B4 Metro The Boston Globe FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019
plosions in Lawrence, North
Andover, and Andover.
Columbia Gas discovered in
July that two abandoned ser-
vice lines might not have been
capped properly or identified in
compliance with government
regulations, according to Scott
Ferson, a company spokesman.
As a result, hundreds of resi-
dents and business owners are
being contacted to schedule yet
another utility inspection
around the grim anniversary.
Columbia Gas officials insisted
that the public is not at risk.
But for many residents, the tim-
ing made it hard not to worry.
“This is troubling news,”
said Rosemary Smedile, a
North Andover selectwoman
who has yet to move back into
her house, which was nearly
destroyed by fire. “It's causing a
sense of uneasiness among the
people in the neighborhood.
They’re asking, ‘Do I need to
get out of my house?’ ”
Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera
rebuked the utility, which fed-
eral safety investigators faulted
for the explosions and fires that
displaced 8,000 people, for not
notifying the state until
Wednesday.
“While Columbia Gas insists
there is no immediate threat to
public safety, I do not believe
they are a credible source,” Ri-
vera said. “Since this oversight
begs the question, ‘What other
compliance was overlooked or
safety measures missed?’ ”
Rivera said he had been in
contact with state regulators to
discuss potential safety mea-
sures.
On Wednesday, the state De-
partment of Public Utilities or-
dered Columbia Gas to “con-
duct leak surveillance that en-
sures public safety in all of the
areas where the abandoned ser-
vices are located” and provide
the state with daily updates.
The utility was also told to
provide DPU with the location
of leaks within a half-mile of
uLAWRENCE
Continued from Page B
abandoned services.
“If Columbia Gas of Massa-
chusetts fails to carry out any of
these orders, it may be assessed
penalties up to $1 million per
violation,” DPU chairman Mat-
thew Nelson said.
Rivera called on the state to
fine the utility $33 million im-
mediately — $1 million per day
for the last 33 days that “they
sat on this information and did
not communicate with DPU or
any of the communities.”
Columbia Gas discovered
the compliance issues in a re-
view of paperwork, Ferson said.
“We recognize that our cus-
tomers have been through a dif-
ficult year as we conducted the
recovery and restoration work
in these communities,” said
Mark Kempic, president of Co-
lumbia Gas of Massachusetts.
“We understand that additional
work may frustrate them, and
we apologize.”
The National Transporta-
tion Safety Board, in a prelimi-
nary report, has said that a Co-
lumbia Gas engineer failed to
account for a critical sensor in a
line that was being replaced.
Once the line was disconnect-
ed, the sensor detected a loss in
gas pressure that caused the
system to pump a huge amount
of gas into live lines.
The disaster led to a $million settlement by Columbia
Gas and NiSource, its parent
company, of all class-action
lawsuits. The settlement will be
used to pay about 147,000 eligi-
ble residents and more than
10,000 businesses.
The agreement is separate
from $80 million paid to the
three municipalities, and a con-
fidential settlement with the
family of Leonel Rondon, an
18-year-old who died when a
chimney toppled onto a car he
was sitting inside.
Rivera said that settlements
and apologies are not enough.
In an interview at his office this
week, the mayor said that com-
pany executives failed in their
response to the crisis.
“They could have put a little
more heart in the process,” he
said.
Rivera and others said the
emotional toll of the explosions
will linger long after the physi-
cal reconstruction has ended.
“Psychologically, we’ll feel
out of whack,” he said.
That same afternoon,
Tuongvi Huynh began crying at
City Hall. Ever since Columbia
Gas replaced her boiler and fur-
nace, the temperature of her
shower has fluctuated quickly
between scalding hot and
numbing cold, she said.
Huynh, who lives with twoelderly parents, said she had
contacted Columbia Gas about
once a month since November,
but that the problem was never
fixed.
Finally, this week, the com-
pany told her in an e-mail that
it is not responsible for valve is-
sues, Huynh said.
“I trusted them,” Huynh
said. “I’m so upset. It’s too, too
much for me. It’s almost a year
with the same problem.”
Columbia Gas officials said
they would not comment on a
specific claim, but added that
Huynh could contact a third-
party ombudsman with her
concern.
Some repercussions of the
explosions are difficult to quan-
tify. Executive director Susan
Sirois of Bread & Roses, which
offers meals and other services
to the hungry, said she believes
the number of homeless has in-
creased.
“For a lot of people, that will
be the defining moment of
their lives,” Sirois said. “That
took trauma they could cope
with and turned it into trauma
they can’t survive.”
At Lawrence High School,
facilities employee Cindy Hef-
ner said she thinks about the
explosions every day. She
thinks about huddling with
many of the school’s 3,000 stu-dents in the ball field. She
thinks about a phone call from
her 7-year-old grandson, who
told her, “Please, Grandma,
leave now. I don’t want you to
die.”
At Moderno Appliance &
Furniture in Lawrence, co-own-
ers Suzanne Carey-Fernandez
and Victor Fernandez said their
business might feel a financial
hit for five years because of lost
sales and service business.
