Posted on 08/08/2010 9:49:13 PM PDT by raccoonradio
When Haverhill police found the state’s former Big Dig boss Matthew J. Amorello early Saturday morning, he was alone and allegedly disoriented, seated in his smashed up 1999 Ford Explorer in a Mercedes dealership parking lot, police said.
Only three wheels remained on his SUV.
There, in the mostly vacant industrial side of town, the man who oversaw the massive $14.6 billion public works project was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of property damage.
Police said he had hit a 1999 Saab and a 2005 Dodge Magnum as he made his way along River Street. They said they don’t know where he was coming from, or going to.
“He was really out of it, and he didn’t know where he was,” said one Haverhill police officer yesterday, a day after Amorello’s older brother Peter posted the former state senator’s $40 bail.
Leanor Santos told the media yesterday she saw her car get hit.
“All you could see was flames from the car as he was driving away,” she told WCVB Channel 5.
Amorello gave 99 Larch Row in Wenham to police as his address, but public records show he lost that home to foreclosure in January. It’s not clear where Amorello has been living now, but family members say he spent the weekend with one of his eight siblings.
Yesterday, they rallied around him, saying he is a private citizen, who is struggling mightily.
“Leave him alone,” a sister-in-law said. “Enough is enough.”
Amorello, 52, is expected to be arraigned at Haverhill District Court this morning.
It’s been a staggering four years for him, who once moved in the state’s most elite Republican circles.
The Grafton native quit his $223,000 state job in 2006, after a woman was killed inside a Big Dig tunnel when 12 tons of concrete ceiling panels fell on her.
Amorello resigned, but not before redoing his department’s sick leave pay policy, a move that promised to net him $75,000 in cash for sick time he had accrued but never used. The state ethics department fined him $2,000 for the move.
Since then, his life has seemingly unraveled. Relatives said yesterday he’s been unable to find a job and his wife divorced him.
Wow—the Globe story (online) actually admits that the Herald
broke the story. As I understand it, Fat Matt hit some cars on the _other_ side of the road, drove for awhile on three wheel, and it took cops four minutes to get him out of
his car. Will have to check out the Haverhill edition of
the Eagle-Tribune (the Haverhill Gazette is long gone
right?) for more details
OK let’s see
Ex-Turnpike chief arrested for drunken driving in Haverhill
By Mark E. Vogler
HAVERHILL — Matthew Amorello, former head of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, was allegedly drunk and behind the wheel when he struck two cars belonging to residents at 342-344 River St. early Saturday morning.
Leonor Santos, 37, of 344 River St. and Ricardo Martinez, 33, of 342 River St., said they are mad at Amorello for heavily damaging their cars, but thankful he didn’t hit the telephone pole that sits in front of the apartment house.
“I’m just glad nobody got hurt,” Santos said yesterday, as she inspected damage done to the front of her Magnum Dodge. “We’re angry about him being drunk and driving. But thank God he’s OK. I’d rather he hit my car than the pole.”
Amorello, 52, of Wenham, was charged with operating under the influence of liquor and two counts of leaving the scene of property damage. The book-in sheet listed him as unemployed.
Haverhill police did not release any details of the incident yesterday other than the arrest sheet, which showed Amorello being arrested shortly before 3 a.m. Witnesses say Amorello left the scene of the crash and tried to hide in his car in a nearby car dealership.
Miguel Colon, 27, who lives on the third floor of 342 River St., said Amorello also lost one of the wheels on his own car in the accident.
“We went for a walk and found him up the street in the Mercedes car lot,” said Colon, who helped to locate Amorello for police. “He was awake but pretty intoxicated. We just wanted to make sure he was OK.”
Efforts to reach Amorello for comment were unsuccessful. He is scheduled to be arraigned today in Haverhill District Court.
Martinez said he was surprised after being told by a reporter that Amorello was released from jail Saturday morning after posting $40 bail.
“He should bail me out with all the damage he caused to my car. It’s totalled,” Martinez said of his 2002 Saab 9-5. “My car got pushed back about 10 to 15 feet up on the sidewalk. The axle is broken, my lights. Everything is damaged. He hit my car head-on and left one of his tires on my car and drove off.”
Colon was luckier than his neighbors.
“My car was right behind everything, but didn’t get hit,” he said.
Amorello served as chairman of the Turnpike Authority and oversaw the Big Dig project in Boston from 2002 to 2006. He resigned July 27, 2006 at the urging of then-Gov. Mitt Romney after a ceiling tile inside the Ted Williams Tunnel let go, striking a vehicle and killing a 38-year-old Jamaica Plain woman.
What’s a Mercedes dealer doing in a “mostly vacant industrial side of town”?
Isn't this the vehicle that caused all of the rollovers when the tire blew out?
