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Posted by: kwflatbed

Victims’ kin rip Bay State’s oversight of fiends on loose



Photo by Courtesy
Amity Kozak, right, was beaten to death by disgraced MBTA cop Helder ‘Sonny’ Peixoto, who moved to Florida while on probation for a 2004 case of vehicular homicide.

The Bay State is under siege from families in Georgia and Washington who are pursuing legal action after Massachusetts men who should have been on a tighter leash murdered their loved ones.
The bereaved kin of slain Southern belle Amity R. Kozak, 29, of Florida and fun-loving newlyweds Brian and Beverly Mauck of Washington have retained legal counsel to ready claims against state agencies responsible for keeping civilians safe from killers.
Both efforts are bound to be uphill battles for the victims’ families because of immunity protections granted to certain public officials from negligence claims and a $100,000 cap placed on damages by the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act.
“It’s a daunting task for plaintiffs to initiate a claim against the state,” said Needham defense attorney Timothy Burke, a former prosecutor. “I think the Mass. Tort Claims Act is much more effective at precluding legitimate claims from being brought.”
Boston attorney Noah Rosmarin has been hired by the survivors of Kozak to handle possible litigation against the Office of the Commissioner of Probation, said the victim’s grieving mother, Pat Kozak, 60, of Lawrenceville, Ga.
Probation officials allowed Kozak’s killer, Helder “Sonny” Peixoto, 34, a disgraced MBTA cop from Cambridge, to move to the Sunshine State without alerting authorities there.
“I think it gives me hope that if we can accomplish something that her death would not be totally in vain,” said Kozak, who observed what would have been her only daughter’s 30th birthday on March 11 with a family visit to her grave.
Meanwhile, the parents of Brian Mauck, who was killed in November with his wife, Beverly, by Massachusetts mom-killer Daniel Tavares Jr. in Washington, have hired a lawyer and are pushing for accountability after Tavares was released from jail despite his violent record.
Pierce County, Wash., prosecutor Gerald Horne said recently that the families of the victims plan to push for legislation that would require law enforcement officials to alert their counterparts in other states whenever a “dangerously violent person” leaves their jurisdiction.
Peixoto beat Kozak to death with a hammer at his West Palm Beach apartment on May 30, 2007, after their brief romance began to unravel. He killed himself hours later by jumping from the 11th-floor balcony of The Slade, a luxury housing development.
In July, Commissioner of Probation John J. O’Brien publicly acknowledged that Florida officials were not notified when Peixoto moved there within months of pleading guilty to a motor vehicle homicide charge on Jan. 26, 2004.
In doing so, probation officials violated the Interstate Commission for Adult Offender Supervision, a crucial agreement aimed at ensuring that violent probationers cannot run loose unsupervised in other states.
“Did the probation department know he was in Florida? Why didn’t they transfer (the probation)? Was he reporting to anybody?” asked Kozak.
Coria A. Holland, a spokeswoman for O’Brien, said the agency was unaware of the family’s intentions and had no comment.
O’Brien has previously stated that, while in Florida, Peixoto “was monitored by his probation officer on a monthly basis, at a level of supervision which does not require face-to-face contact.” Probation officials established that supervision level despite Peixoto’s record of beating his first wife.
Peixoto was sentenced to five years’ probation, a 10-year suspension of his driver’s license and a requirement to complete 100 hours of community service at the Brains at Risk program for the 2003 death of John J. Todd, 79, court records show. O’Brien has said Peixoto never completed the mandated 100 hours.
Peixoto also managed to maintain a Florida driver’s license until March 7, 2007, when authorities there learned about the Massachusetts suspension and canceled the license, according to the Florida Bureau of Driver Improvement.
In an interview, Rosmarin said his firm will begin seeking records from several state agencies, including the probation commissioner’s office and the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, as part of its investigation, which will target the commissioner’s office and the probation officer assigned to Peixoto.
“There will clearly be, at a minimum, some negligence claims,” said Rosmarin. “No amount of money can compensate for the tragic loss of Amity. Their primary goals in retaining a lawyer is to see if policies can be changed or altered so this doesn’t happen again.”
Peter V. Bellotti, an attorney for the Peixoto family, said his kin are trying to remember him in a “positive light” and are “stunned” by the impending legal action.
“Despite their difficulty accepting last year’s tragedy, they realize that the Kozak family has had to endure perhaps far greater suffering. The Peixotos understand that Amity’s relatives probably have many unanswered questions that can only be addressed through a lawsuit,” Bellotti said in an e-mail.
Probation officials also came under heavy fire in 2004 after Michael Bizanowicz brutally murdered Joanne Presti, 34, and her 12-year-old daughter, Alyssa, while awaiting a probation surrender hearing that had been postponed three times.
Their survivors did not pursue legal action against probation officials for their handling of Bizanowicz. However, Annette M. Presti said she was so alarmed by Kozak’s murder that she wrote to O’Brien last summer to ask why Peixoto was not kept on a tighter leash. She said this week that she never received a response.
“I feel like they’re not doing their jobs,” Presti said. “It makes me crazy.”


Getting away with murder:

• + YouTube: Rest In Peace Amity</SPAN>
• + Peixoto’s brother investigated</SPAN>
• + Failure on ‘several levels’ in release of mom-killer</SPAN>

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