Edmond Moussally was, by his own admission, the assistant to Bob Dolan, who was probably a 28-year-old, like Moussally. Mr. Moussally said that he was absent the day it happened and that, when he returned the next day, Dolan came up to him and started talking about what had happened as if Moussally already knew, which he didn’t. Moussally says that when Dolan realized that Moussally did not know anything, he stopped talking to him. And the cover-up was underway, within twenty-four hours, just so we’re clear. In an obvious and glaring discrepancy, Mr. Moussally describes Bob Dolan as a freckled marine type who did a good job keeping things under control, whatever that means. I actually met with a fellow camper who describes Dolan as a pretty mean guy.
The Crime Is Defined in the Conversation
This document contains transcripts of five telephone conversations between myself and Edmund Moussally, who is presently a tenured professor of music at Roxbury Community College and who, by his own account, was assistant to the camp director at the Stay-At-Home day camp in 1963. These conversations occurred during December 2000 and January 2001. In the first conversation, after I told Prof. Moussally that boys had been assaulted at the camp, Moussally states “If this is the, if this is the. I was his. I was the assistant to this director.” which I took to be a reference to some incident involving the camp director. (When asked later by a reporter from the Boston Globe what happened that summer, Prof. Moussally told the reporter he should go speak with the camp director, whom Moussally identified as Bob Dolan, an ex-marine. Exactly what does that mean? Dolan was described by another camper as someone in charge that set him up for a beating by a camper that Dolan recruited. I have only one memory that I think might have been Dolan, but I am not sure. who, according to Moussally, did a good job of keeping the kids in line.) After several conversations, I met with Prof. Moussally, who finally admitted that he had heard about what happened. Moussally explained that he had not been at the clubhouse the day of the incident, but that he heard about it afterward, from Dolan himself, either the next day or just a couple of days after it happened. From what I have been able to gather from Moussally, Dolan presumed that Moussally had already heard about the incident and brought it up in a brief exchange, but when Dolan realized Moussally had not heard about it, Dolan abruptly ended the conversation. After Moussally admitted to me that he had heard about the incident, I asked if he would write a letter saying so, and he agreed. In my last conversation, he read me a draft of the letter, in which he stated “I remember hearing about such an incident after the fact.” In response to these disclosures by Moussally, the Palmer & Dodge attorneys replied “We don’t think [he] corroborates anything,” adding that they didn’t know what Moussally was referring to as “such an incident.” This is an excellent example of the kind of bullshit I had to endure while dealing with these attorneys. Is it really any wonder then, that I eventually walked away from them? And if the reader agrees with that, then do not lay blame for the resulting catastrophe on me. Moussally and I both make several references to the assault as “the incident” throughout our conversations. For the record, the reference is defined in our first conversation — as a rape.
The First Conversation
Moussally: Hello.
Chester: Hello, may I speak to Edmund Moussally, please.
Moussally: Yes, who’s this?
Chester: My name is Jim Chester. Am I pronouncing your name correctly, sir?
Moussally: Yes.
Chester: Umm, sir, umm, I was, ah, many years ago, I attended a day camp at the Charlestown Boys Club. Were you a counselor there? Did you work as a counselor at the camp?
Moussally: Ah, ah, I, was this back in the sixties?
Chester: Yes. In 1962 and 3.
Moussally: I worked for the Boys Club of Boston.
Chester: Well, you’re listed in the newspaper back then as having been a counselor at the, at the Stay-At-Home day camp.
Moussally: I don’t. Umm, I worked out of the South Boston Boys Club one time. And in the summer out of the South, South End, South End Boys Club.
Chester: Uh hah. Well, actually, your name is quoted in a newspaper at that time, in the summer of 1963, actually the summer of 1962 also, as having been a counselor at the Stay-At-Home day camp at the Charlestown Boys Club. Do you remember that?
Moussally: Could, I could have been because, but I remember the, ah, the South Boston Boys Club because, ah, I had a music program there, ah, then I worked a couple of summers, oh yeah, the day camp.
Chester: Right.
Moussally: Right, okay.
I Accuse the Counselors
I Accuse the Counselors
Chester: The reason I’m calling you, sir, it’s actually, it’s a pretty serious matter. Did you know, umm, that something terrible happened there that summer and that some boys were terribly hurt?