“We’re still living through it,
honestly,” said Derek Mitchell,
executive director of the Law-
rence Partnership, an economic
development nonprofit group.
“When people started opening
their doors again, the media
went away.”
Kempic, the Columbia Gas
president, said much remains
to be done.
“We have a lot of room to go
in getting our customers to
trust us,” Kempic said. “I think
when we have interactions with
one customer, we see a lot of
growth there in that level of
trust. But overall in the com-
munity, there’s still a lot to
grow.”Brian MacQuarrie can be
reached at brian.macquarrie@
globe.com. Milton Valencia can
be reached at milton.valencia@
globe.com.compiled pointed out, they cov-
er relatively short distances and
“do not necessarily provide suf-
ficient travel time savings to
achieve their objectives.”
“Enforcement appears to be
an issue, at least for the HOV
lane on the north side of Bos-
ton,” the report added.
But that didn’t even scratch
the surface, at least how Pollack
described it.
Speaking Tuesday at a meet-
ing of the Local Government
Advisory Commission, Pollack
told municipal officials she was
“shocked” to learn that drivers
had resorted to using a Twitter
group to alert each other when
police were monitoring the
HOV lanes, the State House
News Service reported.
“And,” Pollack said, “we
think as much as 80 or 90 per-
cent of the traffic is actually just
individual people in cars, and
it’s not functioning as a car-pool
lane.”
Pressed about those figures,
Department of Transportation
officials said Thursday that Pol-
lack was making an “anecdotal
reference” to the use of the
HOV lane north of Boston,
through Somerville and Med-
ford.
That car-pool lane has been
temporarily opened to all vehi-
cles “as a congestion relief”
while construction crews work
on the Tobin Bridge and Route
1, which feeds traffic into the
city from the north, MassDOT
spokeswoman Jacquelyn God-
dard said.Actual figures show far few-
er car-pool lane violators than
what Pollack cited, according to
a 2017 study of morning traffic
on I-93, north and south. It was
conducted by the Central Trans-
portation Planning Staff, which
works under the Boston Region
Metropolitan Planning Organi-
zation.
According to its count of the
4,092 cars that used the HOV
lanes heading into Boston on a
morning that June, 738 of
them, or about 18 percent, had
only one person in them,
though the share of scofflaws
north of the city, 24 percent,
was somewhat higher.
More than 72 percent of the
cars between both the north-
bound and southbond HOV
lanes carried two people.
Chris Dempsey, director of
the advocacy coalition Trans-
portation for Massachusetts,
said that figures aside, the im-
plication “behind the secre-
tary’s statement remains valid,”
and MassDOT needs to better
manage the HOV lanes — be it
through technology or through
enforcement.
“Whether the status quo is
15 percent or 90 percent, the
goal should be zero percent,”
Dempsey said. “The point of
HOV lanes is to reward bus rid-
ers and car-poolers for taking
up less space on our crowded
roads and reducing congestion.
We’re only going to solve our
worst-in-the-nation congestion
if we start moving more people
in fewer vehicles.”
State officials have said
they’re committed to reexamin-
ing car-pool lanes, given that
there hasn’t been a comprehen-
sive effort to consider adding
more since the state was plan-
ning the Big Dig in the 1990s.
That now includes launch-
ing a “yearlong” process of
identifying potential places for
a network of HOV lanes and
commuter park-and-ride lots
that could allow drivers to get
out of their cars sooner and on-
to buses or shuttles to finish the
trip into the city.Matt Stout can be reached at
[email protected].uHOVLANE
Continued from Page Bjury’s investigation into the
matter by manipulating sub-
poenaed records. Lynch also al-
legedly lied to investigators, ac-
cording to federal authorities.
They also face numerous
other counts, including charges
of racketeering conspiracy,
racketeering, fraud, and fraud
conspiracy. Each of those charg-
es provides for a sentence of up
to 20 years in prison, according
to federal authorities.
Pullman’s lawyer, Martin G.
Weinberg, said Pullman “cate-
gorically denies today’s charges.
In short, there were no bribes,
no kickbacks, no embezzlement
of union funds, and certainly
no racketeering. He welcomes
his opportunity to demonstrate
his innocence in a future trial.”
A message left with Lynch’s
attorney was not immediately
returned Thursday evening.
Last month, a lawyer represent-
ing Lynch said “she intends to
vigorously fight the allegations
uPULLMAN
Continued from Page B
against her.”
SPAM, Pullman’s former
union, said in a Thursday state-
ment, “If this new indictment’s
allegations are proven true, it
means the dues of our hard-
working members were used
for personal, selfish and inap-
propriate purposes for at least
the past five years.”
A State Police spokesman
said the alleged conduct “repre-
sents serious offenses and vio-
lates the ideals of the Massa-
chusetts State Police.”
The agency has cooperated
with the federal probe and will
continue to do so, the spokes-
man said.
It is alleged that, in a kick-
back scheme, Pullman know-
ingly and fraudulently con-
cealed a $20,000 bribe and
kickback after his union had se-
cured a multimillion dollar set-
tlement with the state over
compensation for State Police
employees who had worked
scheduled days off. Pullman
and Lynch helped negotiate thesettlement, and after it was
reached Lynch allegedly wrote
a $20,000 check to Pullman’s
spouse.
