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'Inadequately Explored'
BOSTON - Federal court Judge Rya Zobel sentenced arson ring leader Donald Stackpole to 40 years in prison on Jan. 3, just hours after he pled guilty to six counts of arson in Suffolk County Superior Court and was sentenced to 19-20 years by Judge James McGuire. The stiff sentences stem from Stackpole's role as leader of a group of seven police officers, firefighters and security guards who set over 200 fires in the Boston area in 1982-83, including that which gutted the offices of Gay Community News, Fag Rag, and the Glad Day Bookshop on July 7, 1982.
Despite Stackpole's plea for leniency, Zobel characterized the fires as "acts of terrorism or sheer malice," and she imposed the sentence recommended by U.S. Attorney Mark Robinson. According to fithe Boston Globe, Robinson's sentencing memorandum said that Stackpole "delighted in seeing firefighters exhausted or injured, property destroyed,...