Commonwealth v. Theogene - Rape Conviction Affirmed

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April 9, 2026 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

Commonwealth v. Theogene

Massachusetts Appeals Court

• Citations: None known

• Docket Number: AC 24-P-1395

• Opinion

• Authorities (23)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (95.8K)

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Combined Opinion

NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound
volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical
error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of
Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1
Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-
1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us

24-P-1395 Appeals Court

COMMONWEALTH vs. JONATHAN THEOGENE.

No. 24-P-1395.

Middlesex. December 2, 2025. – April 9, 2026.

Present: Singh, Grant, & Tan, JJ.

Rape. Evidence, Spontaneous utterance. Social Media. Cellular
Telephone. Practice, Criminal, Required finding, Sentence.
Practice, Civil, Contempt. Contempt. Imprisonment, Credit
for time served.

Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court
Department on March 11, 2022.

The cases were tried before David A. Deakin, J.

Brad P. Bennion for the defendant.
Mallorie Sckerl, Assistant District Attorney, for the
Commonwealth.

TAN, J. The defendant appeals from his convictions of rape

and assault and battery after a jury trial in the Superior

Court. Before trial, he was found in civil contempt and held in

custody for failing to comply with a court order to provide the

personal identification number access code (PIN) to his cell
2

phone. We hold, as a matter of first impression, that the

defendant was not entitled to receive jail credit pursuant to

G. L. c. 279, § 33A, for the time he was held in custody for

civil contempt prior to sentencing. We also hold that the judge

acted within his discretion in admitting in evidence as excited

utterances two typewritten captions on a Snapchat1 video message

and appropriately denied the defendant's motions for required

findings of not guilty. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

Background. 1. Facts. Where the defendant challenges the

sufficiency of the evidence, we summarize the evidence in the

light most favorable to the Commonwealth, reserving certain

details for discussion. See Commonwealth v. Latimore, 378 Mass.

671, 676-677 (1979).

The victim, who was eighteen years old at the time of the

offenses, had been in the custody of the Department of Children

and Families since she was thirteen years old and spent many

years living in group homes. In February 2022, she was living

in a "pre-independent living home." The victim's "Voluntary

Placement Agreement" required her to be either working or in

1 Snapchat, a social media application designed for
temporarily visible communications, allows users to share text,
photographs, and video recordings. See Commonwealth v.
Carrasquillo, 489 Mass. 107, 108-109 (2022).
3

school, and she had a curfew of 8 P.M. In February 2022, she

was working at a restaurant in a shopping mall in New Hampshire.

The victim first met the defendant, who was working at the

same mall, when she went into the store where he was employed on

February 17 or 18, 2022. Over the next few days, they

communicated with each other through direct messages on

Instagram.2 On February 18, 2022, the victim messaged the

defendant, and he responded, "I get Netflix and chill vibes from

you." The victim interpreted the defendant's response as

flirtatious and responded, "Spot on." They made plans to see

each other the next day. On February 19, 2022, the victim went

to the mall and met up with the defendant. They got into his

car, and he drove them to his home in Newton.

The defendant and the victim had sex in the basement of the

defendant's home. The victim did not say no, because "at first

[she] was into it" and she "was not really objecting," but she

did object to "the anal part."

Later in the day, the victim told the defendant that she

did not want to have sex, but the defendant did not seem to

care, "[p]hysically did not stop," and penetrated the victim's

vagina and anus with his penis. The defendant also slapped the

2 Instagram is "a social media platform that enables users
to share photographic content and send messages to other users."
Commonwealth v. McMann, 97 Mass. App. Ct. 558, 558 n.1 (2020).
4

victim's breast and "bottom." He "smacked" her in the face,

which caused her lip to bleed. The defendant used his cell

phone to take video recordings of the victim even though she

told him not to record her.

The victim became worried about what was happening. Alone

in the living room, she used the Snapchat application on her

cell phone to record a video message to a friend from her group

home who the victim knew could determine her location by cell

phone. The video recording, which was admitted in evidence,

showed the victim's bloody face, and in it she was crying and

whispering. To the video recording, the victim added two

Snapchat captions,3 one stating, "your tracking me right?" and

the other stating, "mf slapped me during sex and i got

triggered."4 The victim did not say she was in a dangerous

situation because she did not want her friend to alert the staff

of the group home, and she thought she could handle the

situation.

