~Massachusetts Government Scandals & Political Corruption~» Boston Scandals

Michael E. McLaughlin Chelsea Housing Authority Chief Scams State Auditors & Walks with $360,000 a Year

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:28:13 +0000

Auditors noted, then ignored, McLaughlin pay

AG investigating repeated failure to act on an outrage that was right in plain view

(Kayana Szymczak for The Boston Globe)

Michael E. McLaughlin, former Executive Director of Chelsea Housing Authority, stood in front of the Chelsea Housing Authority’s Scrivano apartment development in October 2011.

Article Courtesy of: Andrea Estes and Sean P. Murphy – Boston.com

State auditors knew by 2005 that former Chelsea Housing Authority chief Michael E. McLaughlin was concealing his true salary from state officials and urged him to seek official approval for more than $40,000 in hidden income, according to interviews and records.

McLaughlin resisted, joking to auditors that “all my neighbors are rich and I have to keep up with them,’’ according to a person who heard the remark. But after McLaughlin said he would think about reporting his full income, records show the team from former auditor A. Joseph DeNucci’s office dropped the issue.

During the next five years, however, auditors discovered in the course of two additional examinations that McLaughlin was still concealing his true salary – and by ever-increasing amounts. Both times they did nothing.

By the time the Globe revealed on Oct. 30 that McLaughlin had become perhaps the highest paid public housing official in the United States, his $360,000 salary was a stunning $200,000 more than the amount he declared on state reports. McLaughlin resigned four days later, but not before one of the 2010 auditors invited him to lunch to cheer him up, according to a housing authority employee.

Now, Attorney General Martha Coakley has convened a grand jury looking into whether McLaughlin and others defrauded the state, calling at least two former state auditors to testify, according to two people with direct knowledge. Meanwhile, state Auditor Suzanne Bump, DeNucci’s successor, last week forced the supervisor of the Chelsea audits to resign because of what her office called his mishandling of the agency reviews.

“Mike’s salary was right there in the payroll records for anyone to see,’’ said one housing authority employee who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. “The auditors and accountants came and went, year after year . . . but nothing ever came out. Mike had a way of managing things so his salary just didn’t come out.’’

On Friday, Bump’s office declined to comment, but a spokesman confirmed that “after reviewing all audits of the Chelsea Housing Authority since 2005, she provided all audit materials to the attorney general.’’

The state auditors’ repeated failure to blow the whistle on McLaughlin’s admitted efforts to hide his extraordinary pay is part of a comprehensive failure of the financial overseers who were supposed to safeguard the $15 million in subsidies to Chelsea public housing from the state and federal governments.

At least two accountants – one working for the authority, the other filing independent reports to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development – were paid thousands of dollars a year to compile data and ensure that the Chelsea Housing Authority’s financial statements were accurate. They would have had access to payroll records that revealed McLaughlin’s income, but they never noted a problem.

Martin Scafidi, a certified public accountant who has audited the Chelsea Housing Authority for HUD since 2003, said he did not know McLaughlin’s true salary until it came out in the Globe. Scafidi said he did all the analyses he was supposed to, though he did not say whether he saw the payroll records.

McLaughlin “betrayed everyone,’’ said Scafidi, who was paid $10,500 for his 35-page audit and report on Chelsea last year. “He’s just a bad guy.’’

Former state auditor DeNucci said he, too, was unaware of the controversy about McLaughlin’s salary until the Globe story.

“We had good people doing’’ the audits, said DeNucci, who retired in 2011 after 24 years as auditor. DeNucci said the salary issue “never got back to me,’’ and he trusted his subordinates to handle the Chelsea audits.

Housing authority employees say the gregarious, politically savvy McLaughlin actively cultivated relationships with the auditors, so much so that one auditor, part of the 2010 team, asked McLaughlin to lunch after the scandal over McLaughlin’s salary became public.

In addition, McLaughlin was a friend of one of DeNucci’s most trusted aides, Robert Powilatis. The two had served on the board of a housing advocacy group together and Powilatis had donated to a political fund-raiser for Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray organized by McLaughlin in 2009.

When state auditors were at the Chelsea Housing Authority’s office in October 2010, phone records show that McLaughlin and Powilatis called each other four times, though Powilatis said they never discussed the audit.

Powilatis, now retired, said he learned of McLaughlin’s pay from media coverage and played no role in the Chelsea audits. But he said any auditor or accountant reviewing the authority’s books should have recognized the paycheck discrepancy almost immediately and reported it.

“It was an outlier or a red-flag and it would be brought to light,’’ he said of McLaughlin’s outsized salary. “You go in and pick that up in five minutes.’’

But one former auditor’s office employee said some auditors may have felt they had no right to question McLaughlin’s salary, which had been approved by the authority’s board, unless it was so high that it represented a misuse of state funds.

McLaughlin, now facing multiple investigations, declined comment. In the past McLaughlin has defended his decision to dramatically understate his true salary to the state Department of Community and Housing Development, lightheartedly calling it “the rebel in me.’’