Moussally: No, I was not aware.
Chester: Two men, one of whom was a counselor, umm, who went on our field trips with us. Do you remember? I don’t suspect you, sir, so please don’t get worried about anything. I don’t suspect you at all. But, ah, do you remember going on field trips with the campers on the bus?
Moussally: Well, we were always, yes.
Chester: We went to museums and parks and things?
Moussally: Right. Exactly, yes.
Chester: And, one of the individuals who accompanied us. Do you remember? Were there? There were junior. Apparently, there were, ah, were there junior counselors who ah, were there other people who?
Moussally: I think there were. I’m trying to think of the person who was the overall director, was an Irishman, an ex-marine, or. Ah, I’m trying to think of his name. I can see his face, but I can’t remember his name.
Chester: The director of the day camp?
Moussally: Right.
Chester: Do you remember how many counselors were at the day camp?
Moussally: I don’t remember any of those details. I remember some of the places we went to. I remember my boss ’cause he was very good at keeping order and getting everything, keeping everything together.
Chester: Do you remember his name? Is that the Irish fellow you were talking about?
Moussally: Yeah.
Chester: But you don’t remember anybody else that was working at the camp?
Moussally: No, I really don’t.
We Define the Crime
Chester: Well, I’d like to tell you what happened. It’s a little difficult to hear, sir, but, umm, some boys were, were ah, were ah, assaulted, ah, in a, in the gym there that summer. A bunch of boys were.
Moussally: Oh, really.
Chester: And I was one of them. And, umm, I, ah, I was very, very hurt. As a result of what happened, I spent a lot of time — many, many years — ah, trying to work it out. And, umm, another individual has contacted me and said that he also was hurt. And he was actually put into the hospital as a result of what was done to him, and, umm.
Moussally: Goodness. How is it possible for us not to be? If this is the, if this is the. I was his. I was the assistant. (Mr. Moussally is lying here, which is understandable because he is scared. But he will eventually admit to knowing everything.)
Chester: uh-huh.
Moussally: To this director. And I’m sure that we had other people beneath us because two people were not enough for the number of boys that we dealt with.
Chester: There were sixty-five boys. They were in groups of thirteen each.
Moussally: Right. And then we had. That’s right, we had people in charge of each group. And we were sort of overall managers.
Chester: Right. Who were the people in charge of each group? Were they other campers or junior or teenage?
Moussally: I have no idea. I don’t remember that kind of detail. Except that I remember that I was, I was assistant. And I was there like about either two or three years. And then I moved on.
Chester: Right. Do you remember a fellow by the name of Bob Dolan?
Moussally: That’s the ‘fella. He was the director.
Moussally Describes in Detail the Scene of the Crime
Chester: Do you remember the gym that was connected to the building through the tunnel? We used to go to the gym to play games?
Moussally: Yeah, and I remember the pool.
Chester: Right, the pool was in the main building, then there was a tunnel connecting to the gym.
Moussally: Now that you mention it, I.
Chester: There was a long underground tunnel.
Moussally: Was slightly claustrophobic, so I can remember that.
Chester: Right, that’s why I remembered it too. And, inside the gym, as soon as you came out of the tunnel and into the gym, to the left (I don’t expect you to remember this, but maybe you might), immediately to the left after you entered the building, there was a small office.
Moussally: Right. You know it’s amazing. As you’re speaking, I’m picturing it.
Chester: That’s where it happened. It happened in that room.
Moussally: It could easily have happened because it was such a dank area. You know, it wasn’t that well lighted, and there wasn’t light from the outside, that much.
Chester: You mean in the room?
Moussally: In that, yeah. You know it’s amazing. It’s been so many years, but I’m having a flashback of remembering what it was like being there.
Chester: Could you tell me what it was like?
Moussally: As I said, it was dark and ah, there wasn’t much window, so there wasn’t much light.
Chester: There was a window to the outside, wasn’t there.
Moussally: There was, but it was high up, so there wasn’t that much air.
Chester: Do you remember if there was a window looking out onto the gym from inside the office?
Moussally: Oh yes. There was one looking into the office, yes. There was a kind of, I’m picturing it in my mind, this is incredible. There were bricks, and it was kind of a curved window and a flat bottom. Do you remember it that way?
