Commonwealth v. Barboza

A father, fearing that his fifteen year old son, Tom,1 was having a sexual relationship with the fifty-seven year old defendant, George Barboza, placed a tape recording device on the family telephone. He thereby intercepted and recorded four telephone conversations between the defendant and Tom without their knowledge. Two of the conversations were recorded before the father informed the police that he was recording the conversations, and two recordings were made after he had informed the police of his activities. The recorded telephone conversations confirmed the existence of an ongoing…