McLaughlin, now 66, also set himself up to collect the biggest state pension in Massachusetts history, based on his income, although the Chelsea retirement board has frozen his retirement application pending an investigation into whether he deserves an annual pension of $278,000.

One employee said it served McLaughlin’s interest to conceal his income until he could secure his pension, noting that McLaughlin became visibly upset several years ago when the state auditors asked for a copy of his employment contract. But he later reassured the employee, “I took care of it’’ and nothing more was said.

State audits are supposed to be in-depth, independent reviews of government agency finances, seeking out both mistakes and evidence of misuse of public funds. The Chelsea auditors spent weeks reviewing the books at the housing authority’s Locke Street headquarters where they could easily find McLaughlin’s $183,624 annual pay for 2005 by looking at the agency’s payroll and McLaughlin’s income tax filings.

They could also see that McLaughlin was reporting to the state an income of only $139,050. One DeNucci employee recalled that McLaughlin’s high salary was “the talk of the [auditor’s] office.’’

During the 2005 audit, the team told McLaughlin that the discrepancy was one of their main findings, according to people with direct knowledge of the discussion. McLaughlin tried to make light of the issue, these people say, but also asserted that he was not legally obliged to report his full salary to the state since the state provided only a portion of the authority’s funds.

Nonetheless, the auditors urged McLaughlin to report his full salary as state rules require and McLaughlin said he would consider it, these people say. The auditors made no reference to McLaughlin’s excessive income in their final report.

When the auditors returned in 2008, they found that McLaughlin was hiding even more income – $135,818 by the Globe’s calculation – and they again let the issue slide. By 2010, the gap had grown to $199,966. Again, they did nothing.

Accountants say that it is a major breach of professional standards to allow a financial misstatement to get worse without taking action after the problem has been identified.

Investigators for the attorney general quickly focused on potential lapses by the state auditors as they looked into how McLaughlin got away with his salary deception for so many years. Last week, state Auditor Bump’s office told an audit supervisor that he had to resign or be fired for his oversight of the Chelsea audits, according a person with direct knowledge of the situation. The supervisor resigned.

But the state auditors were not the only analysts who had access to the authority’s records. John D. Marotto, a Woburn certified public accountant who began preparing annual financial reports for the housing authority before McLaughlin arrived in 2000, declined to say whether he knew McLaughlin’s real salary.

During the two days after the Globe revealed that McLaughlin was making $360,000, McLaughlin called Marotto five times, including one conversation that lasted 35 minutes, McLaughlin’s phone records show.

Marotto declined to answer questions, issuing a terse statement that said: “I compile the information that is provided to me by the Housing Authority in the proper format for reporting purposes.’’

Likewise, accountant Scafidi, who was hired on a no-bid contract to provide an independent review of housing authority books for HUD, failed to identify the salary discrepancy for eight years.

Scafidi’s firm, who was paid by the authority, said his team typically spent two to three weeks a year inside the authority’s offices reviewing the books.

The report Scafidi filed last year certified that authority financial records were accurate even though McLaughlin had understated his salary by nearly $200,000.

“We did the work we were supposed do,’’ said Scafidi without going into details. “We report what we see. It will all come out after the investigation.’’

Officials at HUD repeatedly used Scafidi’s favorable reviews as one factor in awarding the Chelsea Housing Authority its highest performance rating year after year, which McLaughlin was quick to tout.

Looking back, federal officials acknowledge that they did not provide adequate oversight of the Chelsea Housing Authority, which gets $10 million in federal funds annually.

“We are very concerned that no one detected his salary on the local or the HUD level,’’ said HUD spokesman Jereon Brown

State housing head Aaron Gornstein said if his agency had discovered McLaughlin’s true salary, it would have ordered him to reduce it drastically or it would have withheld state funding.

“McLaughlin’s salary was absolutely unacceptable,’’ Gornstein said.

Scott Allen of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Andrea Estes can be reached at estes@globe.com, Sean P. Murphy at smurphy@globe.com.

Article Courtesy of: Andrea Estes and Sean P. Murphy – Boston.com

Joe “The Bull” Lally

admin — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:12:59 +0000

Joe Lally fends off lawyers

By Peter Gelzinis | Friday, May 20, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com

Photo by Patrick Whittemore

As 4 p.m. neared, U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf looked at Sal DiMasi’s lawyer, Billy Cintolo, and then looked at the clock.

“Mr. Cintolo, how much longer do you anticipate?” Wolf asked.

“I’m tired, judge,” Billy sighed, “it’s been a long day.”

Billy was the last of three defense lawyers to take on the feds’ unflappable star witness, ex-Cognos software salesman Joe Lally, in a kind of marathon sumo wrestling match.

And none of these skilled lawyers pinned Lally yesterday.

“This guy could sell ice to the Eskimos,” one courtroom observer said. And judging from his two days on the witness stand, it’s clear Joe Lally could hustle the Eskimos on a deal for ice.

Yesterday was spent dredging up the huge flaws of this Willy Loman on steroids — a beefy guy with outsized appetites for gambling, the high life and … multi-million-dollar software deals with state agencies across the country.