Chester: Well, I remember one window. I remember the window facing some kind of a courtyard, or something outside. It was high up. But I don’t remember the window facing the gym. But you do remember the window looking out onto the gym?
Moussally: Well, I remember, ah, you know, what I’m picturing in my mind, when you told me about coming out of that tunnel, and to the left, I could picture a window with a curve, like a moon, like a half moon. Is that how you remember it?
Chester: You’re referring to the window looking out onto the gym?
Moussally: Well both of them actually. And that’s one of the reasons why there wasn’t that much light. It was good security for not being able to get in and out easily.
Chester: I actually don’t remember what the window looked like. I just remember that there was a window. Unfortunately, because of what happened, it’s been very hard for me to remember much of it. It wasn’t until just a couple of years ago.
Moussally: Okay, I can understand that. Yes.
Chester: It was just a couple of years ago that I started bring it all back. And, as I said, another boy, another man has contacted me. He’s a [name of profession redacted] now, and he said that the same thing happened to him. So there’s no doubt in my mind that it happened.
Moussally: It was a sexual attack?
After what happened in 1963, the Charlestown Boys Club added two windows to the equipment room.
The reason they added two windows instead of just one was because there was a partition that divided the room. As a result, looking through, for instance, the window on the right showed nothing of the room on the other side of that partition.
In the picture above, you can see that an administrative decision was made to remove the window on the left. You can still see the outline of the window that was removed, and the area is now covered by a bulletin board.
Here is a good view of the inside of the room, and there are a few things to notice. In the back of the room, you can see that there is a large window. That is the window that James Power told me that he was going to throw me out of in order to make me beg for my life, which I did and which gave him great satisfaction.
The other thing to notice is that there is a good distance between the edge of the left-sided window and the exit door, which goes to a fire escape on the outside. That extra space is part of the room, which you cannot see in the picture. In 1963, there was a partial wall that extended from the front of the room nearly all the way to the back but not completely. The wall existed between the right edge of the large, outside window in the back to the front of the room, immediately behind the doorway that you see open. Opening that doorway too far would hit the wall. Some of the assaults occurred in the partitioned room on the right and some on the left.
Unless they removed that partition, looking through the window on the left would show nothing of what was happening on the right side of the partition.
The question I ask is why did they remove that second window on the left side when they knew what had happened and made the decision to install those two windows in the first place because of what had happened. Either they removed the partition and decided that two windows were no longer necessary or they wanted to allow the assaults to continue, which is extremely difficult to comprehend.
But if they removed the partition, they would not have removed the second window because that was an unnecessary construction expense, and they were a charity without unnecessary funds. Every penny was necessary. So, you decide. But before you do, consider the case of Brendan Coleman.
In October of 2000, after I wrote to every single board member at the local and national Boys and Girls Clubs and told them what had happened to me, it may have happened again, in the same room.
At that time, Brendan Coleman was arrested for sexually assaulting a child at the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club, according to the Boston Globe. The Club’s attorney, Judith Malone of Palmer and Dodge, denied that anything happened at the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club. But according to Mr. Coleman’s friend, Chuck Miller, who told the Globe (Oct. 21, 2000) that he knew Mr. Coleman for ten years, “He volunteered and he worked in almost every organization.” So what Mr. Coleman did probably happened all over Charlestown, just not at the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club.
In addition, on June 19, 2003, Coleman was convicted and the Boston Globe reported “Brendan Coleman, 21, was convicted of rape of a child, indecent assault and battery, and open and gross lewdness for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy in a secluded area of the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club and the Charlestown ice rink.” Two days later, the Globe made a correction and said that the Suffolk County DA, who at that time was Ralph C. Martin II, a sitting member of the board of directors at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston and a seasoned prosecutor who had been in office for eight years at that point, made a mistake identifying the scene of a crime, which I find unlikely, and instead identified the crime scene as the charitable organization of whose board he was a member, which I find extremely unlikely.
Moreover, on February 7, 2004, the Boston Globe reported that “Coleman was accused of assaulting four boys in 1999 and 2000, when they were 11 and 12 years old at Charlestown locations, including a gym and a public pool, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.”
And one final observation. The Jordan Gym was at one time a church when Eben Jordan, who founded the Boston Globe Newspaper Company, purchased it for the Boys Club. And what you are looking at in the above picture is the alter. Children were raped on that alter, if you can stomach that.
