By Carol Britton Meyer

The former owner of a local bicycle shop pleaded guilty to five counts of larceny in Hingham District Court last month after several customers say he took thousands of dollars from them and failed to deliver the merchandise and business opportunities he promised.

William J. Hennessey, 56, who owned the now-defunct South Shore Cycles on Nantasket Avenue, pleaded guilty on August 26 and was sentenced to three years of probation and required to pay nearly $12,000 in restitution for taking deposits from numerous customers and then not delivering on what he promised, among other actions. Hennessey was also ordered to return a bike frame and parts to at least one of the victims.

According to court documents, Hennessey pleaded guilty to two counts of larceny over $1,200, and two counts of larceny under $1,200, and one count of larceny from a person older than 65.

Hennessey did not respond to attempts to reach him this week, but some of the victims shared their stories with The Hull Times.

Marianne Buckley Curran, a Hull resident and local artist, asked Hennessey in 2022 following her husband’s passing if he did resales and was told yes, and to bring his bike to the shop for that purpose.

However, she said she was never paid for the bike, and Curran asked that Hennessey be required to reimburse her in her victim statement.

“In a time in my life, after a major tragedy, trusting other individuals is paramount. The fact that this man took advantage of someone recently widowed is disheartening and sickening,” Curran said.

Cat Bryant brought her bike to Hennessey’s shop in response to an ad in October 2021 offering to tune and store bicycles over the winter for $129.

The following spring, when she asked Hennessey about her bike, he told her “it needed a lot of work and that I would need to spend at least $320 more to get it back in rideable condition. It didn’t seem unreasonable as it had sustained some rust and the tires had deteriorated,” Bryant told The Times.

‘Empty promises’

However, when Hennessey did get back to Bryant after she’d “tracked him down,” she “got empty promises. . . . He promised me he would get my bike back to me and refund my money even if he had to take out a loan. All hollow words.”

It took Bryant a couple of years before she filed a police report, at which time she learned “there were others he scammed for much more money than I paid him. I think there are more people than the five of us whose dockets were joined in court. This man should be in jail, but then obviously we wouldn’t be receiving any restitution. At least I finally received my bike back as one of the conditions for his release from custody,” she said.

After renting an electric trike from Hennessey in 2021, Patricia Lambert and her spouse, Kathy Mulvey, learned to ride it and pedaled together around Hull, Cohasset, and Hingham.

“When Bill offered a monthly subscription rate, I was delighted to sign up,” Lambert said.

‘I decided to invest’

The following January, Hennessey “pitched me for a $2,500 investment in his shop. As a committed supporter of local business, I decided to invest.”

However, Lambert was unable to “get something in writing” to formalize the deal, despite frequent attempts. “Nothing was ever forthcoming, and his excuses at the time seemed plausible,” she said.

As part of her investment, Lambert “was supposed to get unlimited access to my e-trike … and a share of the profits of South Shore Cycles. However, every time I tried to rent the trike that summer, Bill told me it was unavailable. When I saw him at community events such as Endless Summer, he promised me a check was coming as soon as he reconciled the accounts, but I never received a penny.”

Completely unsatisfied with the arrangement, Lambert asked Hennessey to convert her investment into a trike purchase in early 2023.

“Bill agreed, but he was squirrelly and evasive. At one point he even conned me into paying an additional $250 for shipment of an e-trike he claimed to be ordering on my behalf,” Lambert told The Times.

As the summer waned, Lambert realized she needed to take action and filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the state Attorney General’s Office of Consumer Protection.

Other reports filed

“When Bill still failed to make good on his promise, I went to the Hull Police and reported the theft. At the same time, I ordered my own electric tricycle so that I could enjoy it for a few weeks, including during the visit of my sister and brother-in-law from overseas,” Lambert recalled.

As a retired person, she needed her money back.

“But more importantly, as I read the police log in The Hull Times, I noticed reports of other people being scammed or not getting their bikes back after leaving them with Bill for repairs,” Lambert said. “Over the course of the past couple of years, I met some of these folks in our repeated visits to the Hingham District Court. And I got to know Graham and George at Atlantic Cycles, the successor to South Shore Cycles and a valuable institution in our community.

I wanted Bill to be brought to justice so that nobody else would suffer similar losses.

It has been a long road, but I’m pleased by the outcome of the criminal prosecution of Bill Hennessey,” Lambert said.

Atlantic Cycles, owned by Graham Mattison, is not affiliated with Hennessey’s business. Mattison said he and his son have worked to build goodwill in town, including with some of those who filed complaints against South Shore Cycles.

In early December 2022, Neil Wood visited Hennessey’s bicycle shop. Two days later, Hennessey told Wood that he was placing an order for a large crate of e-bikes and asked if he wanted to be a part of it.

“I ordered two electric bikes as a surprise birthday gift for my wife,” Wood recalled. “He promised they would arrive in 12 weeks, asked for a personal check for $1,650 each, and assured me everything was in order.”

However, the bikes never arrived. “In a 12-week span, I gathered eight pages of excuses, stories, lies and promises,” Wood said.

By June 2022, he realized he had been “conned and filed a police report. I later learned that at least eight other victims had similar experiences with Hennessey.”

Delays and cancellations in court

For more than two years, the case dragged through courts with delays and cancellations.

“Finally, on August 26, 2025, Hennessey appeared in court from Plymouth jail,” Wood said. “Judge Byrne called him a ‘conman,’ noting his long history in courthouses.”

According to Wood, the judge ordered Hennessey to repay his victims within 36 months. “If he fails to make the required monthly payments, he will return to jail for the maximum sentence. This will be a violation of his probation,” he said.

Wood said he is sharing his story “not only to warn others, but also to remind our community to be cautious. If a deal sounds too good to be true – or if payment requests raise red flags – trust your instincts. Unfortunately, my experience shows that not everyone doing business in our town has honest intentions.”

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