Lally made a ton of money doing it. And he lost a ton of money to the Mashantucket Pequot tribe at Foxwoods, along with various bookies who took his sports bets and cashed Joe’s huge checks in offshore banks.

The highlight of yesterday’s theater came when Tom Drechsler, defending Lally’s former pal and uber lobbyist, Richard “Dickie” McDonough, kept lashing out about all those checks to the bookies.

Photo: Josh Reynolds for the BOSTON GLOBE

In the middle of Drechsler’s tirade, Lally pointed out that he was introduced to one of those bookmakers by his client, Dickie McDonough.

The courtroom erupted in laughter and Drechsler, ever the spitfire, replied: “Oh, and I suppose you’re going to tell us that Dick McDonough told you what kind of car to drive.”

“Actually,” Lally said, “he did.”

That was probably the $75,000 Mercedes that Lally said he had to forfeit back to Herb Chambers.

For all of his intensity, Tommy Drechsler did not challenge Lally about the veracity of the incredible scene he described on Wednesday. The Cognos deal had collapsed and a paranoid Dickie McDonough insisted on a mutual frisk for hidden microphones in the basement of Lally’s home.

Drechsler left that alone.

At the end of yesterday’s lunch break, Drechsler looked just like Billy Cintolo. “I’m tired,” he said in the outside corridor.

The lawyers for Sal DiMasi, his accountant, Richard Vitale, and Dickie McDonough all tried to pick apart the terms of the deal Lally made with the feds.

But they couldn’t erase the fact that before this flawed huckster became a “cooperating witness” against them, he had invited Sal and Dickie to his second wedding.

And they came. The feds have the wedding video.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1339282

Lawyer shells theory DiMasi was broke
/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1338743

Judge: Post was (up)load of Bull
/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1337683

DiMasi witness may be lie-ability to feds
/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1336127

John O’brien – Timothy Cahill – Deval Patrick – Political Patronage

admin — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 23:13:22 +0000

Courtesy of: masslive.com

Probation Commissioner John O’Brien suspended as Mass. Treasurer Timothy Cahill explains decision to hire O’Brien’s wife, daughter

Published: Monday, May 24, 2010, 3:45 PM Updated: Monday, May 24, 2010, 4:03 PM

The Associated Press

This is a 4:02 p.m. update of a story posted at 10:53 this morning.

BOSTON – Massachusetts Probation Commissioner John O’Brien was suspended Monday over concerns about the hiring and promotion of probation officers.

In a joint statement issued Monday, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall and Chief Justice for Administration and Management Robert Mulligan said they were deeply concerned with media reports on management practices within the Probation Department.

They said O’Brien has been placed on administrative leave, effective immediately.

O’Brien’s hiring practices have been the subject of front-page stories in The Boston Globe.

The justices said they were concerned not only with the administration of the department, but with how the media reports may affect the public’s perception of the integrity of the judicial branch.

This action came on the heels of independent gubernatorial candidate Timothy P. Cahill’s statements Monday that patronage is a part of politics, but politics played no role in his decision to hire the wife and daughter of a state official who has been suspended amid allegations of rampant patronage at his own agency.

The state treasurer said he knows Probation Commissioner John O’Brien, and O’Brien has supported his political career in their hometown of Quincy. Yet he said that didn’t influence his decision to hire O’Brien’s wife, Laurie, and one of the couple’s daughters.

“There’s no personal relationship,” Cahill said of John O’Brien. “He’s not hanging out at my house or anything like that. He’s a political supporter, or has been for a while, but that didn’t influence the decisions I made about his members of his family.

“We had openings for positions. They applied for those positions. I’ve known Laurie O’Brien for a long time, because she’s a Quincy resident,” Cahill said.

Gov. Deval L. Patrick heightened attention on the issue by branding the Probation Department a “rogue agency” and urging the Legislature to pass a department-realignment bill he filed in January.

Cahill offered a defense of political patronage when asked about descriptions of seemingly highly qualified applicants being passed over for probation jobs in favor of those related to politicians.

“Does that not happen in government all the time?” he asked. “Obviously, it is part of the political process. It’s an unfortunate part when it’s been brought to this level.”

Cahill noted none of his family members work for O’Brien.

Patrick, a Democrat seeking re-election, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles D. Baker said Attorney General Martha M. Coakley should investigate. Marshall and Mulligan appointed former Big Dig investigator Paul Ware to conduct an investigation on their behalf.

Cahill said an investigation is not needed. Rather, he supports returning oversight for the department from the legislative branch to the judiciary.

“The Legislature really deserves the blame for this,” Cahill said. “They shouldn’t have made the move when they made it. They made it simply because they wanted to control the jobs.”

He said if oversight is returned to the judicial branch, then it “could determine whether Commissioner O’Brien should stay or should leave, and they can reorganize the place around making it work for probation, making it work for public safety.”

Patrick told reporters the Probation Department is a “rogue agency.”

“What I thought was a problem may be even a bigger problem, and I want to encourage the Legislature to take up this bill,” the governor said.

