A disbarred lawyer accused of milking his purchasers out of some $2 million and who was arrested at Logan Airport with a one-way ticket to Iran has failed in his effort to chop off his GPS monitor.
Benjamin Tariri, 67 or 68, of Waltham, is accused of ripping off eight of his purchasers and looking for a fraudulent mortgage from a ninth that amounted to $1,926,855. Because the justice system works by his case, Tariri has frequently tried to have GPS monitoring faraway from his situations of pretrial launch, an effort that has failed each time and did once more on Thursday earlier than the Supreme Judicial Court docket.
The allegations have been first introduced as a criticism in 2022 to the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers, which suspended him from working towards regulation. He appealed the suspension however was present in contempt of the suspension phrases by a single justice of the SJC, and he was despatched to the county jail till he agreed to be disbarred. The BBO disbarred him in June 2023.
Then got here the prison prices. Tariri was charged in Boston Municipal Court docket’s Roxbury division on Could 21, 2024, with one rely every of larceny over $250 from an individual over 60 or who’s disabled, embezzlement, and intimidating a witness. He was arrested previous safety within the worldwide terminal of Boston Logan Airport with a one-way ticket to his residence nation of Iran, in accordance with courtroom papers.
The Supreme Judicial Court docket notes that there is no such thing as a file that Tariri knew of the investigation or prices pending towards him whereas he was on the airport. However he had ties to the nation and his authorized profession was successfully over anyway since he was disbarred as a consequence of sustained allegations of embezzling from his purchasers.
In September 2024, he was in considerably hotter water when a Suffolk County grand jury indicted him on 20 prices: six counts of fiduciary embezzlement; seven counts of larceny over $1,200; two counts of larceny over $250 from an individual over 60; and 5 counts of making an attempt to impede a civil investigation. Tariri has pleaded not responsible.
Whereas Tariri couldn’t afford the $50,000 bail imposed on him in his BMC arraignment and needed to spend time within the county jail, he was finally granted a bail assessment that lowered it to $30,000, which he paid after gathering cash from family and friends, in accordance with an SJC assessment of his case. As situations of his launch, he needed to give up his United States and Iranian passports and was subjected to digital GPS monitoring that allowed him to be solely in Waltham, the place he was dwelling on the time.
Ever since, Tariri has been making an attempt to get that GPS gadget off him. Whereas each effort to date has failed in that objective, he has been capable of get the inclusion zone expanded. On Aug. 28, 2024, he acquired Allston added to his zone. The Superior Court docket choose stored Waltham and Allston and added Watertown. Finally the zone would develop to additionally embrace Brookline, Newton, Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Stoneham, Wilmington, Cambridge, Somerville, Brighton and Roslindale.
Tariri, the disbarred lawyer who has represented himself since his court-appointed lawyer was allowed to withdraw in late October 2024, argues that the GPS monitor limits his skill to hunt work as a Doordash supply driver, since he has to say no orders that fall exterior his inclusion zone. He additionally says that he’s prevented from visiting his spouse and child, who dwell in East Boston.
His enchantment to the SJC argued two points: that imposing the GPS was a authorized error as a result of “the government cannot show a legitimate state interest in placing a GPS on a 67-year old appellant in a non-violent matter … where there are absolutely no safety or other concerns whatsoever” and that it’s unconstitutional to make use of GPS that “prevents him from entering Boston to earn a livelihood and taking care of his infant son and wife.”
The arguments haven’t satisfied any choose to date.
The SJC in its resolution finds the Commonwealth’s argument that Tariri “presents an extreme risk of flight” as a result of monetary dimension of the fees towards him and that he has deep ties to a different nation which he had a one-way ticket to on the time of his arrest.
So retaining him as removed from the airport as potential is sound, they discover: “if the inclusion zone were further expanded toward Logan Airport, Tariri might reach the airport and depart from the jurisdiction before the probation department had time to fully respond to an alert of a GPS violation.”
Tariri’s argument that he can’t see his spouse and child did additionally not persuade the judges: “the Commonwealth stated that Tariri had not, at least for some period of time leading up to the arraignment, been in touch with his wife, even after he had been released on bail. … Tariri’s wife indicated that she did not, at that time, know where Tariri was living; they were not residing together.”