The Victim Uses the Word Rape to Describe What Happened
Chester: It was a rape; we were raped. And, actually, when they were done, they told me that they were going to throw me out that window. And they made me beg for my life, Mr. Moussally. They literally made me beg for my life. I was eleven years old. I was terribly, terribly frightened.
Moussally: I could imagine.
Chester: I spent many, many years in therapy trying to talk about what happened. And every time I came close, on the two occasions, in twenty years of therapy, on the two occasions when I came close to talking about it, I became so frightened I couldn’t go on. And, in fact, I became so frightened when I was, in 1972, the first time it almost came out, I had to be hospitalized. That’s how frightened I was.
Moussally: Do you remember me at all?
Chester: I don’t.
Moussally: You just saw my name?
Chester: No, I don’t remember you at all. I may have remembered you, but I can’t picture your face. I don’t remember you at all, actually. I do remember the fellow, one of the fellows who did this, there were two of them. One of them, he went with us on our trips, on our field trips every day, and he was a very mean fellow. He was very mean to us. He had black hair, and I remember he had chubby cheeks.
The Second Conversation
About Bob Dolan
Chester: And, ah, there is a fellow down there who, umm, and I’m trying to locate him. Apparently, he’s screening his calls. And I haven’t left my name and number yet, but, ah.
Moussally: Oh, okay.
Chester: I haven’t been able to get through to him. But, ah, it was, it was interesting speaking with you last week. One of the things you said that, ah, that made me very curious was that, umm, he, you said that he had done a good job keeping the children in line. Do you remember that?
Moussally: Well, yeah… I think he was an ex-marine or an ex-serviceman, and he had that kind of military attitude.
Day Camp Activities
Chester: Basically, all that really happened was you took the children on field trips, is that right?
Moussally: Yeah.
Chester: And there were days that we stayed at the Boys Club also.
Moussally: There were days that, well.
Chester: If it rained, for instance and.
Moussally: If it rained, we had to stay at the Boys Club and do some activities there.
Chester: Right. Usually, we’d play games in the Game, in the Game Room.
Moussally: Yup.
Chester: Or ah, sometimes….
Moussally: And of course there was always the, ah, swimming in the….
Chester: Right.
Moussally: And, was it part of the system that we, we came back to, to the pool, ah, at the Boys Club in the afternoon.
Chester: Right.
Moussally: And that was the last activity, and then everybody would get ready to go home.
Chester: Right.
Moussally: Okay.
Chester: And there were also times when we played games in the gym. Do you remember that?
Moussally: Yeah, ah, yes.
Chester: Who was, was, who was in charge when we were playing games in the gym? Do you remember that?
Moussally: It was usually, it was usually, ah, Dolan.
Moussally Remembers Me
Chester: Really, all that I want to do, as I said before, is find the two men who did it. One of them was a light-haired colored individual, a skinny kind of fellow. And the other one was a dark-haired, more full, ah, fuller.
Moussally: By the way, are there any pictures?
Chester: Yeah, there are pictures. There are no pictures of you or of Mr. Dolan that I could find. There are pictures of, ah, there’s a picture of me with five other boys who won a freckle contest.
Moussally: Oh, ooh, I remember that. Oh boy, yeah. I don’t know if that was an annual thing.
Chester: It was. It was an annual thing.
Moussally: Were you kind of tall and thin?
Chester: Yes.
Moussally: You know, when you mentioned that, there was a picture of a tall, slim, kind of reddish hair?
Chester: Kind of.
Moussally: Yeah. Reddish brown.
Chester: Right.
Moussally: That just shot through my imagination.
Chester: What did?
Moussally: A picture of a kind of slim, tallish boy with all the freckles, when you mentioned the freckle contest.
More Details About the Crime
Chester: When this incident happened to me, there were a whole roomful of boys there. All of us were in the room.
Moussally: Oh really.
Chester: Right. We were playing a game of basketball.
Moussally: Uh hah.
Chester: So there might have been ten of us.
Moussally: Oh.
Chester: And they came out of the, that room that I described to you.
Moussally: Uh hah.
Chester: Which was basically an office or an equipment room.
Moussally: Right.
