Carlos Watson

Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson was convicted in a federal court last week of fraud charges after a trial that was marred, according to defense counsel, by repeated breaches of judicial fairness by the presiding judge.

My friends in the Boston legal community were shocked when I announced I’d be retiring from what many of them considered a dream job: Judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts.

The Black founder of Ozy Media, under federal indictment for fraud, filed a $2 billion civil suit last month against a former New York Times media columnist, accusing the journalist of smearing and destroying his company while hiding his multi-million dollar stake in a competing firm.

When Harvard Law Professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. walked into the federal courthouse in Brooklyn last month, he was prepared to denounce what government prosecutors had revealed in writing about their attitude towards African Americans.

As a rookie reporter with the Bay State Banner close to 40 years ago, I was assigned a story about a METCO student expelled for allegedly stealing from a student locker in one of the pricey suburbs west of Boston. After interviewing the student, a kid from Dorchester, and a school administrator, I filed the story, which seemed pretty straightforward. But something was clearly eating the editor, Melvin B. Miller, as he bent over the copy in the newsroom.