Search results haunt Lynn man

LYNN – Type Peter Molbeck into Google, and the first result is a story involving a half-naked, crying stripper who runs into a convenience store early on a January morning. There are allegations of rape and assault and battery, a jealous boyfriend and boss, and excessive champagne.Molbeck acknowledged the story is sensational in details; he said the result was not.Five months later, the charges were dropped. The judge told Molbeck that he didn’t have to pay $150 in attorney fees. Molbeck walked out.”It wasn’t like in the movies, where people wait on the courthouse steps for the verdict,” Molbeck said. “We all want our day in court, I didn’t even get my day in court.”But while the public may have forgotten Molbeck’s case, technology has not. And technology’s ability to remember, and remind, has substantial impacts on the criminal justice system.”People say ?it is what it is’ – well, it’s my life, it’s on Google,” Molbeck said. “When you Google my name, you get one address and that.”Peter O. Molbeck, 45, of 328 Broadway #202, pleaded not guilty to charges of rape; witness intimidation; and assault and battery; on Jan. 9.Police responded to a 7-Eleven at 6:20 a.m. that day on a report of a hysterical female who was not wearing any pants. The woman told police she and her co-worker, Molbeck, had returned to his office after a party and Molbeck confessed he loved her, held her down and then raped her. The woman said she escaped when Molbeck got up to turn off the lights. She was taken to a hospital with an eye injury because Molbeck allegedly poked her during the incident. She refused to take a test to determine if there had been a rape, according to police.Molbeck has denied the charges since his arraignment in Lynn District Court.His attorneys argued that the alleged victim was fighting with her boyfriend – an owner of Shamrock Entertainment, a company that provides adult dancers for parties and the employer of both the alleged victim and Molbeck – and that she went to Molbeck for support.Both defense attorneys (Molbeck was represented by different public defenders at his arraignment and in subsequent court appearances) argued any physical contact was consensual and that the alleged victim claimed she had been raped because she was afraid her boyfriend would find out about her being with Molbeck.A judge first ordered Molbeck held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing. Essex Assistant District Attorney Shailagh Kennedy withdrew the motion for a dangerousness hearing the day of the scheduled hearing and instead requested $30,000 cash bail.She cited Molbeck’s record of 38 defaults on charges and convictions for “crimes like assault and battery,” and she noted the alleged victim had been summonsed and appeared at the courthouse earlier that day.But public defender Jeffrey Sweeney said the alleged victim “appeared today but did not want to cooperate with the commonwealth today.””There are a lot of reports, and there’s no substance to it, this is just a story being told, a story that is being refused to be told today, under oath … and to my perspective, this speaks volumes to where this is going,” Sweeney said.Judge James LaMothe ordered $10,000 cash bail, noting the seriousness of the charges and that the case would be sent to a grand jury.The coverageAfter a dangerousness hearing, the next event resulting in a newspaper story on a rape case would have been an indictment, a plea bargain or a trial.But as Molbeck noted, there was nobody waiting on the courtroom steps the day the charges were dropped. By that time, pretrial hearings had been held, motions filed and other criminal cases had come and gone.As far as the local media knew, the case was still being presented to a grand jury (which meets in private and so is difficult for a court reporter to monitor).As far as Google knew, Molbeck was held on $10,000 cash bail.Google and the newsDefendants, defendants’ relatives, alleged victims, even neighbors often call The Daily It