THE

JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 2012

STURBRIDGETIMES
THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVING

MAGAZINE

MUSINGS FROM LONG HILL

MITT ROMNEYS PROFILE IN COURAGE

BY RICHARD MURPHY

LEGAL
BRIEF

ROBERT A. GEORGE, ESQ.

STURBRIDGE ATTORNEY

O NT H LY
FO R

H E

E GA L

R E AD ER S

T U R B R I D G E

DV IC E

O F

I M ES

AGA Z I N E

SHOPPING RULES
Its that time of year when we all look at our pile of presents and think, well, Id like to return the Santa sweat shirt and
mini bonsai tree for cash.
You may not be entitled to cash, but you can bring them
back and, under the law, get exactly what the store that sold
them promised you would get in its return policy.
While stores dont have to accept returns, they do have to
disclose what their return policy is, and, once disclosed, they
have to stick to it.
Most stores agree to give cash for returns as long as you
have the receipt and the return happens within a certain time
from the purchase.
Theyll refund a credit card if you used a credit card, or if
you dont have the receipt at all, theyll give a store credit. They
are allowed to make the credit for the lowest amount that item
sold for, even if the person who gave it to you paid a lot more
for it.
There are a host of other shopper friendly rules that retailers have to follow. For instance, there is an array of pricing
guidelines they have to follow to make sure they arent deceiving their customers.
They cant advertise an item for sale unless they have a
process for making sure the cashier can readily determine the
sales price and the scanner the cashier uses rings it up properly.
The remedy for dealing with a retailer who flaunts these
rules is a lawsuit under the powerful consumer protection
statute.
Its comes from a provision that says if you can prove a retailer violated its own return policy, and then refused to make
good, you might win three times the cost of that Santa shirt
you tried to return, plus legal fees.

18 THE STURBRIDGE TIMES MAGAZINE

hunt. We caught Harry and Hermione and burned them in

After my column of lse-majest against Elizabeth Warren
the seventeenth century. Of course, Cotton Mather had the
I promised to lay into a Republican. Here it is.
Bible. Our brand of inquisitors have the DSM IV (Diagnostic
The silly season is upon us and will last several months. It
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
will be a period wherein a number of men and a woman or
We no longer burn witches at the stake, but we do sometwo will say anything as they seek the highest office in the land.
times sentence those charged with ritual abuse to state prison.
Yes, another presidential primary campaign has started.
Gerald Tooky Amirault, the son of the
Massachusetts has a favorite son in the
Fells Acres Day Cares owner, spent 18 years
fight. He was not a native, but spent his prothere.
fessional life in the Commonwealth. Our
For the prosecution team, it was all good
former governor, Mitt Romney, worked
career-wise. L. Scott Harshbarger, the D.A.,
hard and smart and attained great wealth
became attorney general and Susan Kelley,
due to his competent management of Bain
the chief inquisitor, stepped in to lead up
Capital, a private equity firm. He has a grasp
Boston Colleges school of nursing, where
of finance you and I can only envy. In my
she may very well have continued to proview, Romney is probably the most ablemote the existence of ritual abuse.
minded person among the current contestPlus a, well you know.
ants.
Eventually, the turn-around started on
To make the point I hope to make in this
the Amirault case. People took another look
essay, I ask you to travel back with me to the
Ben Baker/Redux
Former Gov. Mitt Romney
and asked why the secret room where hor1980s, when accusations were made against
rible things took place was never found. It
the Fells Acres Day Care Center in Malden,
was not like the Fells Acre house was the Labyrinthe. The
MA, where located north of Boston of bizarre satanic happrosecutors never really answered any questions. They just
penings. Testimony was extracted from children at the point
kept repeating that the Amiraults were guilty.
of therapy. A mother, her son and daughter were shipped to
In time, many people recognized that the case was born of
prison. I remember the hysteria. I remember one of my famhysteria and was, thus, without merit, so a campaign began to
ily relating the story with the words, Do you know what they
parole the Amiraults. Unfortunately, lumpen Massachusetts
did? then relating the allegations. I asked what the evidence
never caught up. There were reasons for this.
was and the reply was, Don't you understand what they did?
First, there was the trial and verdict. But if one considers
It was like Nigel in Spinal Tap repeating, This one goes to
the entire sweep of this sad story, one cannot ignore the coneleven.
ditions that fed the gestalt around the situation. To begin
Now, this should have given us pause. After all, we have a
with, children are left off by their parents early in the mornrecord in this state. We did not just have a metaphorical witching until some point in the late afternoon or early evening
five or more days a week. This weighs heavily on parental
minds, so the hint of untoward happenings at a daycare scares
them. When something scares mommy and daddy, it terrifies
certain kinds of politicians.
Mitt Romneys gubernatorial predecessor, the unfortunate
Jane Swift, went against the recommendation of the board of
pardons and refused to let the Amiraults go. This backfired,
for even though the average citizen does not want any alleged
molesters released, those who had heretofore supported the
not overly popular Jane, abandoned her for her abandonment
of principles.
By the time Mitts turn came up at the plate on this, the
mother and sister, objects of pity, had been released. Tooky
continued his sentence, never admitting to his alleged crimes
when doing so would have been to his advantage. Like his
mother and sister, Mr. Amirault refused to attend sex offender
classes rather than implying an admission of guilt. That cost
him too. He stood the test and, if you came to view this fiasco
as nothing more than a witch hunt, he kept his honor. Did
Romney?
I have always disliked people who say things like The
Concludes on page 22
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Organic Wines
Continued from page 14
not, less sulphites are actually needed for red wines. In
the bottling process, sulphites are a heavily debated issue
among organic wine makers, with some vintners favoring them in small amounts, while others choose not to
add any. In the US, wines that have sulphites added cannot be labeled Organic. Wines that have some sulphites added, but are otherwise organic, can carry the
label made with organic grapes. A lot of wines, especially older European wines are organic, yet choose not
to carry the certification for either financial or marketing reasons.
Stellar Winery in South Africa produces a line of
wines that are not only certified Organic, they have
no sulphites added, and as an added bonus, they are

