From the Attorney General’s Office –

Press Release

Press Release Attorney General’s Office Secures Guilty Plea from Former Medfield Town Official for Abusing Public Trust and Stealing Public Funds

Former Medfield Parks and Recreation Director Sentenced To 2.5 Years in House of Correction; Must Pay Restitution to Town

For immediate release:

7/31/2025

• Office of the Attorney General

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO) announced today that former Medfield Parks and Recreation Director Kevin Ryder, 51, of Medfield, pled guilty to eight charges and was sentenced by the Norfolk County Superior Court to 2.5 years in the House of Correction for stealing more than $100,000 in municipal funds and exploiting his public position to enrich himself. The Judge ordered Ryder to serve six months, with the balance suspended for three years. As a condition of his probation, Ryder was ordered to pay restitution to the Town of Medfield and refrain from holding a fiduciary role in any employment position while on probation. 

Ryder was indicted in 2023 on the charges of Larceny over $1200 by Scheme (4 counts), Larceny under $1200 (1 count), Accepting Illegal Gratuities (1 count), and Use of Official Position to Secure an Unwarranted Privilege (2 counts). The indictments are the result of an investigation launched by the AGO following the Town of Medfield’s referral to the AGO of its concerns about Ryder’s apparent failure to report and turn over the cash his department collected over a period of years. The Town of Medfield later cooperated with the AGO’s subsequent investigation into Ryder’s conduct.  

Ryder was Medfield’s Parks and Recreation Department Director from 2014 until August 2022. The AGO investigation revealed that Ryder had stolen approximately $125,000 from the Town of Medfield. A large portion of the stolen property consisted of cash, the bulk of which was generated from entrance fees and concessions at Medfield’s Hinkley Swim Pond. In addition, the investigation showed that Ryder had purchased thousands of dollars’ worth of personal items for himself using the Town’s Amazon business account, including merchandise to support his personal side business and electronic devices he resold on eBay for his own personal profit.  

In addition, Ryder allegedly sold thousands of dollars’ worth of Town-purchased youth sports equipment, sometimes at a small mark-up, keeping all the sales proceeds for himself. Over the course of several years, he also arranged for the Parks and Recreation Department to sponsor an exercise program at a local gym, in which he received a financial kickback representing 50% of the gym’s profits from the event, totaling more than $16,000. 

This matter was prosecuted by Deputy Chief Elizabeth Burke, of the AGO’s White Collar and Public Integrity Division. The case was investigated by Jonathan Pitts of the Office of the Inspector General and the Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Attorney General’s Office. 

The White Collar and Public Integrity Division investigates and prosecutes serious criminal misconduct involving crimes against public agencies, corrupt public employees and public entities, crimes that have a harmful effect on public confidence in our government and other trusted institutions, and financial crimes. 

DPW alert just now –

July 30, 2025

Road Closure Alert: Pound St. & Robert Sproul Rd.

Pound Street and Robert Sproul Road are currently closed due to roadway reconstruction. Please use the South Street entrance for access to the high school.
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OFFICE HOURS

Select Board Office Hours this Friday

I hold regular monthly office hours at The Center on the first Friday of every month from 9:00 to 10:00 AM. 

Residents are welcome to stop by to talk in person about any town matters. 

Boston Globe front page article today.

Our Medfield neighbor, Scott Delaney, was fired by the Federal government and he then built a much used data based of research projects that have been terminated by the government.

A lawyer-turned-Harvard scientist built what was known as Grant Watch from a Google spreadsheet over a matter of months

“Good Trouble Lives On” day of action yesterday afternoon in Medfield, 5 to 6:30 pm, organized by the Democratic Town Committee.

Heather Cox Richardson on John Lewis

July 17, 2025

READ IN APP

Five years ago tonight, Georgia Representative John Lewis passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 80.

Lewis was a “troublemaker” as a young adult, breaking the laws of his state: he broke the laws upholding racial segregation. He organized voting registration drives and in 1960 was one of the thirteen original Freedom Riders, white and black students traveling together from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to challenge segregation. “It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious,” Lewis later recalled.

