--Some of those who treated the Big Dig like one big, fat ATM are finally getting their just desserts. Yesterday, a Big Dig contractor was charged with trying to overcharge the government by $300,000. They've agreed to plead guilty. [Boston Globe] --Things are getting hotter for Superior Court Judge Richard T. Moses. The Herald is ticking off a list of sex offenders he set free who then went on to commit more crimes. [Boston......

-- Four Salem High School students have pleaded not guilty to charges that they raped a teen girl in a Lynn home late Friday night. The four boys, three 17 year-olds and one 18 year-old, were arraigned Tuesday on charges of aggravated rape. The alleged victim reported the incident to police Saturday morning. [Globe; Herald] -- Derek Boisvert, a 25 year-old convicted child rapist who appeared on the Massachusetts' 10 Most Wanted Sex Offender List......

--A BPD officer allegedly held up the Best of Boston gas station in Roslindale. You read that right. A BPD officer held up a gas station yesterday afternoon. The officer, 44-year-old Michael T. Jones, wasn't in uniform, nor was he driving his cruiser, but he used his police gun in the robbery. Police Commish Ed Davis, who has dealt with headache after headache in this job, called it "reprehensible," and that's an understatement. Jones has......

--In Suffolk Superior Court today, Masha Badinter testified against Eliezer Falcon, who allegedly set her on fire after she was bullied at a 2005 party in Allston. The case is baffling and gruesome. According to a release from the DA's Office, Badinter had "second- and third-degree burns from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck," and Falcon may have threatened her to keep her from talking to police. The Herald adds......

--Maybe Fung Wah isn't so bad after all. The local press picked up on a b0st0n LiveJournal story that a Peter Pan bus driver felt that his passengers on a trip to Boston should be punished and forced to stay on the bus in Framingham because one of them called the company about his poor driving. The driver's sorry ass is about to get fired. [WBZ, Globe, b0st0n Live Journal] --Female parking enforcement officers......

--The Legislature is going to consider banning spanking tomorrow. That's spanking of children, not "please, sir, may I have another" frat-spanking or whatever role-playing you do with your significant other. [WCVB] --A man's SUV became stuck on train tracks in Beverly last night just as a commuter train was heading toward him. He escaped in the nick of time. His SUV got creamed. [Photo-WCVB] --The Roman Catholic Archdiocese plans to close at least two schools......

It's not a Thanksgiving story, but it does concern a couple of turkeys. Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy, who successfully sued the Boston Herald in 2005 for libel, received a recommendation for public reprimand yesterday for "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice and unbecoming of a judicial officer." The recommendation came from a report prepared by retired judge Peter W. Kilborn. Following his libel suit, Murphy had sent two crazy, handwritten letters, one on......

The Globe reports that the Milky Way will remain open through Monday, pending a court hearing. The Jamaica Plain bar and night club, one of three in Boston closed for failing to install fire sprinklers, won an injunction from Suffolk Superior Court last night. It reportedly came too late to prevent the cancellation of one event, the Rock 'N' Roll Fashion Show. The bar has requested a one-year extension from state fire officials for installing......

Rock 'N Roll Fashion Show 10 pm, Friday, November 16 Milky Way, Jamaica Plain Directions | Tickets $10 Update: The Milky Way's permit was suspended due to enforcement of the nightclub sprinkler law. However, Carol Downs, one of the owners, said that they will be appealing the fire department's refusal to grant the Milky Way an extension at the sprinkler board. If they don't get the appeal, they'll go to Superior Court. Regarding tonight's event,......

Today, Herald columnist and radio show host Howie Carr went to Suffolk Superior Court Judge Allan van Gestel to try to stop WRKO from matching an offer from WTKK, the station where Carr wants to work. The judge told Carr that Entercom, who owns WRKO, still has the right to match WTKK's offer, and he was underwhelmed with Carr's attempts to play the victim: Carr is not, as he argues in his brief, ‘in essence,......

