Barry Jacobson

The Crime

Early on the morning of Jan. 29, 1982, building contractor Patrick Clarke, a friend of Mr. Jacobson, wanted to borrow Mr. Jacobson’s Jeep, which was parked in the garage of Mr. Jacobson’s vacation home in Richmond, Massachusetts. Mr. Jacobson, who lived in Manhattan, New York, and Mr. Clarke left at about 3 a.m. to drive to the home.

When they arrived, Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Clarke could not open the garage door with the remote control because it was frozen. It was one of the coldest days of the year — the thermometer dropped to zero. Mr. Jacobson did not have his key to the house, so he and Mr. Clarke drove to the home of the property’s caretaker who had a set of keys.

On the way, Mr. Jacobson’s car slid off the icy road and became stuck in a snowbank. Not long after, volunteer firefighters responding to a fire at Mr. Jacobson’s home passed Mr. Jacobson’s snowbound vehicle. The caretaker, alerted by a fire alarm, followed. He stopped and picked up Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Clarke. By the time they arrived at the house, flames were shooting out of the roof. 

The Investigation

The fire was extinguished, and damage was confined to three bedrooms. Carpet samples were removed from the home for testing. Ultimately, Massachusetts State Police arson investigators concluded the fire was intentionally set in a first-floor bedroom closet. 

On Feb. 19, 1983, more than a year after the fire, a grand jury indicted Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Clarke on a charge of setting fire to the dwelling. 

The Trial

In November 1983, Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Clarke went to trial in the Superior Court of Berkshire County.

The prosecution portrayed Mr. Jacobson as a wealthy man who had become dissatisfied with the house because of several expensive repairs, including the drilling of a new well. He had fought with the driller over the bill. The house had also been burgled, requiring further repairs. The prosecution claimed that Mr. Jacobson considered the home a “white elephant,” and that he had been late in paying his property taxes, only paying them after the arson investigation was underway. 

The Berkshire Eagle newspaper described Mr. Jacobson as a “New York millionaire,” and, on the witness stand, said Mr. Jacobson “admitted that he was worth almost $8 million. He was at the time the chairman of the board of the Joseph P. Day Realty Corp. of New York City, a multi-million-dollar cartel.”

The prosecution’s case rested primarily on the testimony of state troopers Robert Scott and Richard Smith, as well as testimony from Francis Hankard, a chemist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety crime lab.

Trooper Scott testified that he concluded it was an arson after he found post-fire indicators, such as crazed glass and the melting of copper pipes and aluminum door sills. These indicators meant that the fire burned extraordinarily hot. Such heat, Trooper Scott testified, was because an accelerant was used to start the blaze.

Decades later, such testimony would be debunked as not based on science. Experiments conducted by arson experts would show that such indicators were present in fires where no accelerants were involved.

Trooper Scott also testified that he took four carpet samples from the home. One of the samples was large and wet, so he put it in a plastic bag. He said that the following day, he squeezed some of the liquid from that sample into a bottle. He said he sent the carpet samples to Mr. Hankard for testing. The liquid in the bottle was not tested at that time. Trooper Scott said he later gave the bottle to Trooper Smith to keep in Trooper Smith’s evidence locker. 

In May 1982, after Mr. Hankard had tested the carpet samples and no accelerants were detected, Trooper Scott said he took the bottle out, and unscrewed the cap. He said he tested the vapor from the bottle with a hydrocarbon detector. He said he got a strong reading for the presence of gasoline. Trooper Scott also said he put the bottle back into the evidence locker and did nothing further.

The bottle was sent to Mr. Hankard for testing in January 1983, just prior to Mr. Jacobson’s and Mr. Clarke’s trial.

Mr. Hankard testified that the liquid in the bottle tested positive for the presence of gasoline.

Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Clarke denied setting the fire. Mr. Jacobson said he loved the home and had no desire to see it destroyed. 

During his closing argument, First Assistant District Attorney Daniel Ford stressed Mr. Jacobson’s wealth, and suggested he set the fire for money. The home was insured for $600,000.

On Nov. 30, 1983, the jury convicted Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Clarke. 

Two months later, the defense sought a new trial based on jury misconduct. An alternate juror said she had overheard one of the jurors refer to Mr. Jacobson as “a rich New York Jew.” A deliberating juror quoted the woman who was elected the foreperson of the jury as “repeatedly” saying that Mr. Jacobson was “one of the New York Jews who think they can come up here and get away with anything.” 

The motion was denied after the trial judge found that “no statement had been made by any of the jurors which would constitute bias and that no conduct or statement by any of the jurors improperly influenced the verdict.” 

In January 1984, at sentencing, Mr. Jacobson’s defense attorney, Gerald Aich, said Mr. Jacobson was physically and emotionally devastated. Mr. Aich said Mr. Jacobson was “crumbling” and that media accounts had adversely affected his real estate business “almost beyond description.” 

The judge sentenced Mr. Jacobson to six months in jail and imposed a $10,000 fine. Mr. Clarke received a six-month suspended jail sentence, two years of probation and a $5,000 fine.

Both men’s sentences were stayed pending appeal.

On Apr. 22, 1985, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts upheld Mr. Jacobson’s conviction. The court vacated Mr. Clarke’s conviction and ordered the case against him dismissed for lack of evidence.

Mr. Jacobson then began serving his six-month sentence. The state parole board released him after 42 days based on a letter from his wife, who noted that her parents were both terminally ill.

The Exoneration

From 1987 to 2002, Mr. Jacobson filed four petitions seeking a pardon. All were denied because he refused to admit guilt.

In April 2021, attorney Robert Cordy, filed a petition for post-conviction relief, noting that there were no police notes, inventories or reports documenting the collection of any liquid from the carpet samples or the bottle.

Subsequently, at the request of the Innocence Project, fire science expert John Lentini reviewed the evidence and concluded that the poor chain of custody procedures in the case rendered the key evidence of arson unreliable.

On April 5, 2022, the Berkshire County District Attorney’s office agreed to dismiss Mr. Jacobson’s conviction based on evidence that the jury foreperson had made antisemitic remarks.