He also benefited from being represented by a taxpayer-funded attorney.
A review of public records shows dead Boston Marathon bombing suspect and welfare recipient Tamerlan Tsarnaev was also benefitting from a taxpayer-funded attorney when the Russian national was battling criminal charges in 2009 that he slapped around a former girlfriend.Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed Friday morning during the gunfight with police in Watertown that ultimately led to his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar’s capture, was represented by the State House-appointed Committee on Public Counsel Services until a judge dismissed the Cambridge District Court case on Feb. 8, 2010, for lack of prosecution by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
Until his 2009 assault case was broomed, Tamerlan Tsarnaev faced more than two years in a house of correction had he gone to trial and been convicted. Court papers, which list his place of birth as Russia, state he admitted to police, “Yes, I slapped her,” because the girlfriend was “yelling at him because of another girl.”
She refused medical attention, the police incident report states.
The CPCS will represent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on any state charges in connection with the April 15 tragedy that killed three spectators and injured, maimed and burned nearly 300 more in Copley Square, and the death later that week of MIT police officer Sean Collier, as well as the shooting of MBTA police officer Richard Donahue. The public Federal Defender Program has already picked up his potential death-penalty case on a federal charge of use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and property damage.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains hospitalized in fair condition with gunshot wounds at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.
His older brother was apparently a hazard behind the wheel, as well.
Registry of Motor Vehicle records dating back to 2005 show Tamerlan Tsarnaev was hit with citations for lane violations, speeding, improper passing, failure to use safety, failure to stop, driving the wrong way down a one-way street and not wearing a seat belt and defaulting on payments.
In 2008, his license was briefly suspended after he was charged with speeding in a Honda Accord on the Southeast Expressway — state police clocked him at 70 mph in a 55 mph zone — and a misdemeanor license plate violation. Earlier in the day, his father had reassigned the plate to a Mercedes-Benz, according to Dorchester District Court records and police.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was assessed a $100 fine and an additional $100 in court costs.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/records_welfare_recipient_tamerlan_tsarnaev_had_public_defender