Later that day, the defendant pushed the victim onto a bed

and penetrated her anus, vagina, and mouth with his penis. The

victim told the defendant that she did not want to have sex and

3 The caption (or "banner") feature enables a Snapchat user
to add an overlay with text to an image or video recording.

4 The victim testified that "mf" meant "[m]otherfucker."
5

that he was hurting her, but he did not stop. Because she was

scared, the victim had previously set her cell phone to

continuously record audio, and it recorded the events. The

defendant again made a video recording of parts of these sexual

assaults with his cell phone.5

Around 8 P.M. that evening, the victim's residential

counsellor from her group home called her cell phone, asking

where she was, and the victim responded that she was at work at

the mall. Later that evening, the victim left the defendant's

home and walked to a convenience store where the store clerk

called the police, who arrived and spoke with the victim. The

police arrested the defendant later that night.

The following day, police executed a search warrant at the

defendant's home and seized evidence, including a cell phone

matching the victim's description of the one the defendant used.

At arraignment, the defendant was held without bail and

thereafter detained for dangerousness pursuant to G. L. c. 276,

§ 58A.

5 From the record before us, it appears that the
Commonwealth acquired these video recordings from the
defendant's cell phone with the forensic devices Graykey and
Cellebrite. However, the devices enabled the Commonwealth to
perform only a "partial extraction" of the cell phone, with some
content remaining inaccessible. No issue is before us
concerning the admissibility of these video recordings; the
defendant argued at trial that they proved the victim's consent.
6

1. Contempt proceedings. At arraignment, the Commonwealth

filed a motion to require the defendant to produce the PIN to

his cell phone.6 A judge allowed the motion on May 5, 2022, and

ordered the defendant to produce the PIN. At a status hearing

on May 24, 2022, the defendant entered a PIN into the cell phone

that did not unlock it and claimed that he did not know the

correct PIN.

On June 3, 2022, the Commonwealth filed a "motion in the

nature for civil contempt," citing Mass. R. Crim. P. 43, as

appearing in 466 Mass. 1501 (2013) (rule 43). The same day, a

different judge (motion judge), also citing rule 43, allowed the

motion and found the defendant in contempt of court for refusing

to comply with the order to input the PIN. In her decision, the

motion judge found that the defendant knew the PIN to the cell

phone. She ordered the defendant to be held in custody "until

such time as he complies with that order" and set a status

conference for July 6, 2022. At the status conference, the

defendant filed a motion to vacate the order finding the

6 See Commonwealth v. Gelfgatt, 468 Mass. 512, 524 (2014)
(defendant could be required to provide encryption key to
decrypt files on seized computers where "[t]he facts that would
be conveyed by the defendant through his act of decryption — his
ownership and control of the computers and their contents,
knowledge of the fact of encryption, and knowledge of the
encryption key — already are known to the government and, thus,
are a 'foregone conclusion'").
7

defendant in contempt. The motion judge denied the motion to

vacate, finding that the defendant had violated the May 5, 2022

order by not providing the PIN, and clarified that the defendant

was held in "civil contempt" pursuant to "MRCP 65.3."7 The

defendant never purged the contempt.

1. Verdicts and sentencing. On June 30, 2023, following a

jury trial, the defendant was convicted of four counts of rape,

G. L. c. 265, § 22 (b), and one count of assault and battery,

G. L. c. 265, § 13A (a). The trial judge sentenced the

defendant on three of the rape convictions to concurrent State

prison terms of from five to seven and one-half years; on the

assault and battery conviction, to a concurrent eighteen-month

term in the house of correction; and on the remaining rape

conviction, to three years' probation to commence on his

release.

At sentencing, the defendant asked the trial judge to award

him credit for all 520 days he spent in detention prior to

sentencing. The trial judge denied the defendant's request in

part, finding that he was not entitled to jail credit for the

time he spent in custody while held in civil contempt for

7 On July 19, 2022, the defendant filed a motion for
reconsideration, and it appears that the motion was denied on
September 8, 2022.
8

failing to follow the court order to provide his PIN. The trial

judge awarded the defendant 130 days of jail credit.8

Discussion. 1. Admissibility of the captions on the

Snapchat video message. The defendant contends that the trial

judge erred in admitting in evidence as excited utterances the

two captions the victim typed in the Snapchat video message. We

are not persuaded. Because the defendant objected to the

evidence at trial, we review for prejudicial error. See

Commonwealth v. Imbert, 479 Mass. 575, 579 (2018).

