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Silver Lake Regional High School named a Special Olympics Unified Champion School

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KINGSTON, Mass. —

Silver Lake Regional High School in Kingston has been named a Special Olympics Unified Champion School.

Special education teacher Alex Frazier first brought unified sports to the school with track and field in 2022.

"I had heard about unified sports from one of our wellness teachers, and how their home district participated in it, and just what a wonderful experience it was,” she said. "We started to see these great gains with our students, with their self-confidence."

Unified sports bring together students with and without disabilities, harnessing the power of athletics to promote inclusion. Luke Haley, who plays on the Silver Lake unified basketball team, said he used to be shy but isn’t anymore.

“(I) kind of just branched out,” he said. “Instead of just kind of hiding in my shell."

Connor Doyle is a partner athlete. Partner athletes help their teammates with disabilities during practices and games.

"They're really the stars,” Doyle said. “Our job is just to get them the ball and assist really in any way we can."

He said his cousin Maddie Lavore inspired him and his younger brother to take part.

"I love to play basketball," Lavore said. "I wanted to play with my cousins."

Those involved described the games as electric.

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"Last year, for our first home game, (it) was the most packed of any sporting event all last year," Doyle said.

"Every student, especially in high school, you want that feeling of belonging,” Frazier said. "This is doing exactly what Special Olympics wants it to do. You know, to increase those social interactions and to help people establish true friendships."

The school is piloting a unified wellness program. It brings the unified model into the school day during physical education classes.

Frazier explained the whole school played a role in the national recognition of being named a Champion School.

“The coaches are recognized, and the team is recognized,” she said. “It's all pieces of the puzzle to say your school is a model for inclusivity and for leadership in inclusivity."

KINGSTON – JB’s Indoor Dog Park’s Kingston location will close for good this weekend, just a year after opening.

The Norwell location will remain open.

“It is with heavy hearts we announce that JB’s Indoor Dog Park will be closing its doors on Saturday, Sept. 30,” the business posted on its Facebook page Monday. “We are sad. However, it is best at this time.”

Owner Jackie Brady opened the 7,000-square-foot indoor dog park at the Kingston Collection last year. She opened her first location in Norwell in 2019 in a 3,000-square-foot warehouse space at 106 Longwater Drive.

Florida-based Second Horizon Capital, which describes itself as “reinvigorating challenged commercial real estate projects,” purchased the mall over the summer.

A look back to 2019:South Shore's first indoor dog park set to open

The location played into Brady’s decision to close.

“The location inside a mall was extremely difficult and did not work out the way we hoped it would,” she said in the Facebook post.

JB's Indoor Dog Park: A look back, a look ahead

Brady said she had the idea for the indoor park when she and her husband got their pure white goldendoodle, Bailey.

“Whenever we went outside during bad weather, Bailey would always get dirty,” she said in a 2019 Ledger interview.

Both locations are temperature controlled and contain separate areas for small and large dogs. The business has also hosted dog adoption days and at least one puppy shower.

She stressed in her post that the original location will remain open and has the potential to expand its offerings.

“As always, we appreciate your continued support, and we look forward to bigger and better things happening in Norwell,” she said.

The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office charged a Kingston sober home owner with 43 counts of wire fraud, mortgage fraud, money laundering, and other charges related to several different schemes Tuesday.

In a massive indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s office said 37-year-old Daniel Cleggett Jr. allegedly ran schemes that involved both his sober homes and insulation companies, the Mass Save program, and COVID-19 business relief loans.

The U.S. Attorney’s office also charged his associate, 37-year-old Randolph resident Nicholas Espinosa, with 37 counts related to these schemes.

People have suspected Cleggett and his businesses of conducting illegal and unethical activity for years. The Boston Globe previously published two investigations into his sober homes.

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Despite this, the Globe reported, Cleggett continued to open more businesses and lead a lavish lifestyle.

Cleggett’s attorney did not respond to the Globe’s requests for comment, and Espinosa’s declined to comment.

Two of Cleggett’s schemes involved his sober home business called A Vision From God. The business owns and operates sober homes in Weymouth and Dorchester under the name Brady’s Place, as well as Lakeshore Retreat in Wakefield and others, the release said. Espinosa managed the sober homes.

Cleggett, Espinosa, and a sober home client allegedly defrauded a New York-based family trust that was paying for the client’s room and board at a Brady’s Place location, the release said. They allegedly did this by overcharging the trust by up to $12,500 per month through false invoices and then issuing “refund” checks to the client.

Additionally, the release said, between October 2019 and December 2021, Cleggett bought residential properties in Boston and Weymouth using false information. Cleggett, as well as straw buyers including Espinosa, falsely claimed that the homes were going to be used as primary residences when they intended to use them as sober homes.

Another of Cleggett’s alleged schemes involved several insulation companies he owned and nearly one million dollars he garnered through the Mass Save program. Mass Save uses funds from Massachusetts residents’ utility bills to pay for energy conservation projects and improvements.

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Between 2018 and 2021, two of his insulation companies, Green Save Energy Corporation and Environmental Construction Objective Inc. (ECO) allegedly billed a Mass Save vendor company for required permits that were not actually obtained, the release said.

