Posted on 02/26/2004 6:26:20 AM PST by A. Pole
He was 17 and she was 14, but her father went to court to keep the sweethearts apart.
Now the young man's mother says her jailed son is being punished too harshly for simply following his heart.
Kevin Bucchio, 18, has been in the Billerica House of Correction since July for violating restraining orders obtained by the parents of his girlfriend, Colleen Lambert, 15, who has compared their plight to Romeo and Juliet.
``Kevin's never been in trouble. He's not a kid who does drugs or alcohol. He just thinks he's in love,'' said his mother, Sandra Bucchio.
Michael Lambert of Pepperell, Colleen's father, acknowledges he and his wife obtained the restraining orders primarily because they thought Bucchio was too old for their daughter and that he was trying to have sex with her, not because he harmed her.
``What would you do? I'm going to defend my daughter,'' Lambert said. ``I did exactly what the (Pepperell) police told me to and exactly what the court told me to.''
But Bucchio's lawyer, who characterized the teens' relationship as ``puppy love'' gone too far, said the maximum three-year sentence his client received is unfair.
``This is a misuse of the system,'' said attorney Matthew Pingeton, who took on Bucchio's case after the youth already was in jail. ``(Colleen) loved him. She wanted to be with him. She never wanted him kept away.''
Bucchio was 17, and Lambert was two weeks shy of her 14th birthday when they first met at the movies at the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, N.H., in July 2002. Lambert's parents initially liked Bucchio.
``He came over to our house a couple times. Seemed like a nice kid,'' Michael Lambert said. ``I asked him his age, and he said, `15.' I figured she's almost 14. You've got to let the reins go a little bit.''
Sandra Bucchio also thought highly of Colleen Lambert.
``I always thought she was 16. They basically would go to the mall or they would go and get something to eat,'' she said.
Then the teens exchanged baby pictures, and Lambert's parents noticed Bucchio's birth year was 1985.
``The kid was lying to my face,'' Michael Lambert said. ``From there, we realized he was up to no good.''
Lambert telephoned Sandra Bucchio and said he feared her son was trying to steal his daughter's innocence. He said he did not sense the same level of concern from Sandra Bucchio.
Lambert ordered his daughter to stop seeing Bucchio, but Sandra Bucchio said the girl continued to telephone her son at odd hours of the night. The girl's parents eventually forbade her from using their phone or computer e-mail, but the pair found ways to rendezvous outside their homes.
Michael Lambert charged that Bucchio snuck around his house at night and slept in the back yard several times.
On the advice from a friend on the Pepperell police force, Lambert and his wife, Paula, went to Ayer District Court on Aug. 8, 2002, on behalf of their daughter and obtained a restraining order against Bucchio. The order was extended to a year, and the parents returned to court numerous times because Bucchio violated the order repeatedly.
At the same time, Lambert sent poems and notes to Bucchio with passages such as, ``All I could think was that I don't have nothing if I don't have Kevin! You mean everything to me hunnie (sic) and we will get through this. We have to! Romeo + Juliet!''
In July 2003, Judge Paul McGill sentenced Bucchio to 75 days in the Billerica House of Correction for failure to comply with the order. Within hours of landing in jail, Bucchio violated the order again, arranging to leave a phone message for the girl. He told her he did not blame her for his incarceration and wished her a happy 15th birthday.
As a result, McGill imposed a maximum two-year sentence that had been suspended for an earlier violation and tacked on another six months for the jailhouse transgression.
Court spokeswoman Joan Kenney said McGill could not comment on the case while it is in the process of being appealed by Bucchio and his lawyers.
Paul Martinek, editor of the Lawyers Weekly publications, said he was disturbed by the case.
``Certainly, on the surface, it strikes me an oddly harsh punishment without any evidence that (Kevin) did this girl any harm or evidence that he even threatened her in the first place,'' Martinek said, adding that judges tend to err on the side of caution and grant restraining orders.
``Judges are terrified these days of not issuing restraining orders for fear that something tragic is going to happen, and they'll find themselves on the front page of the Herald,'' he said.
Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, whose office handled the case, defended the sentence imposed by McGill, saying, ``A judge can't have a young man keep coming in front of him and essentially saying he's not going to obey the court's order.''
Meanwhile, Bucchio's mother constantly worries about her son's ability to cope behind bars.
``He's not street-smart. He's had a very rough time in there,'' she said, noting that another inmate beat him up. ``He's not a tough kid. I dread it every time I go up to visit him. Sometimes he makes the best of it; sometimes he's upset. I try to make him feel as good as I can.''
Romeo and Juliet of Massachusetts. They are not "gay".
Jail her too?
Why isn't the girl in jail too?
Yep. Not enough fathers to go around.
When my daughter was that age, the one thing that'd make her want to be with a boy I didn't like was to say I didn't like him. That's how most teenagers are (which is why I seriously contemplated suspended animation from 13 to 18 for her).
And I wouldn't use the court system to substitute for parenting, which is what the parents of this girl are doing.
The boy's mother did not take out a restraining order against her. She merely sinned by not honoring her parents and disobeying them as they strive to protect her. The boy broke the law.
Her parents are punishing her. The boy's parent(s) lost control of him and he violated a court order. He is almost 18 and she is 15. The ages, the willingness of a father and mother to protect their daughter, and the rebellion in a young man who will not obey the court (who knows what his mother told him ?) make it different.
I'll assume you don't get worked up over abortions either.
Michael Lambert charged that Bucchio snuck around his house at night and slept in the back yard several times.
Sounds like the girl also wanted contact with the boy, given that she'd call him and her parents barred her from using the phone and e-mail. They found ways to meet anyway.
We'll see if their teen ardor has cooled after he does his 2 1/2 years in jail. And what happens after she turns 18 is anyone's guess.
BTW, Michael Vick, an adult football player at VA Tech, is charged with only a misdemeanor for having sex with a 15 year old girl and giving her alcohol, because according to Virginia sex with a 15 year old child is no felony.
WTH..? that's what you came away with after reading my post? That's just out in left field.
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