Commonwealth v. Brown

In this jury-tried case, the Commonwealth’s evidence went as follows. Laurie Surface lived at 30 Falcon Street, East Boston, with her two children, her boyfriend Jerry Mazziotta, Mazziotta’s sister Sylvia Lopez, and Lopez’s six children. In summer 1996, Surface borrowed sixty dollars from the defendant Marc Brown to tide her over a lapse in welfare assistance (the defendant testified it was money for drugs). *280Surface was gradually repaying the loan but toward the end of August was still short twenty dollars.

It was agreed the defendant would come to the house in early morning on August 26 and…