I actually saw a Ford Explorer almost rollover when the front left tire just left the vehicle, and went down the middle meridian. The driver was extremely skillful, and managed to get the vehicle stopped off the road on the right side. He had his whole family inside. Quite scary.
Poss. Jaffarian Volvo, acc. to a google map search? (I bought my own car a bit further to the west at Jaffarian Toyota).
I don’t know if that’s a Mercedes dealer too
3 till 7 est
Glad we can still hear him on the Internet down here in Florida, one of the things we miss about Mass is hearing Howie's show
Gee, Miss Santos, if only you were as angry about your countrymen being drunk and driving, we might just save some American lives.
Geez, memory lane... I went to the old Moody School, right there at the curve, it’s now an apartment building. Played Junior League football for Jaffarian’s Ramblers. We won the league title in 1958.
“We won the league title in 1958.”
1958 was a good year, you won your title, and I was born! Congrats all around!
If I were a Pub trying to administer a project in a Rat state, it might drive me to drink too.
A legacy location?
“He was really out of it, and he didn’t know where he was,” said one Haverhill police officer yesterday, a day after Amorello’s older brother Peter posted the former state senator’s $40 bail.
The jokes just write themselves.
$40? Wow if I’m in that situation I hope it happens in Haverhill...
Some of my now deceased uncles and aunts lived in Hav (2 uncles were firemen) and my dad briefly went to Hav High, allegedly the insp for Riverdale High in Archie comics. Uncles bought cars from Jaffarian as I more recently did.
I remember one cousin had to have his hair shaved off—lice, after swimming in the Merrimack...
At a press conf Amorello couldn’t even get victim’s name right. “Melinda...” It was “Melena”
Across the street.
did not show in court
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/08/hold_for_amorel.html?p1=News_links
Amorello, who missed court appearance, was ‘out of it’ when arrested, police say
By Marissa Lang, Globe Correspondent, and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff
HAVERHILL — Former Mass Pike chairman Matthew Amorello failed to appear in court today to face drunken driving charges, leading a Haverhill District Court judge to issue a default warrant for the man who once oversaw one of the largest public works projects in the state’s history.
A court official told Haverhill District Court Judge Stephen Abany this morning that Amorello is currently hospitalized at the UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. The reason for his hospitalization was not specified in court.
However, a spokeswoman said in a telephone interview that Amorello is not listed in the hospital’s patient database. Citing federal health privacy laws, she could not say whether Amorello had been a patient at any time since his arrest early Saturday morning.
Abany issued a default warrant, which makes him subject to arrest by police. Amorello, or any one else facing a default warrant, can also come into the courthouse on their own.
Amorello still faces arraignment on a drunk driving charge and two counts of leaving the scene after causing property damage.
According to a Haverhill police report filed in court, Amorello was so drunk he slept on the floor of the police station while he was being booked early Saturday morning. Police also said they had to hold up Amorello’s head so a booking photograph could be taken, the report said.
Police also said that after Amorello allegedly smashed into two parked cars, he tried to drive away – even though the front left wheel had fallen off his vehicle. A witness told police he “observed flames shooting from the suspect’s motor vehicle as he was driving without a front left wheel.’’
The first officer on the scene found Amorello sitting behind the wheel of his damaged car in a parking lot on River Street. The officer tried to talk with him, but was unable to do so, the report said.
“He seemed to be out of it,’’ police wrote. When the officer asked Amorello for his license and registration, “all he could say was, ‘come on,’ ‘’ police said in the report.
Officers told Amorello that they wanted him to step out of the vehicle, and order he refused to comply with. Instead, Amorello grabbed hold of the steering wheel, and despite twice being hit with pepper spray in the face, he refused to let go.
Officers dragged him out of his vehicle and then had to drag him across the parking lot to a waiting police cruiser.
“Once he was at the cruiser it took all three of us to get him inside,’’ police said in the report. Amorello is six feet tall and weighs 250 pounds, according to the report. “And all we could do was lay him in the rear seat.’’
Amorello was then taken to the station where he slept through the booking process and had to be dragged to a holding cell, police said. Police said in the report he was charged with drunk driving because he smelled of alcohol, had glassy eyes and could not speak. He was too drunk to be given a chemical breath test, police said.
Amorello was in charge of the Big Dig construction project after he was appointed chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority in 2002. He was forced out by Governor Mitt Romney after a piece of the tunnel ceiling collapsed, killing a woman who was a passenger in a car.
Since then, Amorello founded a company focused on solar energy work and has consulted for it during the last year and a half, his brother said.
Amorello came under fire again in 2009 when the State Ethics Commission fined him for violating the conflict-of-interest law by participating in policy-making decisions while knowing he had a financial interest.
I grew up in Riverside (Riverdale) and actually know most of the guys who were made characters in Archie Comics. Arnie Daggett was “Moose”, lived on Brown St. right around the corner from us...
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