EVERETT, Mass. — Scott Merchant, the 37-year-old Salisbury man whose allegation preceded Wayne Matewsky’s resignation from the Everett City Council, told the Boston Globe that he met the councilor through his father when he was about 10, spent years in and out of Matewsky’s Lewis Street house as a troubled teenager, and was molested there and, with a friend, offered to adult men.
Matewsky, 68, denies all of it. “Never happened,” he told the Globe. His attorney, Alfred P. Farese Jr., said Merchant made the story up to help himself in his own criminal case. The Middlesex district attorney’s office, which Merchant says he has spoken with, has not announced any action.
What follows is Merchant’s account as the Globe reported it on June 11, alongside Matewsky’s responses.
How they met
Merchant told the Globe he met Matewsky through his late father, whom he described as an abusive alcoholic, when he was about 10 and living in Everett. Matewsky asked him to help out at a Halloween party. Merchant later worked on Matewsky’s campaigns, collecting signatures for nomination papers, and did odd jobs for him.
He described the councilor’s house as a place where he had “free rein” to smoke and hang out, and where he went to get away from his home. In his early teens, he told the paper, he struggled with his mental health, was hospitalized, and was placed in foster care. At one point he ran away and hid at Matewsky’s house for about three months.
Matewsky acknowledged to the Globe that he let Merchant live at his house, but said it was only briefly. He also said Merchant once broke into his house and stole silver dollar coins.
At the time, Matewsky worked as a shuttle driver for Stephen “Stat” Smith, who would later become Everett’s state representative. Merchant would ride along in the van as Matewsky ferried young international travelers to and from Boston, the Globe reported. Smith told the paper he found it odd that Matewsky was spending so much time with a boy 30 years younger. “I just thought it might be odd that he was with Wayne,” Smith said. “I just asked him, ‘Is everything all right, Scott?’ And he said it was and that was the end of it.” Merchant confirmed to the Globe that he denied anything was wrong when Smith asked.
The allegation
Merchant told the Globe that Matewsky molested him and, when he and a friend were teenagers, “prostituted” them to adult men. The same allegations are included in a sentencing memorandum his lawyer filed in Essex Superior Court.
Merchant first raised the claim anonymously in 2022, in emails to Everett’s mayor and city councilors accusing Matewsky of molesting him at 12 and abusing at least two other boys. He told the Globe he sent those messages and that one of the boys he was referring to was his best friend, Michael Gordon, whose death in 2020, Merchant said, sent him into another downward spiral. The Globe did not report any response from City Hall to them.
A second account
Corey Gordon, Michael Gordon’s twin brother and a childhood friend of Merchant’s, told the Globe he once joined the two at Matewsky’s house when he was about 15 and saw “instant red flags.” “When I walked in the door, [Matewsky] had porn on,” he said. He said Matewsky tried to give him a beer and offered him cocaine from a glass table, and that he felt “cornered” in a room where Matewsky suggested he expose himself. “He didn’t touch me,” Gordon said. “He was trying to get me to pleasure myself in front of him.” He said he left and never went back.
Gordon said he learned the details of Merchant’s story only last year, a few months before Merchant’s arrest, when Merchant was using drugs and calling him at all hours about it. Matewsky’s response to Gordon’s account was the same: “Never happened.”
The threats
In September 2025, Merchant posted online that he was stocking up on ammunition and explosives and suggested he was coming for Matewsky and supporters he called “guilty by association.” The FBI flagged the posts, and Salisbury police arrested him. He pleaded guilty to a felony bomb or hijack threat charge and a related misdemeanor, and was released on time served with three years of probation, therapy, and an order to stay away from Matewsky.
Merchant and his lawyer, Ernie Stone, told the Globe the posts were “the manifestation of a mental health crisis triggered by resurfaced trauma,” and that he never had the weapons he described. “I had no intention [of hurting him]. My intention was to create awareness,” Merchant said. “I crossed a line.”
Farese, Matewsky’s lawyer, called Merchant “a very sick individual” and said “we believe that he was making up a story just to prevent him having a federal case.”
Merchant and Gordon took their accounts to Middlesex prosecutors only after Merchant’s arrest, the Globe reported. Farese acknowledged that Everett police interviewed Matewsky on May 21. Matewsky resigned five days later, citing his health.
An earlier episode
The Globe also recounted a 2019 incident. When federal agents arrested 14 members of a street gang on drug and firearms trafficking charges, one of the men was found in Matewsky’s backyard shed. Matewsky said he had hired the 21-year-old Brazilian national as a landscaper and had no idea he was living there. The man pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. No allegation of wrongdoing by Matewsky arose from that case.
Everett MA News is continuing to report on this story. Anyone with information can contact the newsroom at editor@everettmanews.com. We do not publish the names of people who report sexual abuse without their consent.