His bill proposes combining the Probation and Parole departments under the executive branch, which Patrick says will create a modern agency allowing people to transition from prison life back into society. It would also give oversight to the governor instead of the Legislature.

Cahill said that would likely just shift the source of patronage, which Patrick dismissed with a quip.

“You mean, will people still ask for jobs?” the governor asked with a chuckle as he entered a student forum at Suffolk University’s Rappaport Center. “Yeah, I’m sure people would still ask for jobs.”

Nonetheless, Patrick said patronage should not just be accepted.

“I don’t think that’s enough of an explanation, and it’s certainly not one that’s going to satisfy me or anybody else in the general public,” he said.

Also Monday, all seven justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court signed an order calling for “a prompt and thorough administrative inquiry into alleged improprieties with respect to the hiring and promotion of employees within the Probation Department as well as other practices and management decisions within the Probation Department.”

The court appointed Paul Ware, an attorney with the Boston law firm of Goodwin Procter, to conduct the inquiry and report back to the court within 90 days.

Ware had previously been tapped by Attorney General Martha Coakley to oversee the criminal investigation into the fatal July 2006 Big Dig ceiling tunnel collapse.

The justices appointed Ronald Corbett, Executive Director of the Supreme Judicial Court and the former Deputy Commissioner of Probation, as acting administrator of the Probation Department to replace O’Brien.

Meanwhile, the treasurer picked up the endorsements of the patrolman’s and superior officer police unions in Quincy. He said after a month of negative ads against him by the Republican Governors Association, “It’s nice to know that people are going to stand with you.”

Lt. Timothy Sorgi, president of the Quincy Police Superior Officer’s Association, said in a statement: “Tim Cahill is a longtime friend of law enforcement and is committed to making sure that our men and women wearing the uniform have the resources and support that they need.”

Dianne Wilkerson – No-show Job

admin — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 16:24:58 +0000

Wilkerson hit with another allegation

With sentencing near, prosecutors cite no-show job

Wilkerson pleaded guilty to attempted extortion.

By Jonathan Saltzman Globe Staff / November 20, 2010

With the help of two influential businessmen, one the developer of a major project in her district, former state senator Dianne Wilkerson received a no-show job at a local college that paid $15,000, federal prosecutors say.

The new allegation, which was immediately denied by Wilkerson’s lawyer, was presented yesterday in a sentencing memorandum filed by prosecutors. The government recommended that Wilkerson be sentenced next month to four years in prison for taking $23,500 in bribes in the FBI sting that led to her arrest in 2008. She pleaded guilty in June to eight counts of attempted extortion.

The proposed sentence is two months longer than federal probation officials recommended but is warranted because of Wilkerson’s history of ethical lapses and illegal conduct, including a 1997 conviction for tax evasion, according to the office of US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.

“As outlined below, between Wilkerson’s conviction in 1997 and her plea in this case, Wilkerson repeatedly demonstrated that she believed that she was above the law,’’ said the 17-page memorandum.

Dianne Wilkerson (AP Photo/Kevin Martin, File)

But Wilkerson’s lawyer, Max D. Stern of Boston, recommended that his client be sentenced to substantially less than the three years and two months suggested as a minimum period of incarceration in federal sentencing guidelines.

Stern, who said he will be more specific at Wilkerson’s sentencing, said she exercised “extraordinarily poor judgment’’ by taking the bribes, but never sought to enrich herself. He cited her years of public service and commitment to the poor and oppressed. He also denied that Wilkerson received a no-show job at Curry College.

“It was real,’’ he wrote. Wilkerson planned to moderate a lecture series on politics and the law, he wrote, but the college eliminated the position after she became a “public relations liability.’’ Wilkerson became a liability following a suit against her by the state attorney general’s office for alleged campaign finance violations, according to Stern.

The government’s sentencing memorandum details a long history of misconduct and financial problems for Wilkerson, many of them previously reported. But in a new allegation, prosecutors say entrepreneurs with business in Wilkerson’s district and with state government helped her in 2005 to engage in “another set of unethical and ultimately unlawful financial transactions.’’

Through the efforts of the men, identified only as A.W. and J.K., “Wilkerson obtained a no-show job at a local college,’’ said the memorandum.

The men urged the college to give Wilkerson a $15,000 contract because she outspent what she earned each year by $60,000, according to prosecutors.

Although the memorandum did not identify the men or the college, a spokesman for Arthur Winn, founder of WinnCompanies, who retired as chief executive in 2009, yesterday said the developer “facilitated an interview for a job’’ at Curry College.

“Beyond that,’’ said the spokesman, Alan Eisner, “Mr. Winn had no involvement and received nothing in return.’’

At the time Winn helped Wilkerson, she had become the legislative champion of one of his major Boston development projects, the failed $800 million Columbus Center venture.

The man identified by prosecutors as J.K. is John W. Keith, chief executive officer of Keith Companies and a trustee of Curry College. He confirmed in a brief interview that he testified before a grand jury that he helped Wilkerson obtain a position at Curry.