Fair Trade certified. Their 2011 Shiraz has a rich dark

color, a nose of pepper, and plenty of dark fruit flavors,
a perfect pairing with a peppercorn encrusted steak. The
2011 Cabernet Sauvignon has an intense dark ruby
color,with a nose of roasted red pepper and mint with

vanilla in the background combined with dark flavors of

cherry tobacco. The wine has good, firm tannins and
prominent acid. This combination of tannins and acid
is essential to give life to an NSA wine.

Mitt Romneys profile

in courage
Continued from page 18
question is the answer, but in this case, yeah it is. Any
idea that Mr. Clean would take an interest in the case was,
as The Wall Street Journals Dorothy Rabinowitz put it A
wholly unfounded hope as it turned out: Gov. Romneys
office proved more studiously indifferent to all queries related to the case than any previous governor.
It was surprising in that some of the people who solicited him to run did so because of disgust with Swifts actions in the case. This is not to say Romney has no sense
of justice. He deftly kicked around Billy Bulger, former
senate president and brother of Americas most notorious
Irish Mafioso, for improprieties. Rightly so, but of course,
everyone important had abandoned the once powerful
Bulger at that point so there was little cost and some applause.
No, if youre a little guy and your case cries out to
heaven for relief, you will be waiting forever for succor, if
there is a possible downside. Romney had all the evidence
but refused to acknowledge it. He just sat on his hands
until the parole board finally gave it up and let Tooky out.
He let an innocent man rot in jail another year and four
months from the beginning of his term.
On the day the parole board finally announced the
long overdue grant Romney said, The parole board is independent. I am not going to second-guess their decision.
Then he added almost compulsively, There is no crime
more disgusting or revolting than a crime against a child.
This prompted Chip Ford, one of Romneys early supporters to say, I wonder if he unequivocally supports
motherhood, the flag and apple pie too if hed dare take
a stand one way or the other without fear of offending ...
someone?
Mitt is not the worst of the lot. He is, as noted, a competent manager who might run the countrys government
ably, and I doubt there would be horrible scandal during
a Romney administration. As to there being any true decency to the man, I assert advisedly, Past is prologue.
22 THE STURBRIDGE TIMES MAGAZINE

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