U.S. servicemembers utilized the same Sepehr Navigation System that SDRA routinely sold and continues to sell to the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] Aerospace Force, which ... is the strategic missile, air, and space force within the IRGC that also serves as the primary operator of Iran's fleet of UAVs.

Innocent, etc.

A federal judge today sentenced a surgeon who specializes in kidney transplants at Wuhan General Hospital in China to 20 months - and ordered him to give up some $1.6 million in seized funds from American banks - for his role in funneling money from illegal steroid sales in Massachusetts and elsewhere back to China.

Dr. Zhendi Wang has spent roughly 17 months locked up pending the disposition of his case in US District Court in Boston, which means he could be free in another three months, with the condition he return to China.

Wang was arrested at the San Francisco airport in July, 2023, before he could board a plane back to China after a vacation with his wife - also a doctor - and son that included trips to Yosemite National Park and Disneyland, according to his attorneys, who added in a sentencing memorandum:

Suffice it to say that Dr. Wang made a series of decision that, in retrospect, he deeply regrets. They have caused immeasurable and perhaps permanent damage to him, his family, and his career – and they inadvertently helped further an unlawful enterprise that caused harm to American communities.

According to court records, Wang had set up an account at a bank in Boston on a trip here in 2019 to receive and ship out payments from conspirators who were importing the drugs into the US in general and Massachusetts in particular, according to an affidavit by a deputy Suffolk County sheriff who worked with the DEA on its investigation.

Prosecutors had agreed to a 20-month sentence in a plea deal reached in October.

Cambridge Day reports the arrest of Edward J. Watson, 65, on charges he killed Michelle Miller in 1992 at the behest of her abusive partner.

Michael Halle was at the starting line for yesterday's Bill Rodgers Somerville Jingle Bell Run and Walk, along with Bill Rodgers himself.

CommonWealth Beacon reports Somerville last week became the second city in the state (after neighboring Cambridge) to end the requirement that new housing units be built with a certain minimum of parking.

Fishwrap recounts the story of Axel Andre Bjorklund, a Swedish immigrant who wanted to do something for poor kids at Christmas time and so set up a free hot-dog stand at Blackstone and Hanover streets in the North End in 1921. Desperately poor himself, Bjorklund managed to do this every December until 1929. He died penniless, and was buried in a potter's field in 1930, but after newspapers found out, the Swedish Charitable Society collected donations to give him a proper burial in Cambridge Cemetery.

H/t Dwlyons.

WBUR profiles Freedom House, which has been providing youth services in Roxbury for 75 years.

The Globe reports on the legal victory by Carlo DeMaria whom the Everett Leader Herald called "Kickback Carlo" among other things. A Middlesex Superior Court judge last year froze property owned by paper owner Matthew Philbin and publisher - and writer - Joshua Resnek after concluding DeMaria had a damn good case that the paper was deliberately making crap up about him.

Boston Police report arresting two of the three men they say were piloting a drone dangerously close to Logan Airport Saturday night.

Police say the three men were flying the drone around from a building at Boston's closed shelter complex on Long Island in Boston Harbor, and that the third man managed to flee harbor-unit officers, possibly in the small boat the three are believed to have used to get to the island, which is no longer accessible by land.

Robert Duffy, 42, of Charlestown and Jeremy Folcik, 32, of Bridgewater, are scheduled for arraignment in Dorchester Municipal Court Monday on a charge of trespassing, police say, adding, however, they could face additional charges. In September, federal officials charged a local man with violating national defense airspace for flying a drone over the Boston Marathon finish line.

According to police:

The incident began earlier that evening, at 4:30 PM, when a Boston Police Officer specializing in real-time crime surveillance detected an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operating dangerously close to Logan International Airport. Leveraging advanced UAS monitoring technology, the Officer identified the drone’s location, altitude, flight history, and the operators’ position on Long Island.

Recognizing the serious risks posed by the drone’s proximity to Logan’s airspace, additional resources were mobilized. The Boston Police Department coordinated with Homeland Security, the Massachusetts State Police, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Logan Airport Air Traffic Control to address the situation.

