A Suffolk Superior Courtroom choose denied a movement from Marie Theodat, embattled human sources director of the Boston Water and Sewer Fee, who sought to delay her mortgage dispute trial from subsequent week to after the brand new yr.
Theodat, who on this 2020 case is charged with stiffing a lady out of a $75,000 mortgage mortgage, filed an emergency movement on Nov. 7 to proceed the related trial that was set to start on Monday to a “handy date” after Jan. 1, 2025, on account of a change in legal professional that she mentioned would have put her at a “drawback” in court docket.
“Upon overview and after listening to, the movement is allowed partially,” Superior Courtroom Choose Rosemary Connolly dominated on Wednesday, per a posting on the trial court docket docket. “The court docket will delay the beginning of the trial by at some point, till Nov. 19 … In any other case, the movement is (denied).”
A ultimate pre-trial convention was held on Wednesday, and was continued to Monday. A jury trial is slated to start out the subsequent day, per the docket.
Theodat, who can also be embroiled in a civil lawsuit, filed in Superior Courtroom in August, that accuses her of working with kinfolk to swindle her aged and dementia-ridden uncle out of his $1.1 million Dorchester residence, had argued in her movement that her new legal professional’s lack of familiarity with the 2020 lawsuit would have damage her possibilities in court docket.
Her new illustration, Jeanette Lucey, is from the identical regulation agency, Davids & Cohen, as her prior legal professional. Theodat, per her movement, sought a change in counsel as a result of departure of her prior legal professional, Eric Loeffler, from the agency.
Lucey filed her first look on behalf of Theodat within the 2020 case on Oct. 10, in accordance with court docket paperwork. The emergency movement houses in on excellent discovery paperwork that weren’t produced, as requested by Lucey, final month.
“With out the responses to the correctly served discovery she and her counsel will probably be at an obstacle in defending towards the claims on this motion the place she disputes plaintiff’s declare that she executed a promissory word and mortgage settlement in reference to a mortgage of $75,000 that plaintiff allegedly made to her,” Theodat’s movement states.
The movement goes on to argue that the “pursuits of justice, equity and fairness require that the plaintiff and codefendant,” Gertha Pierre and Ernst Guerrier, “reply to the correctly and well timed served discovery and abhor trial by ambush.”
Guerrier, the legal professional who represented Pierre within the mortgage transaction and was dealing with malpractice allegations within the lawsuit, is not a defendant within the case. He’ll probably be a witness within the upcoming trial, and has filed a counter-claim towards Theodat saying that she ought to pay “no matter he was on the hook for,” Michael Keohane, Pierre’s legal professional within the lawsuit, beforehand instructed the Herald.
The Herald’s requests for remark from the attorneys for either side of the case, Keohane and Lucey, weren’t returned on Wednesday.
A take a look at the court docket docket exhibits Theodat sought a delay within the trial proceedings final yr as properly, which was additionally denied.
Theodat filed a movement on March 21, 2023 that sought to “dismiss, or within the different” proceed the trial “for lack of prosecution,” and what she alleged was the plaintiff’s failure to “effectuate well timed service” upon her. Pierre did “nothing to advance her claims towards” Theodat for “practically three years after the case was filed,” the movement states.
The 2 excellent civil lawsuits towards Theodat, each of which had been reported for the primary time by the Herald, led a trio of unions representing Boston Water and Sewer Fee workers to press the company final month to analyze and droop Theodat, the human sources director, whereas the instances are energetic.
The unions, SEIU Native 888, IAM Native 100 and OPEIU Native 6, despatched a letter to the fee’s govt director, Henry Vitale, after receiving “a number of feedback and complaints from members associated to costs” filed within the two fits.
Within the letter, the unions had expressed issues with Theodat’s continued entry to workers’ delicate info, reminiscent of banking numbers, routing info and social safety numbers, and had “strongly” steered that such info be transferred to the company’s authorized division for safekeeping.
“They took our suggestions, however they’re not appearing accordingly,” Thomas McKeever, president of SEIU Native 888, instructed the Herald Wednesday. “All my members knew that we had been having a sit-down with Boston Water and Sewer management and I believe that all of them independently know that it seems that Boston Water and Sewer will not be taking any measures because it pertains to our suggestions.”
A spokesperson for the Boston Water and Sewer Fee beforehand instructed the Herald that the company had been in “intensive contact with union representatives” whereas declining to remark additional.
The spokesperson declined to remark once more on Wednesday, and refused to supply the assertion the fee had launched to the Boston Globe when it reported on the unions’ letter two weeks after the Herald.
In an announcement, per the Globe report, the Fee mentioned that Theodat “has been a valued worker for a number of years and is answerable for modernizing our human sources system.”
“Whereas we all the time take our worker suggestions critically, these are unsupported allegations in a personal authorized matter that will probably be addressed via the right discussion board,” the Fee’s assertion reportedly learn.
Together with the case set to go to trial subsequent week, Theodat is embroiled in a more moderen lawsuit the place she is alleged to have “fraudulently induced” her 88-year-old uncle and the plaintiff Rodolphe St. Cloud, to signal over the deed to his $1.1 million Dorchester residence for “lower than $100” underneath the “guise” that he was signing paperwork associated to his medical care.
St. Cloud doesn’t learn or converse English and has superior dementia, per the lawsuit. Theodat, in a previous name with the Herald, known as the criticism “fraudulent.”
Theodat’s annual wage at BWSC, per a spokesperson, is roughly $189,958.
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