From The Boston Herald, 8/27/06:
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=154651
Activists eye family ties in unusual rap for skinhead
By Marie Szaniszlo
The attack was brutal, a racially fueled assault by a skinhead.
But on Friday, a Superior Court judge rejected prosecutors’
recommendation that the scion of a prominent local family serve 2
years in jail for attacking two young black women.
Now some civil-rights activists are wondering whether Josiah A.
Spaulding III would have been sentenced to probation if not for his
family ties.
"I would like to think there was not any special consideration given
to him because of who he is," Leonard C. Alkins, head of the Boston
branch of the NAACP, said of the Nov. 22, 2002, beating.
The son of the Wang Center’s CEO and grandson of the Spaulding
Rehabilitation Center’s founder, Spaulding, 26, was sentenced to five
years’ probation for hitting two 17-year-old girls in the head with a
metal baton at the Park Street MBTA station.
Detectives later found racist paraphernalia and literature, including
Nazi regalia, in his storage facility.
Judge Charles Spurlock also ordered him to perform 200 hours of
community service at a homeless shelter and to visit both the African
Meeting House on Beacon Hill and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington, D.C. He also was ordered to have five racist tatoos
removed.
"Given the violence of the incident, it was surprising the sentence
did not include any jail time," said Andrew Tarsy of the
Anti-Defamation League.
"But just going for a (museum) visit isn’t enough to have a
transformative effect," Tarsey said.
"He’s clearly a person with serious issues. And the victims cannot be
forgotten."
_______________________________________________________
http://www.dailyfreepress.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=f09c63c6-251f-4e7e-9bc3-bab44200ca5b
Formerly of Hamilton, Spaulding is the son of Josiah Spaulding Jr.,
the president and CEO of the Wang Center, a popular center for the
arts in Boston, and grandson to Josiah Spaulding, a former Republican
candidate for Senate who also founded the Spaulding Rehabilitation
Center.
Harry
.
|