Police say Harbor Patrol officers docked at Long Island around 10:20 p.m. and spotted the three guys:

Two of the three individuals were apprehended and identified as Duffy and Folcik. During the investigation, a drone was discovered inside a backpack carried by Duffy.

The two suspects were transported to District A-1 for booking. A continued search for the third suspect, believed to have fled the island in a small vessel, was conducted by officers and the Massachusetts State Police.

Police add:

Operators are prohibited from flying drones over people or vehicles and must be aware of airspace restrictions. Even small drones pose significant risks, including the potential for catastrophic damage to airplanes and helicopters. Near-collisions can cause pilots to veer off course, putting lives and property at risk.

FAA drone safety guidelines.

Mary Ellen, spending some time in Plymouth, looked up around 6:30 p.m. and spotted a drone flying overhead. No, not a whole flotilla like the ones allegedly peering down on New Jersey, just the one (with apparent white lights on a couple of its tips and a flashing red light on the bottom).

Cambridge Day reports on the impending end of Whitney's, which opened on JFK Street when it was still called Boylston Street.

Boston firefighters responded to 31 Hazelton St. around 3:45 a.m. for what turned into a two-alarm fire.

The Boston Fire Department reports the fire, which burned through the roof, displaced nine adults and five children, but that there were no injuries.

The fire did an estimated $750,000 in damage to the multi-family building.

Volunteers from Boston Sparks, in addition to providing water for firefighters, spread around a lot of rock salt in the sub-freezing temperatures, the department adds.

A man accused by the feds of trying to assemble a collection of explosives in his Dorchester home pleaded guilty yesterday to two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition for his arrest by federal agents at the Ruggles T stop on Thanksgiving, 2020.

Pepo Herd El, also known as Pepo Wamchawi Herd, 51, who espouses Black sovereign-citizen beliefs - including his right to carry weapons - has been held in custody ever since, most recently at a federal prison medical center in Butner, NC, where doctors only declared him "restored to competency" - and so able to face potential trial - last month, according to court records.

El now faces up to ten years in prison at his Jan. 2 sentencing, the US Attorney's office in Boston reports. His time locked up since his arrest would be credited towards whatever sentence he gets.

El was charged as a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition under federal law because of several convictions in 2004, including two for possession of firearms without a license, the US Attorney's office says. He was convicted on Oct. 27 of that year on six total counts, related to an incident in 2003 in which he fired a gun for which he didn't have a license at a tree, and served at least two years locked up, according to court documents.

El was arrested around 1:40 p.m. on Thanksgiving, 2020, after he got off a bus from Dorchester, wearing a bullet-proof vest under a jacket with "Security" written on it and packing "a loaded semi-automatic pistol, a laser sight, three spare magazines, 45 rounds of ammunition, a knife, and an infrared camera," the US Attorney's office says. Agents, who had already put him under surveillance, had a warrant to search him. He allegedly told agents he was on his way to a Thanksgiving dinner.

As he was being arrested, federal agents were raiding El's house on McLellan Street in Dorchester. According to the US Attorney's office:

During a subsequent search of Herd El’s Dorchester residence, another magazine loaded with armor-piercing rounds was recovered. Additionally, various drawings of gun barrel designs, firearms suppressors and bullets were on the apartment walls. In the kitchen and dining area, various tools that could manufacture ammunition were found. A chemistry book containing handwritten notes about the materials needed to make TNT and C-4 was also found.

Five of the bullets were designed to pierce armor, according to his indictment.

In July, 2021, a federal magistrate judge ordered him held pending bail:

Given the extensive amount of weaponry, ammunition and explosives found at the defendant's residence and on his person, the risk to the public if he were to be released is quite great, especially given his erratic emotional behavior. Moreover, given the defendant's repeated assertion that he should not be tried by any court, this court does not believe that he is likely to comply with the court's orders. In addition, given the lengthy sentence the defendant faces, the risk that he will flee is also great.

As psychiatrists at the Butner facility monitored him for his potential competence to stand trial, El filed a number of motions with the judges presiding over his case in Boston, requesting the case be dropped and that he be declared to have a Second Amendment right to carry weapons. He also repeatedly asked that his court appointed attorney be dismissed - and at one point threatened to sue her.

