Thursday, August 6, 2015

Charlton winery fire is ruled arson

Charlton winery fire is ruled arson

By George Barnes and Craig S. Semon
Telegram &  Gazette Staff

Posted Aug. 5, 2015 at 3:49 PM
Updated at 10:50 PM

CHARLTON - A fire Sunday night that destroyed a winery at Charlton Orchards Farm & Winery has been ruled arson.








Jim DeSimone, a spokesman for the state Department of Fire Services, said state police investigators, after ruling out all accidental causes, determined the fire was deliberately set.

"We are asking the public's assistance in finding who did this," he said.

Signs have been posted on the Charlton Orchards property offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of the anyone responsible. Anyone with information is asked to call the arson watch hotline at (800) 682-9229.

The fire late Sunday night destroyed the Obadiah McIntyre Farm Winery on the grounds of Charlton Orchards.

Nathan Benjamin Jr., managing member of Charlton Orchards Group LLC, said the state fire marshal’s office determined the fire started 30 feet east of the winery, above one of the old cow stalls.

“The fire marshal had said to me that when you eliminate all the obvious, the only thing you have is the inevitable,” Mr. Benjamin said. “And we eliminated that there is no electricity. There are no combustibles of any sort. There are no batteries. There’s no oil. There’s no gasoline. There was nothing there except for wood. Right where they said the fire started was a pile of broken apple boxes.”

In addition, Mr. Benjamin said surveillance videos on hard drives were destroyed in the fire. The hard drives were in Mr. Benjamin's office, which was in the winery building, he said.



“The drives were destroyed. The backup drives were destroyed. They couldn’t get an image off of anything,” Mr. Benjamin said. “If they were able to flood the room, they could have recovered it (the hard drives). Obviously, the computers and everything would have been damaged but the drives would have been recoverable.”

According to Fire Capt. Dean M. Babineau, the Fire Department received a call from the winery shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday for a “rekindle,” which, he said is very common. It was extinguished in 90 minutes, Capt. Babineau said.

A GoFundMe account for Charlton Orchards and Obadiah McIntyre Farm Winery has been set up with a $100,000 goal.

“It’s getting all kinds of people that I didn’t even know sending me money,” Mr. Benjamin said. “I got 137 emails last night (Tuesday night).”

Mr. Benjamin and his wife, Cathy Benjamin, addressed the Board of Selectmen Tuesday night about the Fire Department’s training, maintenance and leadership, as well as alleged faulty fire apparatus. Because of the budget process, two selectmen said, the board is painfully aware of the shortcomings of the budget.

Also at Tuesday’s selectmen's meeting, Town Administrator Robin L. Craver said she thinks that at this point neither Fire Chief Charles E. Cloutier Jr. and Assistant Fire Chief Curt J. Meskus nor people from the winery should speak to the press about incidents surrounding the fire. Rick Swensen, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, called Chief Cloutier Wednesday to make sure he followed that suggestion.

Selectmen said they will meet in a closed-door executive session Aug. 18 to look into matters surrounding the fire. 

3 comments:


  1. The Invention Of AIDS
    By Boyd E. Graves, J.D.
    boyded2001@yahoo.com
    8-28-1

    Do people with HIV/AIDS owe royalties to the patent holder of the AIDS virus?

    In April 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo filed a United States patent application for his invention, the HIV/AIDS Virus. Normally, when a patent is filed and approved, as Dr. Gallo's was, anyone who uses the product or invention owes a royalty payment to the inventor. Thus, holding the intellectual property laws to their fullest interpretations, one must only wonder why Dr. Gallo has yet to file a lawsuit seeking to recover damages from the usage of his invention? As odd as this scenario may sound, it bears need for additional scrutiny.

    The scientific evidence is complete and compelling, the AIDS Virus is a designer bi-product of the U.S. Special Virus program. The Special Virus program was a federal virus development program that persisted in the United States from 1962 until 1978. The U.S. Special Virus was then added as 'compliment' to vaccine inoculations in Africa and Manhattan. Shortly thereafter the world was overwhelmed with mass infections of a human retrovirus that differed from any known human disease, it was highly contagious and more importantly, it could kill.

    A review of the Special Virus Flow Chart ("research logic") reveals the United States was seeking a 'virus particle' that would negatively impact the defense mechanisms of the immune system. The program sought to modify the genome of the virus particle in which to splice in an animal "wasting disease" called "Visna".

    According to the Proceedings of the United States of America, AIDS is an evolutionary, laboratory development of the peculiar Visna Virus, first detected in Icelandic sheep. Recently, American and world scientists confirm with 100% certainty the laboratory genesis of AIDS. This fact is further underscored when one reviews the 'multiply-spliced' nature of the HIV 'tat' gene and Dr. Gallo's 1971 Special Virus paper, "Reverse Transcriptase of Type-C virus Particles of Human Origin".

    Dr. Gallo's 1971 Special Virus paper is identical to his 1984 announcement of AIDS. Upon further review the record reveals that he filed his patent on AIDS, before he made the announcement with Secretary Heckler. Earlier this year, Dr. Gallo conceded his role as a 'Project Officer' for the federal virus development program, the Special Virus.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Flow Chart of the program and the 15 progress reports are irrefutable evidence of the United States' secret plan to cull world populations via the unleashing of a stealth biological microorganism that would 'waste' humanity. In light of this true genesis of the world's most divesting biological scourge, it is the United States that owes 'royal' payments to the innocent victims. Each and every victim of AIDS is deserving of a formal apology and a sense of economic closure for an invention of death and despair, perpetrated by the United States.

    The eyes of the world are upon the General Accounting Office's Health Care Team, under the direction of William J. Scanlon. Between 1964 and 1978, the secret federal virus program spent $550 million dollars of taxpayer money to invent AIDS. It is now necessary to spend whatever it takes to dismantle an invention that has led to the greatest crime against humanity in the history of the world.


    Additional Resources

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    "We must let nature determine the finish line, not man. We are greater than any federal virus program, we are the human race."

    --Dr. Boyd E. Graves, Lead Plaintiff for Global AIDS Apology U.S. Supreme Court Case No. 00-9587

    Thought the information might be of use. Baldwin Templeton

    ReplyDelete
  3. WTF from a good story to a bunch of gibberish nonsense

    ReplyDelete