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Law-abiding citizens
Rarely has a Boston jury had to suffer as much ridicule as the 12 citizens who acquitted former Boston firefighter Albert Arroyo of pension fraud.

Rarely has a Boston jury had to suffer as much ridicule as the 12 citizens who acquitted former Boston firefighter Albert Arroyo of pension fraud. Arroyo is the guy who claimed to suffer intractable pain from performing his normal duties — even lifting papers off of a desk — all the while training for and performing in bodybuilding contests.

DUMBBELLS, screamed the Boston Herald's front-page banner headline. JURY OF 98-POUND WEAKLINGS FALLS FOR MUSCLEMAN JAKE'S DISABILITY DEFENSE. "For the dunces on Arroyo's jury, the moon really is just a great big hunk of green cheese," wrote Peter Gelzinis, normally one of the most perspicacious columnists in town. A Boston Globe editorial was equally disbelieving, albeit in more measured tones: "Federal prosecutors made a straightforward — and eminently reasonable — argument that Arroyo's application for accidental disability retirement based on a back injury was a sham because he was caught on video performing a strenuous bodybuilding routine just six weeks later." Concluded the Globe: "the jury was somehow convinced that Arroyo had been acting in good faith all along."

But the press has it all wrong, and indeed did not have the insight of the 12 jurors tasked to decide Arroyo's fate. Contrary to the Globe's claim, the case was hardly a "straightforward" and "eminently reasonable" prosecution; it was a classic example of federal overreach, and the jury saw right through it. (The Globe perhaps should be partially forgiven for its pro-prosecution zeal, since the paper, admirably, broke the initial story of Arroyo's application for his pension while acting the role of muscle man.)

'FRAUD, JUST NOT MAIL FRAUD'

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