Behind the Times

Exonerated man went through wringer

Posted on August 27, 2007 by Michael Ballway
Filed Under Clinton, Crime, Mike's posts |

Our sister paper The Daily News Tribune in Waltham came out today with the story of a Clinton man falsely accused of bank robbery.

It seems John D. Spencer, a Highland Avenue man, was arrested in Waltham five years ago and police showed his mugshot to the teller after the July 10 heist at Citizens Bank. Only one problem: Spencer has an airtight alibi all day that day — he was working in Brookline, with plenty of witnesses around (we’ve got the story and photo on the Times & Courier Web site).

But it took a month for the police, lawyers and district attorney to establish Spencer’s innocence — a month in which his story was plastered all over newspapers and Web sites from Boston to Clinton. We had it, too, on the blog and in the newspaper. The robbery appears to be part of a long chain of July stickups in Boston’s west and north suburbs, so Spencer was informally suspected of being a serial bank robber.

For weeks, says Spencer, the false charge was given credibility by the police and the media, damaging his reputation with business clients and friends. Now he’s been exonerated, but one source tells us he hasn’t gotten so much as a “my bad” from the police and prosecutors who turned his life upside-down for a month.