An adherent of the philosophy of nonviolence, Lewis was beaten by mobs and arrested 45 times. As chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced “snick”), he helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. told more than 200,000 people gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial that he had a dream. Just 23 years old, Lewis spoke at the event. Two years later, as Lewis and 600 marchers hoping to register African American voters in Alabama stopped to pray at the end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, mounted police troopers charged the marchers, beating them with clubs and bullwhips. They fractured Lewis’s skull.

To observers in 1965 reading the newspapers, Lewis was simply one of the lawbreaking protesters who were disrupting the “peace” of the South. But what seemed to be fruitless and dangerous protests were, in fact, changing minds. Shortly after the attack in Selma, President Lyndon Baines Johnson honored those changing ideas when he went on TV to support the marchers and call for Congress to pass a national voting rights bill. On August 6, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act authorizing federal supervision of voter registration in districts where African Americans were historically underrepresented.

New Black voters helped to elect Lewis to Congress in 1986. He held the seat from then until his death in 2020, winning reelection 16 times.

Before Representative Lewis died, reporter Jonathan Capehart asked him “what he would say to people who feel as though they have already been giving it their all but nothing seems to change.” Lewis answered: “You must be able and prepared to give until you cannot give any more. We must use our time and our space on this little planet that we call Earth to make a lasting contribution, to leave it a little better than we found it, and now that need is greater than ever before.”

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair,” Lewis tweeted almost exactly a year before his death. “Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.”

Today, as the storm over the release of the Epstein files became a maelstrom, the American people rallied at more than 1,500 sites nationwide to protest the Trump administration in a day of action to honor Representative Lewis. Organizers of the “Good Trouble Lives On” day of action vowed to “take to the streets, courthouses, and community spaces to carry forward his fight for justice, voting rights, and dignity for all.”

“My philosophy is very simple,” Representative Lewis once told an audience. “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, say something! Do something! Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Spectacular Hubble Telescope photos of the Andromeda Galaxy in the WOPO

From the Democratic Town Committee –

Hope to see many of you this Thursday in Medfield at 5:00!! Bring your best signs and some friends. Let’s make a strong statement by standing out all along Route 109, from Westwood to Medway!

It’s going to be hot, so we will have a cooler with water for those who need it. Intersection of Routes 109 and 27.

As always, this is a peaceful event. Please see attachment for some guidelines to keep in mind.

On Thursday, July 10, 2025 at 09:21:02 AM EDT, Becca Kornet <becca_kornet@yahoo.com> wrote:

Reminder – join us next Thursday to make some GOOD TROUBLE in Medfield! Please click the link to RSVP if you can – thank you!

On Monday, June 30, 2025 at 10:55:13 AM EDT, Becca Kornet <becca_kornet@yahoo.com> wrote:

The next national day of action (a la Hands off and No Kings) will be Good Trouble Lives On!

Protests will be happening all across the country on July 17th, the anniversary of Congressman John Lewis’ passing. 

Rush hour standouts are planned for several towns along Rte 109. Medfield’s will take place from 5-6:30 at the intersection of Rtes 109 and 27. Bring your best signs!

Click here to RSVP if you can – it will help us easily contact folks in case of any changes (e.g., weather delay): https://mobilize.us/s/z1qByE

More info about the national day of action:

Good Trouble Lives On is a national day of nonviolent action to respond to the attacks posed on our civil and human rights by the Trump administration and to remind them that in America, the power lies with the people. On July 17, the anniversary of Congressman John Lewis’s passing, we’re taking action across the country to defend our democracy and carry forward his legacy of Good Trouble.

From voter suppression bills like the SAVE Act to the criminalization of protest, the Trump administration is launching a full-scale attack on our civil and human rights. But we know the truth: in America, the power lies with the people, and we’re rising to prove it.

This is more than a protest; it’s a moral reckoning. A continuation of the movement Lewis helped lead, and a new front in the struggle for freedom.

Please note: A core principle behind our Good Trouble Lives On actions is a commitment to nonviolence in all we do. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.

Select Board Office Hours this Friday

July office hours will be tomorrow due the July 4th holiday last Friday.

I hold regular monthly office hours at The Center on the first Friday of every month from 9:00 to 10:00 AM. 

Residents are welcome to stop by to talk in person about any town matters. 

HAPPY 4th! OFFICE HOURS WILL BE NEXT FRIDAY, 7/11

At The Center from 9 – 10 AM.