On Thursday afternoon, Constable Michael Fixman escorted Aarti and Peter Goldstein to take possession of their property in Stoneham, Massachusetts.
It was a moment the landlords had been anticipating for a long time.
WATCH ANYTIME FOR FREE
 |
>Stream NBC10 Boston news for free, 24/7, wherever you are. |
"We are both so relieved the eviction day has come," Peter Goldstein said.
The eviction was for Robert Kennedy, a former high-ranking Stoneham police officer, and his girlfriend. According to the Goldsteins, the couple moved into the property on Chestnut Street last November and stopped paying the monthly rent.
Get updates on what's happening in Boston to your inbox. Sign up for our >News Headlines newsletter.
"It's taken a toll on our mental health," Aarti Goldstein said. "We wondered what we should do. Should we spend time with our family? Or should we be chasing after this person to get him evicted?"
In February, an NBC10 Boston investigation detailed how court records show the detective sergeant had a history of evictions and unpaid judgments stretching back two decades, including a property owned by an elderly couple in Woburn.
We reported how in recent years, housing court records show he and his girlfriend racked up more than $50,000 in unpaid rent while being evicted from apartment complexes in Stoneham and Reading.
During that three-year period, salary records we obtained revealed Kennedy had earned more than a half-million dollars as a police officer.
As we first reported, federal court documents now accuse Kennedy of applying for rental assistance to delay eviction proceedings, even allegedly obtaining $10,000 of taxpayer assistance meant for people who make a fraction of his income.
The Goldsteins contacted us after seeing our investigation about their tenant in February, saying they had not been paid a dime since the couple moved in.
During a subsequent interview, they described how the police officer's security deposit and first month's rent checks both bounced. They also showed us how Kennedy had allegedly used a family member's Social Security number to obtain a clean credit report.
The Goldsteins would later provide that same testimony to a federal grand jury, according to the criminal indictment for wire fraud.
Kennedy drove away from our questions when we approached him outside the Stoneham Police Department in February. He called in sick for a couple of weeks before announcing his retirement.
Kennedy also did not provide any answers when we caught up to him outside the federal courthouse following his FBI arrest in late March.
Neither Kennedy nor his criminal defense attorney responded to our request for comment on Thursday about the eviction. He is due back in federal court for the wire fraud case in August.
On Thursday morning, Kennedy made a last-minute argument to delay the eviction, filing the motion late on Wednesday.
There had been plenty of time to avoid losing the apartment. Housing records show the judgment for unpaid rent was filed in April, the execution order was issued in May, and the eviction notice was served last week.
During the hearing, Kennedy said he needed more time to find a new place to live.
"I'm embarrassed and humiliated," Kennedy said. "I want a chance to make this right. And I will make it right. It's going to take some time."
The Goldstein's attorney, John Mackey, argued that multiple landlords had heard the same promise before.
"This particular tenant has a long history of perpetrating fraud on landlords," Mackey said. "He was a sergeant in the Stoneham Police Department until this story hit the TV news, your honor."
At the end of the hearing, Judge Michael E. Malamut was not persuaded by Kennedy's plea for extra time, and he denied the motion.
That decision gave the green light for the eviction to proceed.
Later on Thursday, Kennedy was supposed to meet the constable in person at the property to sign off on having his belongings brought to a personal storage facility.
However, he drove away when he spotted an NBC10 Boston crew standing outside the home. The moving crew instead hauled the items to its own warehouse.
While watching the process play out in front of the property, the Goldsteins shook their heads at how long it took, even after the headlines about the federal criminal charges, to get Kennedy and his girlfriend evicted.
They are now the latest landlords who thought they were getting a high-ranking police officer with a steady, six-figure salary as a reliable tenant, but instead spent months just trying to get him to leave.
"This has been a seven-month odyssey," Peter Goldstein said. "It's that difficult and he fought us at every turn. He knew the system. He knew which hearings to go to and which not to. He knew to file his appeals at the last minute. He was very good. He was a maestro at what he did."
Ryan Kath can be reached at ryan.kath@nbcuni.com. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.
