Even before she pleaded guilty last year to pandemic relief fraud, Katherine Quigley had been charged more than 100 times for similar crimes, such as larceny and identity theft, according to police reports. In June 2024, the 45-year-old Plymouth woman admitted stealing, or conspiring to steal, $51,735 in Covid-related unemployment checks, hatching the plan with […]
Author Archives: Andrea Estes - Independent Staff
Posted inPolice & Fire
Police say ebike complaints are down sharply
Plymouth police say they received a flurry of complaints about ebikes after the Independent reported in June that teenagers were illegally riding the electric vehicles all over town, terrifying pedestrians, endangering themselves, and harassing motorists. On May 30, two teens — one 14, the other 15 — got into a head-on crash along the Plymouth […]
Posted inBusiness
Proposed apartment complex skirts height limits
Apartment buildings in Plymouth generally must be no taller than 35 feet. But AvalonBay’s proposed Colony Place project is different — it falls under the state’s 40b affordable housing law, making it exempt from most zoning rules. As a result, the residential complex may end up being almost twice as tall, dwarfing other buildings in […]
Posted inPolice & Fire
Serial thief pleads guilty to multiple charges
Sunny McDonough, the serial thief who swiped packages from mailrooms in Plymouth and more than a dozen other Massachusetts communities, pled guilty Wednesday to multiple felonies. She was sentenced in Plymouth District Court to six months in jail, a term that will start after she wraps up a 15-month sentence for a probation violation in […]
Posted inPolice & Fire
Serial cyberstalker gets nine-year sentence
He expressed deep regret for his actions, but James Florence, a Plymouth man described by prosecutors as a serial cyberstalker, could not persuade a judge to show him leniency. Florence, 37, an information technology professional who once held US Department of Defense “secret clearance” status, was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in prison followed by […]
Posted inBusiness
Town, Atlantic Country Club owner at impasse over sale
The town and the owner of the Atlantic Country Club have reached an apparent stalemate over the fate of the South Plymouth golf course and the dispute is getting ugly. Lawyers for owner Mark McSharry last week sent a third letter to the town, this time dropping the veneer of goodwill and accusing officials of […]
Posted inPolice & Fire
Man faces charges after brandishing knife in bar
In recent years, Main Street Sports Bar & Grill has been the frequent scene of assaults, brawls, and drunken encounters. Last week was no different. Plymouth police swarmed the bar after a customer who was kicked out returned brandishing a knife and threatening to stab the bouncer who banished him, police say. The bar this […]
Posted inPolice & Fire
Faced with more jail time, alleged serial thief withdraws guilty plea
She was supposed to plead guilty last Wednesday for pilfering packages from the Redbrook mailhouse in South Plymouth last summer. But Sunny McDonough, the former hair designer and a self-described “dreamer,” changed her mind when she realized the judge wasn’t going along with her lawyer’s sentence recommendation — one month in jail in exchange for […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Judge rules Makepeace violated law by partially filling bog
An administrative law judge has ruled that A.D. Makepeace violated the law when it filled in part of a cranberry bog in South Plymouth to build a road for a future residential neighborhood in the Redbrook development. The judge, Patrick Groulx, of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs Office of Appeals and […]
Posted inGovernment
No end in sight for 15-year fight over a modest town pension
They’ve been fighting over a $10,000-plus annual pension for 15 years. No kidding. Michael Daley served as Plymouth’s finance director in the 1980s and early 1990s. When he retired in 2006, Daley began collecting a pension of roughly $9,696 a year. (With cost-of-living increases the amount would be close to $17,000 now). In 2010 […]