District Attorney Announces Additional Guilty Pleas for Man Convicted in 1971 Cold Case Murder
WOBURN – Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Bedford Police Chief John Fisher have confirmed that today Arthur L. Massei, 77, who was convicted May 14, 2024, for the 1971 murder of Natalie Scheublin in her Bedford home, and for soliciting another witness to suborn perjury on his behalf in his 2024 murder trial, has pleaded guilty to all remaining charges pending against him. These crimes included Attempted Extortion; Solicitation to Commit Usury (also known as “loansharking”); and Threatening to Cause Physical Injury or Death.
“While he was in custody facing a first-degree murder charge, Arthur Massei continued to pursue criminal schemes and to make threats of criminal violence to people in the outside world. These deliberate and premeditated attempts to obstruct justice are serious crimes in their own right that strike at the very core of our legal system. Today’s plea underscores our unwavering commitment to holding accountable those who seek to manipulate the justice process, with the same focus and determination we apply to prosecuting the underlying offenses,” said District Attorney Ryan.
In October of 2022 Massei was in the custody of the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office in Billerica when the Middlesex District Attorney’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, working with detectives from the Massachusetts State Police and Bedford Police Department, discovered that he had been communicating by letter with a woman outside the prison.
In reviewing a trove of letters Massei had authored, investigators discovered that Massei had asked for assistance recruiting someone who would pretend to be a witness, and who would be willing to testify falsely that she had information that Massei had been framed for murder. Massei offered to pay $1,000 to a witness who would offer such fictitious testimony, and provided detailed instructions about what the witness should say, including what she had heard, who she had heard it from, and where she was when she heard it.
The letters also revealed an escalating level of threats from Massei toward the recipient of the letters if she did not perform tasks to his satisfaction. When she failed to send sufficient funds to Massei in jail, Massei made thinly veiled threats to recruit third parties who would harm the woman if she did not do as he instructed. At one point he wrote, “All I can do is send GiGi down there to see you to get my money . . . Be nice to him, he’s a nut and just got out of Walpole after 15 years.” The reference to the Town of Walpole was recognized by investigators to be a shorthand for MCI-Cedar Junction (formerly known as MCI-Walpole), a maximum-security state prison facility. When the woman did not perform tasks to his satisfaction, Massei wrote, “Do it – and do it fast because I’m gonna be like a bullet heading for you – full steam ahead with no stops until I get on you – you’ll see how I feel really soon – good luck.” He finished the letter ominously: “Like a bullet to you.”
Massei also directed multiple outside parties to collect on loansharking debts he was owed. Investigation revealed that prior to his arrest in March 2022, Massei had loaned money to parties at interest rates far beyond the amounts allowed by state law – with some of the loans involving 100% interest after only a single month. After his arrest on the murder charge, Massei directed others by letter to collect on these illegal debts, including instructing the recipient of one of his letters to approach a loansharking victim as soon as she received her government check, before the victim could spend the money on herself. In another letter he bragged of his loansharking business, “It’s a great hustle!”
After admitting to each of the charges in open court, Massei was sentenced by Justice Lynn Rooney to fifteen years in state prison on the charge of Attempted Extortion; ten years in state prison on the charge of Solicitation to Commit Usury; and six months in the House of Correction on each of three counts alleging Threats to Commit a Crime. These sentences will run concurrently with the life-without-parole sentence Massei is currently serving for the first-degree murder of Natalie Scheublin.