No further trials or time to be served
By Josh Resnek
After serving a week in the Billerica House of Correction following his sentencing after a jury found him guilty of a sexual assault allegation, former Everett School Superintendent Frederick F. Foresteire told the court he did not wish to go forward with two additional trials regarding further sexual assault allegations.
Instead, Foresteire pleaded guilty to two felony charges of indecent assault and battery in court last week on Wednesday, thus ending the need for separate court trials for two additional women, one 47 and the other 64, who entered felony charges against him.
He admitted his guilt in the assaults alleged by the two women who had worked for him.
Had Foresteire chosen to go to trial, he would have possibly faced much harsher sentencing penalties if the verdict went against him.
Foresteire’s two new convictions do not result in additional jail time for him.
Judge Emily A. Karsteter sentenced Foresteire to 18 months in the Middlesex House of Corrections but suspended the sentence for one year, when he was convicted two weeks ago.
The two new guilty findings and sentences do not add time or days of added incarceration.
In reality, Foresteire is now serving three sentences at once with his incarceration in Billerica.
It is what those familiar with the legal workings of the court call “concurrent sentences.”
That is, the judge’s sentencing edicts, 18 months with one year suspended and 90 days in jail, is the Umbrella order under which the two new guilty verdicts and sentencing mandates apply by themselves.
Foresteire’s trials and tribulations and his admissions of guilt to the allegations of two of his accusers, and to now being locked up behind bars is, even by Everett standards, an Everett story with quite the finish like no other in a half century.
There is not in memory even among old-timers here a comparable tragic end to a very public Everett administrator’s career like that of Foresteire.
He was in nearly every way, a very public man wielding a great deal of power in the small city and widely admired throughout the city.
All that has changed.
With his convictions and admissions, of guilt to sexually and indecently assaulting at least three women, the carefully crafted public persona of Frederick F. Foresteire has been obliterated.
Now that the criminal proceedings in court are done, civil suits seeking damages from Foresteire by those who won their cases against him in court might possibly follow.
For the past two weeks Foresteire has been held behind bars at the Billerica House of Correction.
He is said by those who claim to know that he appears a bit bewildered by his circumstances.
Is it any wonder if this is true?
And what of his accusers?
How can they be feeling after such an ordeal?