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HAVERHILL — The former head of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority admitted Tuesday that he was driving drunk when he crashed his SUV into two parked cars in August. Matthew Amorello was ordered to give up his driver's license for 45 days and to pay more than $500 in fines. Under his admission to "sufficient facts" to charges of operating under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident, Amorello did not plead guilty, but acknowledged that if the case went to trial, there would be sufficient evidence for a jury to convict. Judge Stephen Abany continued his case without...

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...

Matthew Amorello, the disgraced former “Big Dig” honcho who resigned after a fatal tunnel collapse, was arrested for drunken driving early yesterday morning in Haverhill, police said. Amorello, 52, of Wenham was arrested about 2 a.m. on River Street near a tire shop. He was taken to the Bailey Boulevard police station and booked for operating under the influence as well as two counts of leaving the scene of property damage, police said. Police would not say whether Amorello submitted to a breathalyzer nor would they discuss details of the police report. He was held in the lockup until about...

Exclusive An ambulance racing to get a heart attack victim to the hospital was snagged in Big Dig tunnel gridlock, turning what should have been a four-minute trip into a desperate 24-minute ordeal that ended with the man’s death, public safety and transportation sources said. (snip) A police escort led the ambulance through the westbound Ted Williams Tunnel and onto surface streets through South Boston, a transportation source said. A public safety source said, however, that due to gridlock in the westbound side, the ambulance was led through the eastbound side of the I-90 Seaport connector tunnel, which was closed...

BOSTON --Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Chairman Matthew Amorello, under fire since part of a Big Dig tunnel collapsed..... agreed Thursday to resign after weeks of pressure on him to step aside----when 12 tons of ceiling panels fell from a Big Dig tunnel, crushing a passing car and killing the passenger. Amorello's resignation will be effective Aug. 15, but he will continue to receive his $223,000 annual salary through Feb. 15. Romney has said Amorello has "substantially mismanaged" the Big Dig......has long been critical of Amorello, a fellow Republican appointed by Romney's predecessor, and has repeatedly called on him to resign. The...

online exclusive Fat Matt Amorello was a complete boob to the bitter end. Two weeks ago today, he had a deal on the table that would have paid him through the end of the 2007 fiscal year - $223,000. Here it is, exactly 14 days later. The bloated fool spent upwards of $1 million on white-shoed lawyers, and he ends up with a deal by which he leaves the payroll on Feb. 15, 4 1/2 months earlier than under the first deal. So Fat Matt is out $85,000 - and it cost him a million bucks to lose the money,...

BOSTON It will be at least "a couple of months" before problems in the entire Big Dig highway system are repaired and the roads reopened, Gov. Mitt Romney said on Sunday, the same day another ramp was closed to traffic because of what he called a "systemic failure." The work in the tunnel closed Sunday, a quarter-mile-long ramp, is expected to last at least several days and comes nearly a week after the collapse that crushed a car carrying Milena Del Valle, 38. The closure was ordered because of potential problems with 40 of the bolts that hold up the...

BOSTON — While much of this city worried Thursday about driving through the new underground highway system known as the Big Dig, the fallout from Monday's fatal ceiling collapse in a connector tunnel escalated. Gov. Mitt Romney announced he was filing emergency legislation to take control of the investigation into the accident, in which 12 tons of concrete crushed a woman to death as she rode to Logan International Airport with her husband. The Legislature quickly passed the Republican governor's plan, and Romney said he would sign the measure today. Atty. Gen. Tom Reilly pressed forward with a criminal case...

Problems ignored in rush to wrap it up: Defects noted in ‘01 Big Dig officials discovered defects in a crucial metal support as they were pushing to wrap up construction of I-90 tunnel ceilings in 2001, but did not make substantial design changes amid a growing concern about the project’s escalating costs, secret documents obtained by the Herald reveal. The supports used for the concrete ceiling panels that collapsed this week and killed 38-year-old Milena Del Valle were not fully weather-protected or fabricated to contract standards - a deficiency reported to the lead contractor, project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and the...

BOSTON -- A Boston law firm has agreed to represent the state for free as Gov. Mitt Romney seeks to remove Matthew Amorello as chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority following the death this week of a turnpike motorist. WilmerHale -- the entity resulting from the merger of Hale & Dorr of Boston and Wilmer Cutler & Pickering of Washington -- has agreed to represent the state on a pro bono basis, according to Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's communications director. Amorello is expected to be represented by the Turnpike Authority. A WilmerHale spokeswoman was researching the...

Some say chief of turnpike will pay political price By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | July 12, 2006 The Legislature has frequently rallied behind Matthew J. Amorello during his stormy tenure as chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, but yesterday he had few defenders on Beacon Hill. Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, who has been an Amorello ally, refused repeated requests to comment about Amorello, a former Republican senator known for his ties to his former colleagues in the State House. Six lawmakers and legislative staff members who were interviewed said privately that Amorello will pay a political price in...