Lynch’s lobbying firm —
Lynch Associates Inc. — ulti-
mately recorded that payment
as a “consulting fee” even
though “neither Pullman nor
his spouse ever did any consult-
ing work for the firm,” accord-
ing to the indictment. Pullman
omitted the payment as income
on his 2014 joint personal tax
return, according to prosecu-
tors.
Lynch Associates Inc. has
said that Anne Lynch is no lon-
ger affiliated with the company,
and has had no ownership in-
terest in the firm since 2016, al-
though she did perform con-
sulting services for “a limited
number of clients until 2018.”
It is alleged that in another
scheme, the lobbying firm cut
Pullman a $5,000 check for di-
recting a company to the firm.
The company had marketed
smart weapons to State Police,and Pullman pressured a com-
pany employee to hire Lynch
and her lobbying firm, federal
authorities said. Lynch’s com-
pany also cut Pullman a $5,
check in exchange for him di-
recting a company that was
marketing software programs
and records management sys-
tems to the lobbying firm, pros-
ecutors said.
In 2016, two payments top-
ping $11,000 were made to
Pullman or his spouse in con-
nection with Pullman’s involve-
ment in facilitating a business
relationship between Lynch’s
lobbying firm and an attorney
who was trying to obtain a mar-
ijuana dispensary license with
the state, according to investi-
gators. The attorney in question
was on retainer for the State Po-
lice union, the indictment said.
Since Pullman’s resignation
in September 2018, the union
has been in turmoil. The new
president, Mark Lynch, is fac-
ing a recall vote next week after
more than 500 union memberssigned a petition accusing
Lynch of not keeping the mem-
bership informed or advocating
on behalf of the 1,900 mem-
bers.
The union has already spent
more than $900,000 on legal
fees for union members who
have been questioned by feder-
al authorities in connection
with this case.
The corruption charges are
the latest scandal involving the
troubled State Police, which has
been rocked by accusations that
dozens of troopers collected pay
for hours they never worked.
The scandals have implicat-
ed 46 troopers; eight have
pleaded guilty to embezzlement
charges and two others face
charges.Andrea Estes can be reached at
[email protected]. Matt
Rocheleau can be reached at
[email protected]. Danny McDonald can be
reached at
[email protected].
By Travis Andersen
GLOBE STAFF
Felicity Huffman’s high-
powered legal team on Wednes-
day pushed back against the
government’s contention that
the “Desperate Housewives”
star deserves a month in prison
for her role in the college ad-
missions cheating scandal,
which enraged the public and
sparked heated debates about
the often intractable class di-
vide in higher education.
Huffman, 56, faces sentenc-
ing Friday in federal court in
Boston for paying $15,000 to
change her daughter’s SAT
scores. Prosecutors said recent-
ly in a filing that the celebrated
actress, who also floored critics
with her gutsy performance in
the film “Transamerica,” should
spend a month behind bars and
cited a number of other fraud
cases where defendants were
locked up.
In a response filing, Huff-
man attorney Martin F. Mur-
phy, wrote that the cases prose-
cutors cited were very different
from the matter involving his
celebrity client.
Huffman’s team wants
Judge Indira Talwani to sen-
tence the actress to one year of
probation, 250 hours of com-
munity service, and a $20,fine.
“The defendants in the cases
the government cites were also
typically the masterminds of
the schemes—the equivalent of
Rick Singer in this case,” wrote
Murphy,alawyerwiththeBos-
ton firm Foley Hoag LLP. “And
in the cases the government
cites, individuals like Ms. Huff-
man—retail customers of the
scheme’s ringleader—were of-
ten not prosecuted at all.”
Singer has admitted to or-
chestrating the breathtaking
college scam, in which wealthy
parents cut fat checks to have
their kids falsely classified as
athletic recruits at fancy
schools, paving the way for ad-
mission, or, as in Huffman’s
case, to have SAT scores fraudu-lently inflated.
Huffman was never impli-
cated in the recruit ruse.She tearfully pleaded guilty
in May to conspiracy to commit
mail fraud and honest services
mail fraud, telling Talwani that
she wanted to “apologize to the
students who work hard every
day to get into college, and to
their parents who make tre-
mendous sacrifices to support
their children and do so honest-
ly.”
Huffman added, “My daugh-
ter knew absolutely nothing
about my actions, and in my
misguided and profoundly
wrong way, I have betrayed
her.”Travis Andersen can be reached
at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter
@TAGlobe.Huffman’s lawyers argue against incarceration
Prosecutors seek
1 month in jail in
admissions case
ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE
Felicity Huffman paid to
have her daughter’s SAT
scores inflated.HOVlane
scofflaws
notrife,
afterall
Cities still
recovering
from gas
explosions
FormerStatePoliceunionpresident,lobbyistindicted
Actual figures
show far fewer
car-pool lane
violators than
what Secretary
Pollack cited.
LANE TURNER/GLOBE STAFF
Anh Tran must wash dishes with cold water, which hurts her sensitive hands with winter approaching.