His motions, however, were all dismissed because the judge declined to dismiss his court-appointed attorney and people represented by counsel are not allowed to file their own motions in federal court.

For the second time in two days, a water main along Boylston Street has burst, this time in front of the new office building going in where Shreve, Crump & Low used to be at the corner with Arlington Street, but possibly extending as far down as the benighted and condemned Tannery building several doors down.

Chris Gervais forwarded photos from co-workers across the street of the scene around 1:30 p.m. - about 45 minutes after Boston firefighters first responded to the scene and immediately put in a request for Boston Water and Sewer Commission crews to do something about the broken 12-inch main.

Some of the water, naturally, poured into the Arlington Green Line stop, where it got on the inbound tracks.

Just yesterday, a BWSC main burst on St. Cecilia Street, just off Boylston, cutting off water to Berklee College.

The scene outside the Tannery:

The long view:

Transit Police report arresting the 29-year-old driver of a Toyota they say turned onto the inbound Green Line tracks at Brigham Circle around 3 a.m. and then didn't get very far and remained on scene so that officers could determine enough signs of intoxication to warrant an OUI arrest.

This was a week after another Toyota driver allegedly did the same basic thing on the Green Line at Coolidge Corner.

Goldman Sackler went for a walk along Leverett Pond early yesterday afternoon and noticed this EPA Emergency Response SUV parked in the lot between the pond and the Brook House condo complex.

Officials have said the oil that coated ducks and geese - and caused a nauseous odor - as far downstream as the MFA - apparently came from a culvert that runs by the Brook House, but have not yet said whether the complex was the source or whether the oil came from elsewhere along the culvert.

Meanwhile, Jamaica Plain and Brookline residents who have continued to patrol the river looking for more affected waterfowl say Wednesday's torrents seemed to have flushed much of the oil out of the river - which possibly means it's not in the much larger Charles River, into which the Muddy sluggishly flows via Charlesgate.

The New England Wildlife Center, which has been gathering up and treating oil-coated birds, reports (along with a photo of the cutest duck you will see today):

The washing process continues today, over the last two days 13 birds were cleaned and oil free!

To limit stress on the birds our veterinary team administers intranasally a sedative combo that will relax the bird during the long process. It is not possible to fully anesthetize them to spare them the whole ordeal because their body temperature would drop too low in the water and they would become hypothermic. This intranasal sedation is a good alternative as it chills them out but doesn’t put them fully to sleep. Without this protocol they tend to struggle, flapping their wings trying to get away. This can be dangerous and potentially result in injuries to all parties involved. Once the washing is over the medications are reversed and the birds go back to an active behavior.

For the wash itself, to know what concentrations of dawn are needed to fully remove the oil we conduct an feather wash test and wash some of the oiled feathers from the birds in different combinations of dawn dish soap too see which one will remove the oil the best. Which ever combo restores the feather to its original structure best is the winner and the formula we will use to wash the birds. This makes sure we only have to wash each bird once. So what happens to the water we bathe all these contaminated birds in? Well because the water is now contaminated with hazardous material we have to collect all the water from each wash into waste drums that are then collected by Clean Harbors a waste management company. It is not safe to let any of that discarded oil go down the drain. You can imagine how many drums we had to order since we have over 40 birds to wash.

B'nai B'rith Housing last week paid $3 million for the abandoned Bank of America branch on Corinth Street in Roslindale Square - and its parking lot with entrances on Cohasset and Washington streets - according to Suffolk County Registry of Deeds records.

The bank branch closed in 2022. Boston assessors' records show the building went up in 1981.

B'nai B'rith Housing, a non-profit, has yet to say what it's planning for the half-acre site, which has a one-story building in area with a number of three- and four-story buildings - including some buildings that started out with three floors, then owners the top two floors removed to save money in doldrums that started in the 1970s, then added them back as Roslindale Square revived.

It's currently building a senior-citizen apartment building near the Municipal Building on River Street in Hyde Park, with 63 one-bedroom apartments, all to be rented as affordable.

Last year, the organization opened the doors on a 60-unit apartment complex off Baker Street in West Roxbury, where 45 of the apartments are rented to people making no more than 60% of the Boston area median income and the rest rented to people making no more than 90% of that level.

Via the Boston Business Journal.