Appeals court upholds Roslindale man's 40-year sentence for torturing, shooting real-estate agent

A Roslindale man convicted of shooting, beating and robbing a Fall River real-estate agent will have ample time over the next few decades to consider his actions.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that Peter Chamberlin got a fair trial before being convicted and sentenced to up to 40 years in state prison and that there was nothing wrong in the way police obtained his cell-phone records before his arrest for the 2007 attack.

In 2011, a jury agreed with prosecutors that Chamberlin and two accomplices tied up and shot the real-estate agent in his office after Chamberlin had gained his trust by pretending to want him to find some real estate in the area.

The three were after the large sums of money they convinced themselves remained in two vaults in the agent's office that were left over from the days when the office was a bank. The three found no money except for the $40 they took from the agent and some change they found in a cash register, according to a report by the Herald-News:

[The agent] had to crawl up the stairs from a basement storeroom where he had been shot and left for dead. He knocked the phone receiver from his cradle with his head and used his nose to dial 911.