Chester: And told us that we had to come in there, one by one.
Moussally: Oh.
Chester: And this wasn’t the first time that they had done it. They had done it before.
Moussally: Mmm, and they got away with it so they were doing it again.
Chester: And they were going a bit further.
Moussally: Oh, oh, okay.
Chester: They were getting a little more cruel as they, as they were getting away with it.
Moussally: Yeah.
Chester: And they told us to come into the room, and they made us come in, and they were making us sing, sing songs in front of them and dance in front of them while they made fun of us. And then they made us take off our clothes and do this, you know, sing these songs and dance in front of them while they made fun of us.
Moussally: Wow.
Chester: And there were other boys in the room who watched this and were themselves subjected to the same thing. They had to do the same thing.
Third Conversation: More about Dolan
Chester: You said that [Dolan] had reddish-brown hair. Was he tall or medium height? Do you remember?
Moussally: I would say that he’s sort of medium. He was probably taller than me because I’m not very tall. Ah, but he had very broad shoulders. A very strong guy. He was a, he was a marine. Do you remember that?
Chester: No.
Moussally: He was an ex-marine. With a lot of freckles, especially in the summertime.
Chester: Well, as I’ve said, I’ve been calling him and he will not take my calls. He will not speak to me.
Moussally: Not even to tell you that he’s not the person.
Chester: Right, right.
Chester: And I’ve left two messages. The first message, I told him that I had attended the day camp and that I understood he was the camp director and that it was very important that I speak with him, and I gave him my number and asked him to call me. And he did not return my call.
Moussally: He’s probably been alerted.
Chester: Yes, he’s been warned. Now why would somebody warn him?
Moussally: Well, because, because that incident can be very, ah.
Chester: Somebody warned him, sir, because he’s culpable. He did something wrong. Why else wouldn’t he speak to me?
Moussally: Yeah, but after like thirty years. Is he still, ah, criminally liable?
Chester: No, he’s not. He’s not criminally liable anymore. The criminal statutes.
Moussally: But that would be very embarrassing to him.
Moussally: Do you recall how that all came about?
Chester: He was just a mean guy. You see, when I spoke with you the first time, sir, you said that he, he did a very good job keeping the kids in line.
Moussally: Yeah.
Chester: After this happened, the next day or the second day afterwards, we used to assemble on the front porch and wait for the bus. Do you remember that? All the kids used to gather on the front porch on Green Street in front of the clubhouse and the bus would pull up and we’d board it there. He came up to me and he said “Now, you’ll do exactly as you’re told, won’t you?” That was after the incident. So when you told me that he did a very good job keeping kids in line, that made me very suspicious. Because that’s what he said to me.
Moussally: Yeah, he was very strong, yeah. But I admired him for his strength.
Chester: Well, he raped children. He raped children. He raped little boys.
Moussally: Was it an emotional rape or real, or a physical one?
Chester: I was orally raped. Violently. And when they were done, sir, they told me they were going to throw me out a window. They made me beg for my life. That’s what he did.
Moussally: You carried this all these years?
Chester: I spent twenty years in psychotherapy, trying to talk about this. And the first time it almost came out, I had to be hospitalized, at Mass General, because I was so terrified.
Moussally: Because you were all of a sudden.
Chester: Facing it.
Moussally: Yeah.
Chester: And I was terrified. I was in the hospital for a month.
Moussally: People don’t realize what they’re doing. They’re having fun while they’re doing it, or they’re feeling powerful, whatever it is.
Chester: They were having fun. They enjoyed it.
Chester: I enjoyed speaking with you again. I appreciate your being so cooperative with me.
Moussally: Well, you know, I, whatever, whatever honesty I can bring to it, I will. But I, again, I don’t, I’ll tell you, I have to tell you that I really admired him very much. ‘Cause he had a strength that I would never have had.
Chester: Right. But you still admire him after I tell you what he did?
Moussally: Well, I sort of have to excuse him because he, in a way, he didn’t know any better.
Chester: What do you mean he didn’t know any better?
Moussally: It was part of his, the culture that he came out of.
Chester: Irish, you mean?
Moussally: Irish and the military. A combination. Where, that was being, what he was was being manly in the culture that he came from. And what he did might have been the way in which he thought that he was making you more manly.
Fourth Conversation
Moussally: Hello.
