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Friday, March 29, 2024

Maurice Abisdid-Wagner has collected seven arrest warrants in five years, police say.

Maurice Abisdid-Wagner was being sought on seven warrants for charges dating back to 2012 when he encountered three Cambridge police detectives waiting for him Wednesday near Fayette Street.

They introduced themselves. He ran. After a chase that included Abisdid-Wagner climbing up and down a tree and Detective Sgt. James Crowley scaling a 6-foot fence, Abisdid-Wagner was arrested near the rear of a house on Maple Avenue.

Now he faces a charge of resisting arrest in addition to the seven warrants. As of Tuesday, he had not been arraigned on the new charge and was being held at the Bristol County House of Correction on several of his outstanding warrants.

The seven warrants he faces are from district courts in South Boston, Taunton and Edgartown. The charges against him range from not paying parking tickets to assault, cocaine possession, credit card fraud and break-ins, according to details in the Cambridge police report of his arrest.

That was not the only reason police were looking for him July 12. Detectives were investigating a complaint from a Cambridge woman “who considered him a friend,” alleging that he had fraudulently charged her credit card and debit card for more than $5,000, police department spokesman Jeremy Warnick said in an email. As a result of the investigation, they believed Abisdid-Wagner would show up that afternoon, he said.

Achievements

Cambridge is a long way from Abisdid-Wagner’s home. Police records list the address of his last known residence as 39 Hope St. in Paia, Hawaii. Paia is the site of a former sugar plantation on the island of Maui that has become a magnet for wind surfers. Hope Street does not appear on an online map of the town.

News reports of Abisdid-Wagner’s previous encounters with the criminal justice system have identified him as living in South Boston, Oak Bluffs and Tisbury. He apparently grew up in Randolph.

Over the years, local newspapers have reported the charges that led to the warrants against him, usually in routine court and police logs. One case in Easton in 2015 attracted more attention: A man broke into a home and fled when the occupant returned, leaving behind not just a bag of jewelry, but even his own car, police said. The car belonged to Abisdid-Wagner, according to police; one of the outstanding warrants stems from that case.

Local papers also reported his achievements: he graduated from Blue Hills Regional-Technical High School in 2008 and Bridgewater State College in 2013.

Chase and arrest

The events that led to his arrest in Cambridge on July 12 – just 13 days before his 27th birthday – started when plainclothes detectives staked out an address around Fayette Street, according to a report written by Crowley. They expected him to come there to “retrieve personal belongings.”

He showed up about 2:45 p.m. After the detectives identified themselves and told him he was under arrest for the warrants, Abisdid-Wagner took off toward Cambridge Street, then turned into an alley toward Fainwood Circle. His pursuers had lost sight of him when Crowley noticed a woman on a third-floor landing in the back of a Maple Avenue building “with a look of horror on her face,” Crowley wrote. He asked if she had seen a man matching Abisdid-Wagner’s race, height and clothing and she said he was in a tree next to the back stairs, the report said.

Crowley noticed the tree shaking and saw Abisdid-Wagner climbing down. Crowley went over a 6-foot fence to get to the Maple Avenue property and pointed his gun at the suspect, he said, explaining that he feared Abisdid-Wagner was armed. Crowley and Officer Raymond Pina, who also drew his gun, removed Abisdid-Wagner from a space under the stairs and arrested him, the report said.


This post was updated July 29, 2017, to correct “Maple Street” to “Maple Avenue.”