Disgruntled Worker Accused of Cutting Adelphia Cable

By JAMES KINSELLA

A former Adelphia service technician has been accused of sabotaging company property last Saturday, cutting more than 4,000 Vineyard residents off from cable television service for about 30 hours.

Michael F. Kemly, 47, of Herring Creek Road in Edgartown, was charged Monday in Edgartown district court with 11 felony counts of malicious destruction of property worth more than $250, and of larceny of more than $250.

Police say that Mr. Kemly, who left Adelphia last November, cut bundles of wires coming into the company's facility on Carroll Road in Tisbury around 3 p.m. last Saturday. Cutting the wires stopped Adelphia customers on the Vineyard from receiving cable television. Of those customers, more than 1,000 also depend on Adelphia for cable Internet service.

Police also say Mr. Kemly destroyed three Adelphia fiber optic nodes in Edgartown and two in Oak Bluffs, and stole three Adelphia fiber optic nodes in Edgartown and two in Oak Bluffs. The nodes are each worth $1,200.

Mr. Kemly was released on $500 cash bail. As part of his bail, he was required to surrender his firearms identification card and any firearms he possessed. He is scheduled to appear for a pretrial conference April 28.

If the state decides to try his case in superior court, Mr. Kemly could face state prison time of up to 10 years on each count of malicious destruction of property, and five years on each count of larceny.

State police and Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Tisbury police investigated the case.

Tisbury police chief Theodore Saulnier said police initially suspected Mr. Kemly after the Adelphia employee who found the cut wires mentioned a "very bizarre letter" that Mr. Kemly had written to a local newspaper. Chief Saulnier said Mr. Kemly, as a former service technician, also is knowledgeable about how the technical structure of the Adelphia system.

The police subsequently obtained search warrants for Mr. Kemly's home. The application for the warrants and their return have yet to be filed with the court.

The letter in question appeared in the Martha's Vineyard Times, a free weekly newspaper based in Vineyard Haven, two days before the vandalism occurred.

In the letter, Mr. Kemly criticized an "insufferable" manager at a communications company on the Vineyard where he had worked.

"I worked at a communications company on-Island here until recently and during my three-year, eight-month employment, I saw 14 people come and go," Mr. Kemly wrote. "Some left of their own accord, others left as I did, because the manager was insufferable."

Tim Kelley, Adelphia's general manager for southeastern Massachusetts, including Martha's Vineyard, said the Island lost cable television service around 3 p.m. Saturday and did not see it restored until around 5 a.m. Monday. The down period included the initial coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II and the semi-finals of the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Mr. Kelley said Adelphia would credit its customers for the lost service. The credit totals about $19,000 for the Island. He said the company also incurred about $30,000 in overtime, contractor and equipment costs to bring in workers and make the needed repairs in the Island system. Whether the company will press civil charges in an attempt to recover the damages remains to be seen, Mr. Kelley said.

He said Mr. Kemly had worked for Adelphia as a service technician.

Adelphia workers quickly realized that the outage affected the entire Island, given the distribution of complaints that it received. A Vineyard manager for Adelphia spotted the cut wires at the Carroll Road facility and called the police.

"It could have been potentially disastrous," Mr. Kelley said of the outage, given that the Vineyard police and the Island's emergency alert system uses Adelphia lines. "The police did a fantastic job."

Chief Saulnier asked that anyone who saw suspicious activity or a vehicle in the Carroll Road area around 3 p.m. last Saturday get in touch with the police.