The trial of a Hill woman accused of bilking her employers, student loan companies, and the Social Security Administration out of $250,000 concluded last month with a plea bargain.

Karen Keester, 31, pled guilty to 24 counts of larceny, attempted larceny and identity fraud on December 21 at Suffolk Superior Court. Another 20 counts of uttering, the act of trying to pass a forgery as authentic, were dismissed as an incentive for Keester to enter a plea bargain, according to Jake Wark, spokesperson for District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. “Given the weight of the evidence against her, it was not surprising [that she would accept a plea bargain],” he said.

Keester was committed to Framingham state prison, where she faces a maximum sentence of two years. “The sentence, I think quite frankly, is a fair one,” Wark said. “We are confident that, had the case gone to trial, the Commonwealth would have prevailed.”

According to the prosecution, Keester’s extensive ploys included using her access to company mail and databases as a temp worker to deposit fraudulent checks into her personal accounts and applying for student loans using other people’s personal information.

She has been charged with stealing more than $129,000 from three Boston companies – Barkan Management, CFO Publishing, and Directory M – where she was employed as a temp worker. She is also charged with using her payroll access at Planned Parenthood to write herself bogus paychecks worth almost $10,000.

Meanwhile, prosecutors said, Keester obtained other people’s social security numbers and misrepresented them as guarantors to obtain $7,000 in student loans. When the lenders called the various cell phone numbers Keester submitted, she answered the phone herself, using British or southern accents, Wark said.

Additionally, Keester admitted to defrauding the Social Security Administration out of more than $91,000 by applying for and receiving Social Security Disability Insurance. Keester claimed that she was disabled, unemployed, and a victim of identity theft when the SSA learned that her social security number was linked to active employment, according to Wark. Keester faces potential action in connection with these charges by federal authorities, who can garnish her wages from future employment to get back these losses.

Aside from the SSA, each of Keester’s victims was compensated by banks, insurance companies and the schools that received the student loans.

During a five-year spree, Keester used several aliases, three birthdates, four social security numbers, and six driver’s licenses with varying identification numbers. She lived in seven Boston apartments over the past six years, including four on the Hill. She was arrested at her Bowdoin Street residence in July.

Keester suffered a stroke several years ago and temporarily received disability payments from the SSA, according to her attorney Arnold Abelow of Sweeney & Abelow. Though Keester drags her left foot, Abelow said, the stroke did not impair her mental abilities. “She’s smarter than you and I,” he said.

Abelow said the court gave Keester the choice of detention at a state prison or house of correction, serving a minimum sentence of one year and maximum sentence of two at either facility. “A woman may be better off at state prison because, apparently, there are less restrictions,” he said. He said that Keester plans to tutor illiterate inmates during her sentence.

A Beacon Hill man played a part in the dramatic rescue of Kevin Im from the Charles River on December 21.

Dr. Tris Dammin of Mount Vernon Street was driving with his son on Storrow Drive and turned onto the Larz Anderson Bridge heading toward JFK Street in Cambridge.

As he started across the bridge two squad cars went screaming by, driving up on the sidewalk and down onto the grass, he said. Dammin, a retired emergency medicine doctor who worked at the Lahey Clinic and is on the faculty at both Harvard and B.U.’s medical schools, decided to find out what was going on.

He pulled his car onto the sidewalk and jumped out, running down the embankment to the river. Three alert passersby had seen a car plunge into the water, so they pulled off their heavy clothes and swam out after it. First they pulled out a heavy box containing a television from the back of the car. Then they dragged the driver out and onto the shore, where Dammin was waiting.

“I evaluated him and saw that he was extremely confused,” said Dammin. “He could not answer any questions about pain or his medical history.”

The driver appeared to be suffering from hypothermia and perhaps also the confused state that follows a seizure. Dammin said that further evaluation was fruitless, and that he needed to go to a trauma center where he could be treated for multiple problems.

By that time the ambulance had arrived, and the group put a collar on the driver’s neck, got him on a board and into the ambulance, where it was warm. The ambulance took the driver to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, since Mount Auburn, the closest hospital, does not have a trauma center.

Meanwhile two divers from the Cambridge fire team verified that there were no other people in the car.

At this point the press began arriving, said Dammin, and he left since he and his son still had Christmas shopping to do.

He later called the Massachusetts Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the organization from which the U. S. Coast Guard was formed, and recommended the rescuers for that organization’s annual medal recognizing a water rescue.

CAPTION: Paul Tupa, Erycah Spencer and Shane Farrell are the new faces at The Red Hat on Bowdoin Street.




The Red Hat, the 100-year-old Bowdoin Street bar and restaurant, has new ownership, new management and a new look.