--Now, this didn't happen in Boston, but, as the Sports Redux mentioned earlier, a Massachusetts man and Red Sox fan was attacked by two men in New York. The men had asked him if he was loyal to the Red Sox. Carlos Ortez, 25, of Quincy, is now in the intensive care unit at Westchester Medical Center with multiple facial fractures. He was in New York to work on a construction project for a Manhattan......

The story of the drugs and alcohol found in the toxicology results for the bodies of firefighters Warren Payne and Paul Cahill has three threads--the freedom of the press, public safety, and the memory of the firefighters themselves. As noted earlier, all news outlets except WHDH reported yesterday and today about the toxicology results. WHDH couldn't report because Suffolk Superior Court Judge Merita Hopkins silenced them at the request of the firefighters' union. WHDH appealed,......

So many big court cases went down this week, so we're wrapping up the latest. --The first witness testified Tuesday in the Franklin Park Zoo Amok Ape Trial, which will determine the amount that will be awarded to a 2-year-old girl was attacked by an ape in 2003. The girl's mother, Terrasita Duarte-Scott, is suing Zoo New England because her daughter was injured and probably has a flood of nightmares thanks to the episode. Courtney......

A judge informed Neil Entwistle, who is accused of murdering his wife and 9-month-old daughter in their home in Hopkinton in 2006, that evidence gathered in that home can be used in court. Entwistle and his lawyer were trying to throw out evidence gathered at the Entwistle home because the police didn't have a search warrant. Superior Court Judge Diane Kottmyer disagreed, saying that police were acting out of concerns for Rachel Entwistle's safety since......

--A restaurant owner was attacked in his own establishment yesterday afternoon in Jamaica Plain. Was it a holdup? A robbery? A grudge? No. He got in a fight with a customer over the remote control. The customer somehow got the remote control and began to "mess around" with the channels and wouldn't stop. Maybe he was looking for the spelling bee finals. Anyway, the owner told him to cut it out, and "the suspect......

The state supreme court ruled against the Herald Monday, upholding a $2 million verdict saying that the paper is guilty of libel against a Superior Court judge. Reporter David Wedge accused Judge Ernest Murphy of saying a 14-year-old rape victim should "get over it" in 2002. Murphy declared that he said no such thing and said the statement destroyed his reputation, so he sued. A jury found Wedge guilty in 2005, and the Herald appealed.......

Did you see how there was another weird, but harmless, device spotted and destroyed on city streets this morning? And it didn't cause a fuss? Apparently it was a "traffic-counting device" or "pedestrian counter." Whatever it was, at least it didn't give Boston residents the finger. Police nabbed the teenagers who stabbed another teenager at the Back Bay T stop. It was inevitable that they were going to get caught. It appears to have been......

Living in the Bay State we remember when we had a brand-new ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court legalizing same-sex marriage. It seemed to be one of those high court rulings that didn't really make it legal (because, you know, it's the judicial branch, not the legislative) but rather defined was something was or wasn’t. Last week the Worcester Superior Court ruled on something not quite as groundbreaking and offered up a definition. A burrito......

The Olde Towne Team has yet ANOTHER problem... and this one is big! The Sox are now going into litigation in order to keep the baseball that was used to get the final out of the 2004 World Series when Edgar Renteria (yep, that Edgar Renteria), then of the St. Louis Cardinals, hit a chopper up the middle that was snagged by Keith Foulke, and flipped to first baseman Doug Meintkiewicz to give the......

Well, it looks like the Sox aren’t the only Boston sports team looking to put themselves out on a limb to get some better talent. It seems that the dismal Boston Bruins have traded their sandy colored haired team captain, Joe Thornton, to the San Jose Sharks last night in a move that shocked many hockey fans. Bostonist will admit that we don’t spend enough quality time with the NHL, thus the lack of posts......

If you read the Herald (poor, poor you), you found out today what Bostonist told you weeks ago: Heidi "the Cat Lady" Erickson is (still) conducting a one-woman protest outside the Supreme Judicial Court (not the Superior Court, as the Herald claims; that court is next door but is not the focus of Erickson's demonstration). The delightful picture accompanying the Herald piece also lets you know that Ms. Erickson has, of late, taken to wearing......