Chester: Mr. Moussally, it’s Jim Chester.
Moussally: Oh, yeah, hi.
Chester: How are you?
Moussally: Okay, thanks. How was your Christmas?
Chester: I was going to say the same thing to you. I got together with my friends. We had a nice time.
Moussally: Oh, good.
Chester: Is it possible to meet with you?
Moussally: Ah, sure. When were you thinking?
Chester: Just a quick meeting. Just to show you the photographs that I have to see if you can help me with that. It’s nothing extensive or anything like that.
Moussally: But when were you thinking of it?
Chester: Well, it’s entirely up to you, whenever your schedule permits.
Moussally: Okay, I’m not sure, might as well get it over with in the next couple of days. Why don’t you give me a call tomorrow morning ’cause I haven’t planned out what I’m going to do, ’cause I have to get into the conservatory, I have to get into Roxbury Community College, and I also have to do some shopping. So, I think tomorrow I’m going to go downtown. But, I won’t know, could you call me in the morning?
Chester: Sure, what would be a good time to call?
Moussally: Well, nine o’clock would be perfect.
Chester: Okay, I’ll call you at nine o’clock. Thanks, Mr. Moussally.
Moussally: You’re welcome.
Chester: Bye, bye.
The Fifth Conversation, After the Meeting
Moussally: Good morning.
Chester: Good morning, sir.
Moussally: Hi.
Chester: How are you?
Moussally: I wrote that thing up.
Chester: You did?
Moussally: Yeah. Can you call me back in an hour?
Chester: Sure. At ten o’clock?
Moussally: Yeah.
Chester: Okay.
Moussally: Thanks.
Chester: Alright. Bye, bye.
An hour later …
Moussally: Hello.
Chester: Hi Mr. Moussally.
Moussally: Yeah. Do you want me to read you that letter?
Chester: Could you?
Moussally: Okay.
To whom it may concern, I would like to share some vague memories of my tenure as assistant to Bob Dolan at the Charlestown Boys Club summer day camp in ’62.
Or should I say ’62 ’63? I don’t know.
In conversations with James Chester, I recollected the indoor pool and gym connected by a tunnel, the setting for the incident which traumatized Mr. Chester. Among other memories was a freckle contest that I remember hearing, oh, and that I remember hearing about such an incident after the fact, that I’m sure that Dolan did not take part. Remember that this is a vague memory and that I remember Dolan as a very positive leader and would not condone this kind of behavior. I also believe this was a teenage prank gone astray, a hazing, like college fraternity hazing.
(I think it is pretty clear exactly what Mr. Moussally meant when he spoke of an “incident” here, to be clear to he Palmer Dodge attorneys who couldn’t figure it out.)
Ah, I’m still, I’m still working on it I think.
Chester: Okay, ah, I would say ’62 and ’63 that you were there.
Moussally: Okay.
Chester: You were there in ’63? You were there for two years?
Moussally: Yeah, yeah, I was there for two years, yes. ‘Cause I remember I came back for just one more year. Yeah.
Chester: I would say ’62 and ’63.
Moussally: Okay.
Chester: Also, umm, you said that Mr. Dolan asked you about the incident.
Moussally: No, no, I think he, well he, alright, that he had mentioned it to me.
Chester: Do you remember what you heard about the incident?
Moussally: No, I remember it was sort of like a casual thing, something that was, you know, passing. It might have been right after the incident….
Chester: Right. What might have been after the incident?
Moussally: My hearing about it. It might have been the next day, I don’t know. But I sort of, you know, heard about it that way.
Chester: … But you think that it was Dolan who told you about it? Or, who mentioned it in passing.
Moussally: Yeah….
Chester: Lastly, umm, you did say to me that you thought it was a teenage thing?
Moussally: Yeah, that it was like a, like, like a rite of passage or like a, like a hazing.
Chester: And that it went too far?
Moussally: Yup.
Mr. Moussally never provided me with his letter. When I called him back about it, he told me that he had friends on the Club’s board of directors and he wanted to speak with them first. I knew that was the end of Mr. Moussally’s cooperation.
In this instance, Mr. Moussally should have thought about the children of Boston, not his ass or anything else having to do with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston.
And then, to make complicity worst than mere silence, he lied to investigators.