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Lie to judge nets woman a year
DANVERS — A Danvers woman has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison, after pleading guilty in December to federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
Melanie "Maria" Abbruzzese, 31, was a paralegal for a Boston law firm, Denner Pellegrino, that represented a man charged in a mortgage fraud case when she became involved in a relationship with a postal inspector from Danvers, Joseph McGonagle III, 37, who was involved with the investigation.
During the trial, the defendant's lawyer learned that the two had had at least one conversation relating to the case. As a result, a federal judge ordered a hearing to determine whether client confidentiality had been breached. At the hearing, Abbruzzese testified that she had exchanged only a few emails and phone calls with McGonagle.
Investigators later uncovered an apparent relationship between the two, including "numerous" social meetings. A co-worker of Abbruzzese spotted them together in a car parked outside the law firm. Investigators also obtained cellphone records that showed that she had spent two nights at McGonagle's apartment in Danvers during the prior week and had exchanged approximately 40 phone calls in a two-week period before the hearing. And they learned that the two had exchanged 41 emails over a two-month period, most of them of a personal nature, prosecutors said.
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