A party seeking to admit a statement as an excited

utterance must show that "(1) there [was] an occurrence or event

'sufficiently startling to render inoperative the normal

reflective thought processes of the observer,' and (2) . . . the

declarant's statement was 'a spontaneous reaction to the

occurrence or event and not the result of reflective thought'"

(citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Santiago, 437 Mass. 620,

623 (2002). See Mass. G. Evid. § 803(2) (2025).

The defendant concedes that the Snapchat video recording

was likely admissible without the captions but argues that the

8 The trial judge awarded the defendant credit for the time
he spent in custody from the date of his arrest on February 19,
2022, to the date he was found in contempt on June 3, 2022 --
105 days -- and from the date the jury returned their verdict on
June 30, 2023, to the date of sentencing on July 24, 2023 --
twenty-five days.
9

captions in the video message should have been redacted because

they fail to meet either requirement for admissibility. The

defendant argues that the captions were not excited utterances

because they were a result of reflective thought and not a

spontaneous reaction to a sufficiently startling event. As

evidence of reflection and planning, the defendant points to the

victim's testimony that she sent the video message to tell her

friend "to keep an eye on me, on my location" because she "had a

fear that things would go really, really bad," but "altered the

words a little bit to make it seem like [she] was still in

control of the situation so the program would not know where

[she] was." The defendant also asserts that because the victim

had already had consensual "rough sex" once with the defendant,

there was inadequate evidence that "doing the same activities"

during the second sexual encounter amounted to a "sufficiently

startling" event.

Given these circumstances, we conclude that the judge acted

within his discretion in ruling that the victim's statements in

the Snapchat captions qualified as excited utterances. In the

Snapchat video recording, the victim appeared upset, frightened,

and under the influence of an exciting event. The Snapchat

video recording shows the victim crying and whispering and her

lip appears to be bleeding; sounds of movement can be heard in

the background. The victim sent the Snapchat video message
10

while still in the defendant's home just after the defendant

penetrated her anus after she said no and struck her in the

face. See Commonwealth v. Baldwin, 476 Mass. 1041, 1042 (2017)

(factors to be considered in excited utterance inquiry include

whether statement made in same location as precipitating event,

temporal proximity to event, and age, spontaneity, and degree of

excitement of declarant). As noted, the victim testified that

she sent the Snapchat video message so that her friend could

track her location because the victim feared that "things would

go really, really bad." The tone and manner of the typed

Snapchat captions supported their spontaneous nature. See

Commonwealth v. Mulgrave, 472 Mass. 170, 179 (2015) ("the tone

and manner of the declarant, as evidenced by the writing itself,

supports a determination that this statement was spontaneous,

and thus reliable"). They related "only to the circumstances of

the threat to the victim's safety and her reaction (fear) to

that threat." Id.

The defendant also contends that the multiple steps the

victim took to create the Snapchat video message -- taking the

video recording, uploading it to the application, adding the

captions, creating the text for the captions, and sending the

video message -- demonstrate that the statements were not

excited utterances because of the effort it took. We disagree.
11

In Commonwealth v. Mulgrave, 472 Mass. at 178, the Supreme

Judicial Court recognized that written text messages can qualify

as excited utterances and that their ability to be sent and

received instantly "diminishes the concern about spontaneity

that might arise with other more deliberative modes of written

communication." The court recognized that "the growth of

cellular telephones has made text messaging and other types of

written electronic statements ubiquitous forms of rapid

communication," and concluded that the "opportunity for instant

communication by way of cellular telephone technology elevates

text messages, at least on the spontaneity scale, beyond the

level of an ordinary writing." Id. at 178-179. Similarly, the

increase in popularity of social media applications such as

Snapchat as a means of communication has allowed Snapchat users

to add captions to images and video recordings with little

effort9 to verbalize a thought, feeling, or emotion in response

to an event. See id. at 178 ("For a person proficient in the

use of the cellular telephone technology, sending a text message

may involve no more effort than verbalizing a thought, feeling,

or emotion in response to an event"). Contrast Commonwealth v.