Keith’s lawyer, George C. McMahon of Quincy, said yesterday that the teaching position dealt with government affairs and paid $25,000, but he vigorously denied that it was intended to be a no-show job. “She showed up for a couple of lectures, but after that she didn’t show up and she was fired,’’ he said.

The allegation is not the first time Winn’s name has come up in the Wilkerson scandal. Winn acknowledged last year that he gave $10,000 to Wilkerson in 2004 to help her pay tax debts but said it had nothing to do with wanting assistance in securing public funds for Columbus Center. In September, Martin Raffol, a former top executive of the residential arm of WinnCompanies, pleaded guilty to illegally funneling $12,000 in campaign contributions to four Massachusetts congressmen in a federal case that was an offshoot of the Wilkerson corruption investigation.

Wilkerson is to be sentenced the week of Dec. 6. Her codefendant, Boston city councilor Chuck Turner, is to be sentenced Jan. 25 on one count of attempted extortion and three counts of lying to FBI agents in connection with his conviction in October for taking a $1,000 bribe.

Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.

John Buonomo – MA Middlesex Register of Probate – Stealing Coins from Copiers

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:05:33 +0000

John Buonomo jailed for stealing coins from copiers

Penny for pol’s thoughts?

By Laurel J. Sweet | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by John Wilcox

For the chump change he was caught on camera tapping from copiers and the cash he stole from struggling taxpayers who voted him into his $110,220 job, John Buonomo, former Middlesex register of probate, was sentenced to 30 months behind bars – and could be sprung in half that time.

The latest face of public corruption in Massachusetts kept his eyes downcast and hands folded yesterday as Middlesex Superior Court Judge Bruce R. Henry sentenced him to the Billerica House of Correction for ripping off $102,792 in campaign donations, as well as buckets full of coins from public copy machines at the Middlesex Registry of Deeds.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1212970

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Mass Booze News Scandal – State Rep. Michael J. Rodrigues NH Tax Free Cocktail Run

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:28:43 +0000

Pol nabbed on New Hampshire booze run

By Michele McPhee, Dave Wedge and Hillary Chabot | Wednesday, September 2, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics

A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car – adorned with his State House license plate – in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned.

Michael J. Rodrigues’ blue Ford Crown Victoria, emblazoned with his “House 29” Massachusetts license plate, was parked outside a Granite State liquor store on Interstate-95 South over the weekend, according to a witness who provided pictures to the Herald.

The witness, who requested anonymity, claimed he approached Rodrigues, noted his State House plate, and asked if he was on personal or official business. Rodrigues, who was loading booze into his car, snapped “mind your own business,” the witness said.

The witness’ account was also posted yesterday on Citizens for Limited Taxation’s Web site.

A member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Rodrigues did not return several phone calls yesterday. But in an online interview with The Standard-Times in New Bedford, he acknowledged buying the booze during a bathroom stop while he and his wife were on a weekend getaway in New Hampshire.

He also blamed the brouhaha on “Republican demagoguery.”

“Unfortunately, I think that’s why the Republican Party is in such bad shape in Massachusetts,” Rodrigues is quoted as saying. “The electorate here is smart enough to figure out what they’re up to.”

The Westport Democrat, whose family owns a rug business, was among the lawmakers who voted in an unpopular 25 percent sales tax hike for Bay Staters. The increase pushed the sales tax to 6.25 percent and slapped that same levy on booze – the first time alcohol has been subject to retail sales tax.

The hike has been blasted by business owners, especially those on the New Hampshire border, who say the increase has driven business north.

Mike Cimini, owner of Yankee Spirits liquor stores in Sturbridge, Attleboro and Swansea, said he’s lost about 10 percent of his business since the booze tax went into effect Aug. 1.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable that a Massachusetts state representative would be that hypocritical, let alone be that bold to actually drive his car with political plates to a New Hampshire liquor store,” said Cimini, noting Rodrigues represents communities close to his stores. “He’s up in New Hampshire to avoid the very taxes he approved.”

State law prohibits transporting more than 20 gallons of malt beverages or three gallons of any other alcoholic beverage. Police have the authority to detain and charge anyone illegally importing booze into the state. It’s unknown how much Rodrigues purchased at the New Hampshire store.

Authorities have also cracked down at the border, targeting Bay Staters seeking to avoid paying state taxes by crossing into New Hampshire to shop.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1194791

State Senator Marian Walsh

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:50:24 +0000

Walsh pulls out amid uproar

Senator will not pursue $120,000-a-year state post

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | April 1, 2009

State Senator Marian Walsh abandoned her appointment yesterday to a $120,000-a-year position at a state authority, a decision that follows two tumultuous weeks for Governor Deval Patrick and was made amid what Walsh described as a “tsunami” of public outrage.

“I feel I have become the issue,” said Walsh, appearing at Patrick’s side after meeting privately with the governor in his office.

Walsh said she reached the decision to decline the job as assistant executive director at the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority on her own, with no push from the governor or his aides. She said she called Patrick’s chief of staff, Doug Rubin, on Monday night and informed him of the choice.

“This is my decision,” said Walsh, a six-term West Roxbury Democrat and one of Patrick’s earliest political supporters.