Paul Tupa of Quincy and Shane Farrell of South Boston bought the business last June. They hired their friend, Erycah Spencer, who lived on Temple Street for three years and now lives in Jamaica Plain, to run the place. Slowly but surely they have been upgrading the establishment’s two levels with paint, new upholstery and awnings, refurbished floors and a thorough cleaning.

The bar and bartenders remain the same, as do the murals of Boston street scenes that were installed in the 1970s. Farrell, a trained chef, runs the kitchen.

Farrell and Tupa got their training running a pizza and spaghetti restaurant on the South Shore, which they sold before buying the Red Hat. Spencer was a friend who worked for several South End restaurants, including Prairie Star, Laurel and Firefly. All are in their mid-20s.

Spencer said she has expanded the menu and added new wines to a list on which all bottles are under $26. She is trying to bring in crowds on the slow nights with special offers. The trio have discounted chicken wings to 10 cents apiece all day Sundays and on Mondays and Tuesdays from 5 to 10 p.m. On Wednesdays and Thursdays they offer appetizers at half price, and on Wednesdays they offer Team Trivia.

Spencer said their clientele comes from every facet of Beacon Hill — residents, students, Suffolk professors, office workers, the State House, Channel 7, but that they have cracked down on underage kids trying to slip in.

Caption: Violet of Beacon Street is pictured as Ms. December in the 2007 Hounds on the Hill calendar.
Credit: courtesy photo






The popular “Doors of Beacon Hill” poster has been seen in many versions over the years, but the latest one has just plain gone to the dogs.

Twelve pictures of dogs, photographed in perfect positions while patiently idling by Beacon Hills’ renowned doors, grace the best-seller “Hounds on the Hill” calendar, just printed by Four Preppy Paws of Charles Street. And reprinted. And ready to be reprinted again. For just $25, this might have been the hottest holiday present on the Hill.

There were no evening gown or bathing suit competitions for the dogs to be selected for the calendar — although rumor has it that Beacon Street resident Violet, who is Ms. December, flaunted her beauty by wearing a ballerina costume on Halloween. All it actually took was an active stage mom, or dad, and being the right color.

“It all started because I commissioned some dog photos that looked like the old Beacon Hill doors poster to use as decorative pieces on our walls,” said Heidi Barraza, who opened the dog gift store and bakery six months ago. “When our customers saw them, they all wanted to have their dog on the wall. ‘Pick me, pick me,’ they said. So, they left their names and email addresses and kept trying to butter us up so that we would photograph their dogs. I finally decided to do a calendar, and we took ourselves out of the equation by asking a friend to do the judging.”

The dog of each month was primarily selected on the basis of their coloring: It seems that, like people, there are winter, spring, summer and fall dogs. Ms December, for instance, is a black part Lab, part Great Dane; she is shown wearing a Christmas wreath that coordinates particularly well with the red door she is sitting in front of. Ms. November, who is an Irish setter named Lucy, is unquestionably a fall dog. Twelve runner-ups, who did not quite make the finals, are grouped together on the cover.

The photographs were taken by Margaret Crow of Margaret Crow Photography in the Fenway, who said she spent about nine months on the project. “It was not unlike working with kids,” she said. “They had high energy and were all over the place. I used toys, treats and noises to grab their attention, and if they were ‘owner-fixated,’ I had their owners stand near or behind me. A few times we used the dog’s own doors, but most often we’d walk up or down the street until we found one that coordinated with the season and the dog.”

Henrietta of Revere Street, the white bulldog who is Ms. March, apparently ate 45 dog treats before she agreed to sit quietly for the shoot.

The most trying photo shoot, she said, was of the three Clumber spaniels, Nora and Stubby, both of Beacon Street, and Belle, who not only coordinated with each other but also with August. “The photo was originally going to be just two, but then a third came walking down the street so we asked him to join as well,” she said. “The spaniels were all over the place. As soon as one would look one way, the other would look in other directions.

Other celebrity dogs include January: Commonwealth Avenue resident Katie, a Samoyed; February: Lime Street residents Ace and Bailey, who are King Charles Cavaliers; April: Lindall Place resident Lola, a mixed breed; May: Turbo, a French bulldog; June: Giddian, a Jack Russell Terrier; July: Pinckney Street resident Bosco, a Black Lab; September: Scarlett O’Hara IV, a Lhapsa Apso born in Atlanta but now a resident of the Prescott House Museum on Beacon Street; and October: Mac, a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.

For the first print run, Barraza ordered 50 calendars and just told her customers about it. “The dogs’ owners came in and bought one for themselves and then others for every single person in the family,” she said. “Then I ordered 75 more and people keep coming in and buying them.” She is now planning to order a third print run, and dog lovers wanting one should let her know.

