New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Michael P. Norton
State House News Service
A Boston man faces up to 10 years in prison in connection with charges that he spray-painted swastikas Friday on an air-intake stack outside the JFK Federal building down the street from the State House.
According to U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling’s office, Gerard Richard Lee, 70, was first detained by Boston Police and then taken into custody by a Department of Homeland Security Federal Protective Service office. An affidavit filed in the case says a police officer observed Lee spray-painting the air stack, and department video surveillance cameras were reviewed and showed the defendant committing the alleged crime and then being approached by a police officer.
Lee was charged with one count of injuring or depredating government property, and Lelling’s office said he could face up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
The criminal complaint described Lee as a white male, dressed in a white t-shirt and black jeans, and special agent John Blake wrote in the affidavit that he observed Lee’s hands to be “blackened with a substance I believed to be black paint.” Blake visited the federal building on Sudbury Street after he received a call informing him about the situation at about 1 p.m. Friday from an FPS officer on duty at the building.