“This was not going any place that was healthy. I feel this is the best outcome,” she said. “I don’t want to be a distraction. I want to be a leader.”

Patrick’s push to get Walsh hired at the authority would have faced another potential hurdle, and fur ther media scrutiny and public anger, when the agency’s board meets April 17 to confirm the details of her employment.

Patrick said he had “mixed feelings” about the lawmaker’s decision and said, “I wish we had handled it differently.”

The governor has endured intense criticism from the public and political foes alike, and the administration’s repeated attempts at damage control have only added to the negative fallout.

Walsh said last week that she would accept $120,000 a year for the job, instead of the originally planned $175,000, a concession that spurred more anger and criticism. The administration absorbed more criticism over the last three days after a Globe story, quoting internal e-mails, showed Walsh’s appointment had been carefully orchestrated by Patrick’s top aides – despite the administration’s denials.

“I am relieved because we’ve been hammered,” Patrick said yesterday, speaking to reporters. “I also feel disappointed about the harm that has come to the senator, who is a wonderful and capable person and, I am absolutely convinced, was the right person for this assignment.”

He then put his arm around Walsh to demonstrate his support for her. “It’s been painful for me, the senator, for a whole lot of people.”

After the announcement, Patrick escorted Walsh back to the Senate, where a debate was taking place on pension reform.

The assistant executive director job at the authority had been vacant for 12 years, and Patrick and Walsh were never able to put forth an argument that convinced critics that it needed to be filled now, at a time when the state and Massachusetts residents are reeling from the recession.

Walsh insisted yesterday that she had wanted the position in order to work on the governor’s plans for reorganizing the authority and other quasi-public authorities by, among other things, “changing the culture so we can be more open.”

“There’s a whole theme here, which is why the reorganization was so central to having more economic development that is more fruitful in the near future and not waiting,” Walsh said.

But the way the appointment was handled belied her call for open government. The position had not been advertised and no search firm had been hired to compile a list of candidates. It was also not listed on an agenda for the March 12 meeting where it was unanimously approved.

Walsh’s appointment was immediately slammed by opponents as a behind-the-scenes patronage move by Patrick to force the board of an independent authority to hire a political ally with very little notice.

The state’s Republican Party said yesterday that the episode undercut Patrick’s claim to be a reformer.

“Senator Walsh has done the right thing by refusing the appointment,” said Jennifer Nassour, GOP chairwoman. “This absurd process has taught us, once again, that we cannot rely on the Patrick administration to seek real, meaningful reform on Beacon Hill.”

Patrick continued yesterday to press the issue of reform, however. He insisted that Walsh was the right person to make his case that the authority’s operations should merge some of its operations with the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, contending that their duplicate efforts cost taxpayers “millions of dollars.”

He warned the authority that he would intervene again if it did not implement the changes he is seeking.

“If they don’t, we will be right back at it, inserting a change agent in there,” Patrick said.

The authority, however, released a statement rebutting the governor’s portrayal that it is inefficient. The agency issues government bonds to raise money for hospital and education construction projects in Massachusetts.

“A true model of efficiency, last year HEFA’s dedicated team worked to provide more than $4.4 billion in low-cost financing for important projects by nonprofit organizations across Massachusetts – becoming the largest issuer of tax-exempt bonds in the state and sixth largest in the nation,” the statement said.

BUSTED- $23k stuffed in her bra- SENATOR DIANE WILKERSON

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:19:50 +0000

">BUSTED- $23k stuffed in her bra- SENATOR DIANE WILKERSON

">“Vote For Dianne Wilkerson”

State Senator Dianne Wilkerson was arrested for Corruption Charges. Deval Patrick supported her campaign even though she has had prior problems with the law.

">State Senator Diane Wilkerson Arrested

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, Michael Sullivan, announces charges against State Senator Diane Wilkerson.

">Dianne Wilkerson Asked to Leave

Massachusetts State Senators asked fellow senator, Dianne Wilkerson, to resign after she’s charged with violating federal law.

Dianne Wilkerson Bribe

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:19:07 +0000

So how much bribe money will a legislator’s bra hold anyway?

Here’s an important state political story we almost missed given all the sound and fury surrounding the climax of the 2008 presidential election race between Barack Obama and John McCain and their trusty sidekicks, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

For a brief change of pace we’re going to tell you about Massachusetts state senator Dianne Wilkerson. She’s a Democrat who’s in some more legal trouble now because, it seems, an FBI sting operation caught her on videotape stuffing numerous $100 bills into her bra as alleged bribe payments during a meeting in a fancy Boston restaurant.

According to U.S. Atty. Michael Sullivan and a 32-page affidavit filed in federal court Tuesday, Wilkerson is charged with accepting $23,500 in eight different bribes over an 18-month period in return for her legislative influence on behalf of a developer and bar owner, among others.

The embattled legislator has represented the Roxbury area since her first election in 1992 as the state’s only black state senator. Wilkerson, who’s been supported by Gov. Deval Patrick, lost the Democratic primary but is seeking reelection through a sticker writein campaign next week.

