She planned to hang herself with a rope, a woman told police last summer after allegedly being raped by 19-year-old Brodric Mason.
But the 61-year-old homeless woman was too distraught to testify, so the charges against the Plymouth man were dismissed.
And Mason was free to roam the streets.
This week, Mason faced felony charges again — accused of pistol whipping a Plymouth father who stepped in to prevent a fight between Mason — who had two teenage accomplices — and his daughter’s boyfriend, who was in his house.
Mason was arraigned in Plymouth District Court Thursday and ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing on March 7. He pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including assault to murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
His lawyer, Richard McLeod, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. According to the police report, Mason was most recently living in a relative’s condominium on Marc Drive.
Mason, along with a 17-year-old Plymouth South High School senior, and a 12-year-old, allegedly pulled up in a car outside a Manomet home Feb. 26, police said, and the father of a girl inside the house went out to investigate.
Mason, who was wearing a black ski mask, allegedly pulled out a gun and said to the man, “What you gonna do?”
When the father tried to wrestle the gun away, Mason allegedly struck him in the eye, face, and head with the butt of the weapon, causing severe and potentially permanent damage.
The gun turned out to be pepper ball gun, which shoots pepper pellets and is not considered a firearm, police said.
On Wednesday, police tracked down the driver of the car, a 17-year-old student at Plymouth South, where he allegedly fought violently to avoid being handcuffed and arrested.
Principal Patricia Fry quickly notified parents of the incident, telling them no weapon was found at the school and the boy “would not be returning to school.”
“We take every situation reported to us very seriously,” Fry told the Independent, adding that she had a “good relationship” with the student.
The student, whose name was not released, was charged with delinquency — specifically, accessory after the fact, mayhem, assault and battery causing bodily injury, resisting arrest, and assault and battery on a police officer.
The 12-year-old hasn’t been charged. “We’re trying to determine his level of participation,” said Plymouth Police Captain Jason Higgins.
Though Mason, who worked at McDonald’s on Samoset Street, has faced serious charges before, he has not suffered serious consequences.
Beside the rape allegation last summer, he was separately charged with threatening to kill a former classmate.
Both cases were eventually dismissed.
On August 16, 2023, the homeless woman told police, she was walking along Samoset Street carrying a backpack with all her belongings when a man on a black moped – and wearing a helmet covering his face — lured her to a wooded area.
She told police Mason pushed her and she fell to the ground where he raped her, though she acknowledged she didn’t resist. She told police she figured that way Mason wouldn’t hurt her. “I just wanted for him to get it over with,” she said.
The next day, she was so distraught she decided to “hang herself with a rope, since she was now 61 years old and could no longer live a life of pain,” the police report said.
But she eventually called 911 and was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth, where she gave police a description of her attacker. She said she wanted to cooperate in any way she could, police wrote.
At roll call the next day at Plymouth police headquarters, a detective described the suspect and asked the officers to be on the lookout for him.
An officer immediately recognized Mason from the description, explaining he was under investigation for a different sexual assault. (The report gives no specifics about that separate investigation.)
Police located Mason, who admitted having sex with the woman, whom he didn’t know, they said. “He felt the alleged victim had consented to sexual relations,” according to the police report.
Police charged him with rape, indecent assault and battery on a person 60 or older, and assault and battery on a person 60 or older, or disabled.
He was ordered held without bail on Aug. 21. Prosecutors feared that he might harm the alleged victim or try to threaten a witness or juror if he were released, court records show.
But on Oct. 12, the prosecutor told the judge she could not move forward because the victim “does not wish to be involved… due to personal reasons, including her wish to not have to relive the incident by retelling her story.”
The charges were dropped.
Rape cases can be brought without the alleged victim’s testimony, experts said, but it’s difficult to get a conviction — especially when there is a question of consent.
“You need the victim’s testimony to say that she did not agree to have sex with the defendant,” said Beth Keeley, a former Suffolk County assistant district attorney, now a lawyer in private practice.
In a statement, Beth Stone, spokeswoman for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz, said, “We could not meet our burden of proof without the testimony of the victim.”
About a year before that, Mason was embroiled in another criminal case.
This time he was accused of threatening to kill at least one student at Pilgrim Academy, an alternative school which he had formerly attended, according to the police report.
Mason had sent a text message to a student, threatening to put a “beam” — slang for gun — to the head of the student, a school official told police.
Mason admitted to police that he sent the text but said “it was just talk.”
He was angry, police said, because some students at the school were “spreading lies” about an alleged sexual assault of a minor on school grounds. That case was dropped over the prosecutor’s objection.
Police said Mason was, in fact, a suspect in a sexual assault at the school. It is unclear if he was ever charged.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.