Newton TAB, April 8, 2008
By Kerri Roche/Daily News staff
NEWTON – If parents continually and effectively talk with their children, Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone said his job of prosecuting violent and sexual crimes throughout the county would be less demanding.
Appearing before Newton community leaders, guidance counselors and mental health professionals at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Leone joined two renown doctors for Friday’s youth safety conference. One of the doctors has helped Leone successfully prosecute high-profile cases.
Before taking the stage, Leone spent his early morning at Hopkinton High School, talking with student leaders and activists.
Spending his time in schools, paired with his involvement in the Community Based Justice program, which was established to bring together school personnel, safety officials and school service providers, is key to his success as the District Attorney, said Leone.
“My investment is in people. My investment is in kids and that’s the best investment we can make,” said Leone. “I am grounding in knowing schools are where our focus should be.”
He said because early intervention and prevention are keys, discussions were centered on two troubling and emerging trends – the increase of violence and weapons at younger ages and bullying among school-aged girls.
“What we’re seeing is the things we focused on in the high schools in the 90s … we’re seeing in the middle schools. We’ve got to focus on the middle schools,” Leone said.
According to reports and statistics Leone said 94 percent of high schools in the area have reported violent incidents. At the middle school level, that number has increased to 96 percent, he said.
Parents now need to form and sustain relationships with their children at younger ages, he said.
“It isn’t always easy, but the attempt has to be there,” he said.
Despite the down-right disturbing aspects of his job, Leone contends he remains hopeful and inspired by the youth of today.
Outside the conference hall, Leone said, “The statistics are important because they tell us about kids. But there’s still a lot of hope. There’s still a lot of inspiration from a great portion of things. I deal with a very dark side of human nature, but I’m not jaded because with the dark side comes the bright side.”
Presenting two sessions, focused on violence in young men and the bullying among adolescent girls were Dr. Eli Newberger and Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Smith, respectively.
One the first cases assigned to Leone as an assistant district attorney involved the death of a 6-week-old girl whose father was charged with her murder. Relying on the medical knowledge of Dr. Eli Newberger, Leone successfully tried and convicted the girl’s father, who had broken nearly every bone in the infant’s body.
Years later, during the high-profile case of Louise Woodward, the British au pair convicted at the age of 19 of the involuntary manslaughter of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen in Newton, Leone spent countless hours discussing shaken-baby syndrome with Newberger, he said.
Once again turning to Newberger for advice, Leone brought justice for the Eappen family.