Max Stern, Wilkerson’s attorney, maintains her innocence and accused federal authorities of trying to “character assassinate” her by bringing up past legal troubles, including a tax-cheating conviction and campaign finance violations.

The state bar has begun proceedings to disbar Wilkerson for perjury during state court testimony on behalf of a nephew convicted of murder.

And now back to your regularly-scheduled presidential campaign.

–Andrew Malcolm

Tom Finneran

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:03:57 +0000

Not a fan, felonious Tom Finneran? Well pardon me!

By Howie Carr | Saturday, January 10, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com

Photo by Nancy Lane

Are you talkin’ to me, Felon Finneran?

I quote now from the letter that four bust-out ex-governors of Massachusetts have written to President Bush, begging them to pardon former House speaker Tommy Taxes Finneran, a man so crooked he needs a corkscrew to get into his pants in the morning.

“He has suffered daily taunts and ridicule of those who believe that every elected official is the equivalent of a common thief.”

That’s me they’re talking about. When it comes to Felon Finneran, I’m in charge of daily taunts and ridicule. But despite what the Four Stooges wrote, I don’t believe every elected official is a thief. Finneran, on the other hand, was the House speaker – a job title that lately has a higher recidivism rate than godfather of the Gambino Crime Family.

As for Tommy Taxes being a “common thief” – I would never say that. Common thieves who do the crime do the time. Finneran committed multiple counts of perjury in the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, but was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice, and didn’t do an hour, let alone a day, in durance vile.

And he still refuses to take responsibility for his sordid life of crime. So far, he’s Alibi Ike.

First excuse: he lied under oath because he was in a hurry to drive his wife to Mass General.

Second excuse: he’d been “gulping” Advil. No joke – Tommy Taxes claimed he was “Advil-addled.”

New excuse: I’ve ruined everything for him. Yeah, and tonight I’m going to make it snow.

The Four Stooges said Felon Finneran has been “severely punished.” Really? He’s still making big money for his wretched radio show, which we call “Sweet Sixteen,” because that’s generally about where it finishes in the ratings. The Felon usually runs neck and neck with “The River,” and sometimes he even edges the Manchester N.H. soft-rock station. Sometimes. His show is so compelling it now goes off the air at 9 instead of 10, and they’re trying to prop him up with a co-host.

Finneran should be breakin’ rocks in the hot sun. He fought the law and the law won. Although I still remember the day he was “sentenced,” and how Judge Rick Stearns was almost apologizing for having to ask him the questions every convicted felon has to answer.

Are you on drugs this morning, wiseguy? You do know you can’t own a firearm anymore, maggot. But no, it was all “Mistah Speakah” this and “I know this is a silly question but . . .” I was there in the courtroom hoping to make a victim-impact statement. See, I was at the courthouse the day Felon Finneran told his string of incredible whoppers about his racist gerrymandering scheme in the city of Boston.

I was shocked, shocked, I tell you. I tried not to let it destroy my faith in the integrity of the Massachusetts Legislature. But I can’t get over it. Then last year, the Felon speculated to Gov. Patrick that I should be taken for a one-way ride in the trunk of the governor’s Coupe Deval.

You can take the felon out of the State House, but you can’t take the State House out of the felon. President Bush, don’t enough people hate you already? You don’t need your own Marc Rich.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1144332

Tom Finneran Felon Finneran

Former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran, arriving at his Mattapan home Monday. (Globe Staff Photo / Justine Hunt)
The Boston Globe

Finneran’s gathering storm

Ex-speaker’s strongest traits may have hastened his fall

By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff | June 9, 2005

It was a spring night in 2001, and the hottest question on Beacon Hill was whether the state budget proposal about to be released by the House Ways and Means Committee would contain adequate funds for the Clean Elections Law.

The law to provide public financing of campaigns had been overwhelmingly approved by voters several years earlier, but House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran had made no secret of his hostility to it, and that had spelled doom for many a measure in the State House over the years.

That made Finneran’s response all the more surprising when a reporter asked how much money would be in the Ways and Means budget for Clean Elections. ”I literally have no idea,” Finneran said. He went on to explain that he had been so busy with other legislative matters that he had left it in the hands of Ways and Means chairman John Rogers.

The notion of a hands-off approach on something Finneran cared about so deeply ran counter to everything that was known about the controlling, detail-oriented man who ran the House. But for the eight years Finneran presided as a speaker of unchallenged power, he seldom felt the need to agonize over his words or his image. Indeed, he was every inch the happy warrior, a sharp-tongued figure who freely expressed his opinions.

Yet in the aftermath of his indictment Monday on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, some wonder whether the very traits that propelled Finneran’s rise to power — a self-confidence bordering on the cocksure, a reflexive refusal to yield on points large or small, an eager appetite for political combat — may have worked together to hasten his fall.