In June 2021, the vendor company banned Green Save Energy and ECO from participating in their program, and Cleggett was banned from participating in Mass Save altogether, the release said.

In response, the release said, Cleggett, Espinosa, and other co-conspirators allegedly used shell companies to keep participating in Mass Save, and managed to net nearly $1 million this way.

The U.S. Attorney’s office also charged Cleggett for allegedly lying on Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications he submitted in 2020 on behalf of A Voice From God, Green Save Energy, and the Daniel Cleggett Sole Proprietorship.

In the applications for A Voice From God and Green Save Energy, Cleggett allegedly falsely claimed he wasn’t involved in illegal activity despite his alleged sober home fraud schemes, the release said.

The U.S. Attorney’s office claims the entire application for Daniel Cleggett Sole Proprietorship was allegedly false because the company didn’t exist.

Additionally, the release said, Cleggett allegedly used tens of thousands of dollars from the loans to pay for personal expenses despite agreeing to use the nearly $800,000 he was granted only for expenses for the intended businesses.

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Cleggett allegedly used the loans to pay for EZ-Pass bills, gym memberships, pet care, airline tickets, car rentals, and vacations to Yellowstone National Park and Aruba, the release said.

Cleggett also allegedly used money from the loans to stay at resorts and enjoy caviar dinners and spa treatments with his girlfriend. The release said he allegedly spent another $38,000 in loan money on wedding expenses.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged both Cleggett and Espinosa with two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of conspiracy to make false statements to a mortgage lending business, 21 counts of wire fraud, six counts of unlawful monetary transactions, and one count of making false statements to a mortgage lending business.

It separately charged Cleggett with four counts of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements to a mortgage lending business.

Cleggett and Espinosa were arrested Tuesday morning and released after being arraigned in a federal court in Boston, the release said. They both could face decades in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for each charge.

In 2017, The Boston Globe and STAT wrote that Cleggett was allegedly engaging in a practice called “brokering” through his sober homes.

In Cleggett’s case, he reportedly enlisted Bay Staters suffering from drug addictions to go to dubious recovery centers in South Florida. Two men whose move Cleggett allegedly “brokered” died of drug overdoses soon after, but Cleggett denied involvement.

The story prompted the Massachusetts attorney general’s office to investigate sober home schemes and take a closer look at how addiction treatment centers in the state were operating. In 2021, the AG’s office indicted two people as a result of the investigation, including Cleggett associate Michael Hislop.

But Cleggett seemed to escape unscathed, even after the bones of a missing client from one of his sober homes was found in the backyard of one of the homes.

The Globe published an investigation into Cleggett’s homes after this incident. While Cleggett declined to comment on the story, Espinosa claimed the pair had the best intentions. “We are really about helping people,” he said.

Updated at 10:09 a.m.

State officials sent more than 100 people needing shelter to a hotel in Kingston, Massachusetts, with very little advance notice, the town administrator told GBH News.

Keith Hickey said he was told last week that nine people would be housed in Kingston. He said by Saturday the number had risen from nine to 26 and on Monday, he was informed the number had risen all to way to 107. While some families are new arrivals to the United States, others are people with longer residency in Massachusetts.

Hickey said the state's Department of Housing and Community Development didn't give the town enough time to prepare.

"It would have given the school department — who I think's gonna have the biggest impact [on] — it would have given them a little bit of a head start on trying to provide the necessary support that the 20 kids are gonna need that are gonna attend Kingston schools for six weeks or so," he told GBH News.

Hickey said his understanding is that the group includes 46 children, 20 of whom are school age and will be attending Kingston schools at some point in the near future.

"Our principals have been notified. They will assign students to classes and assess educational needs," said Jill Proulx, superintendent of Silver Lake Regional School District, which includes Kingston, Plympton and Halifax. "The town administrator told me that they anticipate the students would attend until January 1st. I am not sure what the plans are after that date."

Officials in Plymouth are experiencing a similar situation. The state this week booked more than two dozen hotel rooms in the town for migrant families, Plymouth Town Manager Derek Brindisi said. Eight families arrived Tuesday night, just hours after the town received notice from the Department of Housing and Community Development. Brindisi said he's aware of 19 more families who will be coming.

"We're just trying to get a better sense of what the state's plan is," Brindisi said. "We do know that this is supposedly temporary housing. So we're looking for a long-term plan by the state. I'm trying to understand which organizations handling the medical needs. The school department is trying to get a sense of how many children will be entering this school system, and what are the language needs for these students? So there are a number of questions that still have gone unanswered."

Although the state is taking care of almost all the family’s needs, those uncertainties are fueling frustrations, he said.

"The schools are going to have an unexpected expense. And, you know, our expectation is that the state will come through and will provide the resources necessary for the school department to provide the services that are necessary," Brindisi said.

The situations in Kingston and Plymouth resemble what happened recently in Methuen, where the city recently had to react on a short notice to multiple families being placed at a hotel there.

In a statement, Kelsey Schiller, a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development, wrote that the department has a process in place to provide emergency shelter to eligible homeless families, including in hotels and motels as a last resort.

"Due to high demand in the shelter system, some families recently have been temporarily placed in hotels, including in Plymouth and in Kingston, while more permanent shelter or housing is found," Schiller said in the statement.

This is a developing story.