DiMonte, 427 Mass. 233, 239 (1998) (handwritten facsimile

9 The victim described the ease with which captions can be
added, testifying, "You tap the photo and you just type."
12

message was not excited utterance when sent at least eight and

one-half hours after victim screamed, and significant part

concerned matter unrelated to startling event, suggesting

message was premeditated).

The trial judge acted within his discretion in concluding

that the Snapchat captions were admissible as excited

utterances. See Commonwealth v. Zagranski, 408 Mass. 278, 285

(1990) ("We recognize broad discretion in the trial judge in any

review of the question whether an utterance met the test of

admissibility").

1. Sufficiency of the evidence. We are not persuaded by

the defendant's claim that the trial judge erred in denying his

motions for required findings of not guilty, at the close of the

Commonwealth's case and after the close of the defendant's case,

on the four rape indictments of which he was convicted.10

When reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the

evidence, we consider whether, after viewing the evidence and

all reasonable inferences that may be drawn therefrom in the

10Although the defendant does not argue in his brief that
the evidence was insufficient to convict him of the indictment
for assault and battery by hitting the victim's face with his
hand, we note that the victim's testimony that the defendant
struck her in the face and the photograph and video recording
showing her bloody lip, viewed in the light most favorable to
the Commonwealth, were sufficient evidence to support the
conviction of assault and battery.
13

light most favorable to the Commonwealth, any rational trier of

fact could find that each of the essential elements of the crime

has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Latimore, 378 Mass.

at 677-678. If conflicting inferences can be drawn from the

evidence, "it is for the jury to determine where the truth lies,

for the weight and credibility of the evidence is wholly within

their province." Commonwealth v. Lao, 443 Mass. 770, 779

(2005), S.C., 450 Mass. 215 (2007) and 460 Mass. 12 (2011).

Here, the defendant contends that we should determine that

the victim's testimony was not credible because of

inconsistencies in her statements. We are not persuaded. The

victim testified to facts that met each element of the offenses

of which the defendant was convicted, and the jury credited that

testimony, as evidenced by their verdicts. "[C]redibility is a

question for the jury to decide; they may accept or reject, in

whole or in part, the testimony presented to them" (quotation

and citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Kapaia, 490 Mass. 787,

793 (2022). The jury rendered their verdicts after hearing the

defendant's cross-examination of the victim at trial, where he

impeached her with her prior inconsistent statements and

elicited an admission from her that she previously lied to the

police about what happened. The victim's testimony, even though

it may have been inconsistent at times, "was sufficient,

standing alone, to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt
14

as to each of the convictions." Commonwealth v. Gonzalez

Santos, 100 Mass. App. Ct. 1, 3 (2021). See Commonwealth v.

Ruci, 409 Mass. 94, 97 (1991) ("The inconsistencies in the

witnesses' testimony . . . go to their credibility and do not

affect the sufficiency of the evidence"); Commonwealth v.

Fitzgerald, 376 Mass. 402, 410-411 (1978) ("The fact that [the

witness's] testimony was inconsistent and contradictory does not

render the evidence insufficient; all of her statements are

entitled to be considered as probative evidence").

The defense theory rested on whether the victim had

withdrawn her consent to sex and verbally conveyed that to the

defendant. Pursuant to G. L. c. 265, § 22 (b), the Commonwealth

must show "that the defendant committed sexual intercourse

(1) by means of physical force; nonphysical, constructive force;

or threats of bodily harm, either explicit or implicit; and

(2) at the time of penetration, there was no consent" (citations

omitted). Commonwealth v. Lopez, 433 Mass. 722, 727 (2001).

The victim testified that she told the defendant that she did

not want to have sex, but the defendant did not stop. See M.G.

v. G.A., 94 Mass. App. Ct. 139, 142 (2018) ("a person's consent

may be withdrawn prior to or during the act"). Viewed in the

light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the victim's testimony

was sufficient evidence to support the convictions. See

Gonzalez Santos, 100 Mass. App. Ct. at 3 ("The sworn testimony
15

of the victim of a sexual assault, including rape, is evidence

of the facts asserted").