”Hubris,” said Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause of Massachusetts, speculating on why Finneran denied any involvement in the redistricting process. ”There would have been no consequences to him had he told the truth: ‘Yes, I met with lawmakers and talked about this; yes, I met with the chairman of the committee.’ There would have been no repercussions. People would have said, ‘Look, there’s Finneran controlling the process again, but that would been, ‘Yawn, yawn, what’s new?’ ”

Finneran has vigorously maintained his innocence. Moreover, he has done so with the unambiguous force that characterized his eight years as House speaker, issuing a statement saying, ”My response to the charges brought against me today is NOT GUILTY,” and telling reporters: ”I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

If that is true, that would mean Finneran is less bothered by the indictment than are some of his admirers. Former House speaker David Bartley contended that the indictment is ”just outrageous,” and that Finneran is called arrogant simply for exerting strong leadership and for being unyielding in his beliefs.

Such support is a testament to the charisma and brainpower Finneran brought to the post of House speaker, along with an iron-fisted approach that made dissidents an endangered species. Critics say Finneran’s belief that he was smarter than most — an opinion honed and to an extent affirmed in the State House — contributed to his current legal predicament. In this view, the commanding — critics called it arrogant — demeanor that defined his leadership in the House simply boomeranged on the witness stand.

”He was just daring the attorneys to challenge him, to doubt him,” remarked Representative James J. Marzilli, a Democrat from Arlington who was often at loggerheads with Finneran during the decade-plus they served together in the House. ”You carry that outside this chamber, this institution, and people are a lot less willing to live by the rules he’s trying to force upon them.”

His will was so fierce, his talents so outsized, that Finneran grew used to getting his way on Beacon Hill. Often, his word literally was law. Now a jury will decide whether he broke the law with a few words of emphatic denial when he was asked, under oath, whether he knew the contents of a legislative redistricting plan before it was made public.

Lou DiNatale, director of the Center for Economic and Civic Opinion at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said it was clear from the former speaker’s testimony that he found it ”outrageous he had to testify before a federal jury over something that speakers have done over time immemorial in every state in the country . . . to protect his party members, Democrats, and his leadership. He made a mistake. He assumed this wasn’t going to be as explosive a public issue as it became.”

Whatever the outcome, the indictment has refocused the spotlight on a figure as compelling as he is contradictory. Finneran is a student of history who loves Edward Gibbon’s ”The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and Winston Churchill’s ”The Gathering Storm,” but he didn’t seem to see the storm gathering around him or to apprehend that his own pride and power might lead to a fall. In interviews with admirers and detractors of the former speaker, it was striking how often the twin themes of ambition and tragedy were sounded.

”Tom Finneran thought he was going to be either mayor of Boston or a United States senator,” said John McDonough, a former legislator and now executive director of Health Care for All, a consumer advocacy group. ”He clearly saw the speakership not as a terminal position but as a launching pad for something bigger. Given his ambitions, there’s a note of tragedy in it, that someone so gifted and talented was not able to capitalize on his position to achieve that bigger goal.”

Barbara Anderson, head of Citizens for Limited Taxation, considered Finneran to have ”a very thin skin stretched over a very big ego” from the day in 1991 when he ignored her outstretched hand and stalked away from her after the two did battle over Proposition 2 1/2, the tax-limiting measure that was her brainchild. Nonetheless, Anderson said, she now views Finneran as ”a tragic figure who had tremendous potential for leadership but instead he got lost in his own hubris.”

Over time, Finneran became known for what he said as much as for what he did. In the middle of the 1998 debate over how much public financing should be given to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to build a new stadium, Finneran at a dinner in Peabody dismissed the idea of a tax break for the project with a vulgarity.

In 1998, at a post-primary unity breakfast after Scott Harshbarger had won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, the facade of unity crumbled in a hurry when Finneran floated the notion that Harshbarger might drift toward ”the loony left,” a blow to a nominee who hoped and needed to appeal to moderate voters.

But for all of his swagger, the depictions of Finneran as a cartoon tyrant miss the mark, insist many who served with him, including some who lined up against him on issues or on leadership style. Most describe a man who was unfailingly cordial, who invariably recalled the names of members’ spouses and children, and who would blink back tears while discussing the challenges facing the mentally retarded.

Representative Michael Festa, a Melrose Democrat who emerged as one of Finneran’s leading critics, said, ”It’s a rare member of the House that would say they didn’t like Tom Finneran.”

Even though Festa often spoke out against Finneran’s tight control of the House, the two enjoyed a friendly relationship based on a shared love of gardening, and Festa had Finneran and his wife as a guest at his house several times. ”The man is sufficiently complex for everyone to understand he’s not that one-dimensional as a person,” Festa said.

Yet the image that came through to the outside world sometimes lacked those other dimensions. Having entered the Legislature in his late 20s, Finneran perhaps inevitably leaned on the instincts and style of a State House insider. But that very style may have worked against him on the witness stand, in the view of DiNatale, who believes that the indictment is unfair.

”Finneran got popped for the wink and the nod,” DiNatale contended. ”Because the culture of the [State House] building is ‘I know and you don’t know what’s really going on,’ the wink and the nod is the dominant form of being in the know. . . . You can play these winking games with the press, you can even play them with the Legislature. You can’t play them under oath.”

Rick Klein and Jonathan Saltzman of the Globe staff contributed to this report.