Marzilli plea deal could protect pension, bring dismissal of charges
By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com
Updated: 04/11/2009 06:37:55 AM EDT
LOWELL — A possible plea bargain is in the works that could allow embattled former state Sen. J. James Marzilli to not only keep his pension, but eventually have criminal charges alleging that he accosted four women in downtown Lowell dismissed.
Marzilli’s attorney, Terrence Kennedy, met behind closed doors in Lowell Superior Court yesterday for a “lobby conference” with Judge Paul Chernoff and prosecutor Elizabeth Dunigan to discuss a possible “continued without a finding” determination on the heels of a recent decision by the state’s highest court that allows such deals in superior court.
Last month, the state Supreme Judicial Court considered the 2002 case of Travis Powell, a former Franklin High School student who was charged with unarmed burglary. The high court ruled that a Superior Court judge could dismiss the indictment by continuing the case without a finding with conditions.
CWOFs are common in district courts, where defendants admit to sufficient facts, agreeing that prosecutors could prove their case. The charges are typically misdemeanors and carry probation or jail time, not prison.
Under a CWOF, the defendant is placed on probation. If the defendant completes probation with no further legal trouble, the case is dismissed.
Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone has stated that he opposes the use of CWOFs in felony cases in Superior Court. But it is up the judge to decide if he or she will accept a CWOF.
A CWOF is one of a number of possible resolutions to the Marzilli case, short of trial. The trial was scheduled for April 28, but Chernoff changed the date to a “status” after asking Kennedy for more of Marzilli’s records. No new trial date has been scheduled.
Marzilli, 50, an Arlington Democrat, is accused of groping and/or making lewd comments to four women in downtown Lowell last year.
He has pleaded innocent to three counts of annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex involving three victims, during several hours in downtown Lowell on June 3, 2008. He also is facing charges of attempting to commit a crime (indecent assault and battery), disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex in connection with the fourth victim.
Through his lawyer, Marzilli says he suffers from bipolar disorder that can cause dramatic mood swings from overly “high” and/or irritable to sad and hopeless, and then back again, often with periods of normal mood in between.
He was elected to the Senate after serving 17 years in the House of Representatives. Until he resigned last November, Marzilli had continued to collect his $55,569 annual salary and $7,500 stipend as chairman of Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development, despite not returning to work since his arrest.
State Rep. James Arciero of Westford has filed a bill to eliminate pension perks, such as the one Marzilli is trying to get that would double his pension, and expects it to be incorporated in pension-reform package scheduled to be debated Tuesday.
“When someone chooses not to serve the interest of the people or are rejected by voters — if they lose re-election — it should not entitle them to the state version of a golden parachute,” Arciero said last night. “That’s not acceptable.”
Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation declined to comment on Marzilli’s criminal case, but stood by his past assertions that the pension system is out of whack.
“The issue of getting an extra pension because he served more than 20 years, that is a total abuse of the pension system,” Widmer said. “It is totally legal, but that doesn’t just apply just to him. It’s a part of the law that gives large sweeteners to politicians and executive-branch employees who serve more than 20 years, then lose their job.”
Staff writer Jack Minch contributed to this report.