The evidence presented at trial, viewed in the light most

favorable to the Commonwealth, was sufficient to prove the

elements of the charges of which the jury found the defendant

guilty.

1. Jail credit. We confront for the first time the

question whether defendants who are held in custody prior to

sentencing are entitled to jail credit in their criminal cases

for the portion of that time when they were detained as a

sanction for civil contempt. For the following reasons, we

conclude that a defendant is not entitled to jail credit in the

criminal case in these circumstances.11

The defendant incorrectly asserts that on June 3, 2022, the

motion judge held him in criminal contempt pursuant to rule 43,

and that the open-ended sentence of incarceration the motion

judge imposed was illegal because the maximum punishment for

criminal contempt under rule 43 is three months' imprisonment

11Where the parties on appeal did not raise the issue
whether a judge would have the discretion to award jail credit
in these circumstances, we need not address the question,
particularly where the trial judge stated that, even if he had
discretion to award the defendant jail credit, he would not
exercise his discretion to do so in this case.
16

and a $2,000 fine.12 See rule 43 (a) (4). Although the

Commonwealth's motion for civil contempt and the motion judge's

June 13, 2022 written findings for civil contempt both cited

rule 43, it is clear from the record that the defendant was

found in civil contempt.13 Both the motion and the judge's

findings were captioned "civil contempt" (emphasis added).

Furthermore, the motion judge corrected her order on July 6,

2022, when she denied the defendant's motion to vacate the

contempt finding. In a margin endorsement on the motion to

vacate, the motion judge clarified, "Correction: Defendant is

held in civil contempt (MRCP 65.3) to gain his compliance, not

criminal contempt."14

"The paradigmatic coercive, civil contempt sanction . . .

involves confining a contemnor indefinitely until [the

12The defendant asserts that his criminal contempt sanction
should have expired on September 1, 2022, three months after the
June 3, 2022 contempt order.

13"Every court of superior jurisdiction has the inherent
power to compel obedience to its decrees and to punish those who
obstruct or degrade the administration of justice." New England
Novelty Co. v. Sandberg, 315 Mass. 739, 746, cert. denied, 323
U.S. 740 (1944). See Doe v. Commonwealth, 396 Mass. 421, 422
(1985) ("A court has the inherent power to impose sanctions for
contempt of its orders").

14Nothing in the motion or order identified any conduct of
the type described in rule 43 (a) (1) and (2). Moreover,
neither party argues that Mass. R. Crim. P. 44, 378 Mass. 920
(1979), applies here, so we need not address that issue.
17

contemnor] complies with an affirmative command . . . ."

Birchall, petitioner, 454 Mass. 837, 848 (2009) (Birchall),

quoting International Union, United Mine Workers v. Bagwell, 512

U.S. 821, 828 (1994) (Bagwell). "When the contemnor is held in

custody, there is generally a simple test to determine whether

the sanction is civil or criminal. It is civil if 'the

contemnor is able to purge the contempt and obtain . . . release

by committing an affirmative act, and thus "carries the keys of

. . . prison in [the contemnor's] own pocket."'" Birchall,

supra, quoting Bagwell, supra. "In contrast, [t]he purpose of

criminal contempt . . . is punitive: its aim is to vindicate

the court's authority and to punish the contemnor for doing a

forbidden act or for failing to act as ordered" (quotation and

citation omitted). Birchall, supra. The contemnor's sanction

is criminal if the contemnor "receives a fixed sentence of

imprisonment, which . . . cannot [be] avoid[ed] or abbreviate[d]

through compliance with the court's order." Id.

Here, the motion judge's June 13, 2022 written order

finding the defendant in civil contempt stated that she found

the defendant "in CONTEMPT OF COURT for refusal to comply with

the order of this Court to input the pin/passcode into the blue

iPhone . . . , and the Court ORDERS that the defendant is held

in custody until such time as he complies with that order." As

we have discussed, the motion judge issued a clear and
18

unequivocal order to the defendant to produce the PIN to his

cell phone, and he failed to comply with that order. See

Birchall, 454 Mass. at 851 ("[t]o constitute civil contempt

there must be a clear and undoubted disobedience of a clear and

unequivocal command" [citation omitted]). The defendant failed

to meet his burden to show that he could not comply with the

order. See Mahoney v. Commonwealth, 415 Mass. 278, 286 (1993).

