Following dominant victory over Harrington in Berkshire DA race, Shugrue thanks controversial legal mentor
“During those first weeks in March, I had the steadfast support of my good friend and mentor, who I think has been in my life for a good part of my legal career, one of the most respected judges in Massachusetts, Judge Daniel Ford,” he said. “Judge Daniel Ford can’t be here tonight because unfortunately he was not feeling well.”
Despite Shugrue’s compliments, Ford is infamous for his role in the prosecution of Bernard Baran in the 1980s. In 1984, Baran – an openly gay man from Lanesborough working at the Early Childhood Development Center in Pittsfield – was arrested on charges of child molestation. As First Assistant District Attorney, Ford secured Baran’s conviction on five counts of rape and five counts of indecent assault and battery. Decades later, an investigation into the trial found enough prosecutorial misconduct to overturn the conviction. The charges were dismissed in 2009, but only after Baran reported experiencing multiple sexual assaults while in prison.
Another of Ford’s convictions – that of Barry Jacobson, a Jewish Manhattan real estate broker accused of arson in the early 1980s – was overturned just this year due to faulty evidence and antisemitism among jurors. A 2014 Washington Post article went as far to ask in its headline “Why is Daniel Ford still a Massachusetts judge?” Ford retired in 2019.
Read the article by Josh Landes of WAMC.