Last week, after months of public meetings and public outcry, Mayor Menino said he won’t support a dorm at 20 Somerset Street, effectively killing the project.

That still leaves one question: Now what?

John Nucci, Suffolk’s vice president of government and community affairs, said that Suffolk officials know only that they must figure out how to house more students and that they should know more through their planning process. The process will begin this week when Alex Krieger, the planner they have hired, meets with the 20 Somerset project task force, which was formed by the Boston Redevelopment Authority to address matters about the Somerset Street site.

“Student housing is critical, and not just to the university,” said Nucci. “The more we house students on university property, the fewer students there will be in Boston’s neighborhoods.”

Beacon Hill residents who voiced strong objections to housing 500 freshmen and sophomore students only one block away from Beacon Hill’s residential district, say they agree that Suffolk’s planning process ought to answer some of the questions about where dormitories should be located.

Sue Bridge, a Temple Street resident, said that she has no preferences at this point. “I’d like to see a range of proposals,” she said. Many people would like to see a full-bore planning process. Taking it building by building gets us all into trouble.”

She said she believes the planning process the university is now beginning, in which the neighborhood will participate, will let Beacon Hill residents support future projects.

Rob Whitney, the Phillips Street resident who chairs the task force, said he would be most interested in seeing the site developed into an elementary school. He suggested that the Renaissance Charter School, which has announced it will sell its Back Bay building, would be a compatible neighbor with Beacon Hill. “Since Beacon Hill has not had a public school, this would be a great location,” he said.

John Achatz, Beacon Hill Civic Association president, said there would be several appropriate uses, including a hotel, an apartment building or classrooms. “What really is acceptable requires a public conversation,” he said.

For now, Suffolk is keeping its options open on what use, if any, it will make of 20 Somerset.

“We continue to have a purchase and sale,” Nucci said, “but whether we take title or not is another decision.”

The general plan for the campus has been to grow along Tremont Street where Suffolk Law School, a library and the school’s administrative offices are already located.

He said that over the next few weeks and months university officials will be meeting with neighbors and, through its planning process, trying to determine what course is best, not only for 20 Somerset, but for other downtown locations.


SIDEBAR

Managing a growing student population

The student population on Beacon Hill is supposed to have about doubled between this school year and last, and that has caused some concern among older residents who believe that students’ rowdy behavior has reduced their quality of life.

The neighborhood, however, first has to learn if the increase in students is actually true. “We’ve clearly seen an upswing in undergraduates, but whether it is double, it’s hard to say,” said Beacon Hill Civic Association’s president, John Achatz. “We need to get our hands around the demographics. We’re getting information from various sources.”

He also said that the civic association has reached an agreement with Suffolk to formalize the extra policing that the school has been doing this fall. He said he wants to get other schools in the area with students on the Hill involved in the policing efforts.

credit: Courtesy photo




Tyrone Jones played holiday songs on his sax near Government Center last week.

Good job

The commission appointed by the legislature to study the Hynes Convention Center and the Boston Common Garage did an excellent job, even if their report was late in arriving.

Led by Beacon Hill’s state Senator Dianne Wilkerson and state Representative Antonio Cabral, the commission gathered data and then based its recommendations on that data. We’re tempted to say what a novel idea — basing a government policy on data, rather than ideology or folk wisdom.

Romney has been given the credit — or the blame — for coming up with what now seems like a silly idea: privatizing the Hynes and getting rid of its pesky $3 million subsidy.

But Robert Reich, when he was running for governor, also urged the state to take that step. When a former Clinton economic advisor and U. S. Secretary of Labor, who was partially responsible for the nation’s fine economic performance in the 1990s, succumbs to such uninformed opinions, it makes us fear for the rest of us.

But the commission members did what they should have done and what needs to be done more often. They gathered facts before they came to an opinion. They found that the Hynes generated substantial economic benefits in jobs, profits for private entities and tax revenue for the state that overwhelmed its small subsidy.

They found that no city had found it possible to run such a place privately — that all convention cities subsidized their facilities which, like the Hynes, produced income for the private sector and taxes for the government entities.

They also found that the Hynes does not compete with the larger Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in the Seaport District. Instead the two facilities make it possible for Boston to attract conventions of all sizes.

So much for the naysayers who predicted economic doom if Boston had two convention centers. It turns out both convention centers are making money for private and public coffers.

Boston’s economy has changed over the last fifty years. Even though Boston retains financial institutions, these have largely dispersed. The hard-core manufacturing industry is virtually gone. We’re left with medicine and related biotechnologies, software development, and tourism. Coincidentally, it’s the bio-tech and high-tech sectors that are significant users of the Hynes.

In gathering facts and operating on them, the commission has done Boston and, in turn, Beacon Hill a good service.