In fact, the judge specifically found that there was clear and

convincing evidence that the defendant knew the PIN. The

defendant was properly held in civil contempt because he refused

to comply with the court order to provide the PIN to his cell

phone. See Matter of Grand Jury Investigation, 92 Mass. App.

Ct. 531, 531-532, 536-537 (2017) (affirming finding of civil

contempt where contemnor refused to comply with court order to

provide cell phone PIN and committing contemnor until he purged

contempt).

We are unpersuaded by the defendant's argument that the

trial judge erred in failing to award him jail credit for the

time that he was detained as a sanction for civil contempt.15

Pursuant to G. L. c. 279, § 33A, a sentencing judge must give a

defendant credit for time served in custody before sentencing

15At sentencing, the parties agreed that the period of time
the defendant was held in custody from the date of his arrest to
the date of his sentencing was 520 days.
19

while awaiting trial and during trial. See Commonwealth v.

Carter, 10 Mass. App. Ct. 618, 619 (1980). A defendant,

however, "is not entitled to jail credit for time spent awaiting

trial if he is already serving a committed sentence for

unrelated offenses." Commonwealth v. Pearson, 95 Mass. App. Ct.

724, 726 (2019), citing Commonwealth v. Barton, 74 Mass. App.

Ct. 912, 913 (2009). Here, the motion judge held the defendant

in custody on civil contempt to coerce his compliance with the

court order to provide his PIN.

We conclude that the sanction for civil contempt was a

matter that was sufficiently independent of the criminal case on

which the defendant was sentenced and that he was not entitled

to have that time credited toward his sentence on the criminal

case.16 See Pearson, 95 Mass. App. Ct. at 726. Importantly,

public policy considerations dictate this outcome because

holding otherwise would undermine a judge's inherent contempt

power to coerce a contemnor to obey a court order. As the trial

judge correctly noted at sentencing, for a contemnor who is held

in custody pending trial, the coercive power of the contempt

order lies in the fact that the contemnor stops earning credit

16That the defendant was held without bail pursuant to
G. L. c. 276, § 58A, is immaterial to our analysis. Our holding
would be the same even if the defendant had been held in custody
on a cash bail pending trial or had been admitted to bail and,
absent the contempt, would have been released pending trial.
20

for time served until the contemnor complies with the order. If

we adopted the defendant's argument and concluded he is entitled

to jail credit, a contemnor in his position -- i.e., who is held

in custody as a sanction for civil contempt while awaiting trial

on a criminal case -- would have no incentive to purge the civil

contempt by obeying the court order, and would suffer no

consequences for refusing to comply with the order. The trial

court would thereby lose its ability to persuade or coerce a

contemnor in these circumstances.

These policy considerations are bolstered by jail credit

jurisprudence addressing the prohibition against the "banking"

of jail credit. In Manning v. Superintendent, Mass.

Correctional Inst., Norfolk, 372 Mass. 387, 395 (1977), the

Supreme Judicial Court explained that limits on jail credit may

be necessary to avoid "grant[ing] prisoners license to commit

future criminal acts with immunity." Similarly, limiting the

entitlement of jail credit here is necessary to preserve the

court's inherent contempt power to compel obedience of a valid

court order. As the defendant himself acknowledges in his

brief, absent such limitation, "[i]t may be said that a person

already incarcerated and indigent is not likely to be persuaded

by the court order for contempt." Just as "the need to prevent

criminal defendants from 'banking time' for use against future

sentences outweighs any fairness issues normally applicable [to
21

'dead time']," Commonwealth v. Milton, 427 Mass. 18, 25 (1998),

the need to prevent defendants from defying court orders with

immunity is paramount here. "Fairness is the basic touchstone,

and is the appropriate measure in determining whether and to

what extent credit for time spent in custody shall be given."

Commonwealth v. Ridge, 470 Mass. 1024, 1024 (2015). In these

circumstances, we discern no unfair treatment of the defendant

and conclude that the trial judge did not err in denying the

defendant's request for jail credit for the time he was detained

as a sanction for civil contempt.

Judgments affirmed.