Senator Galluccio Drinking Scandal

Sen. Anthony Galluccio headed back to court

Failed alcohol breath tests

Disgraced state Sen. Anthony D. Galluccio is facing another brush with jail time today after he failed several Breathalyzer tests while under house arrest, blaming the high readings on his toothpaste.

The Cambridge Democrat is being hauled back into court to determine if he should be locked up to serve out his one-year sentence after pleading guilty last week to a hit-and-run crash.

Galluccio, 42, said he flunked several breath tests while in court-ordered home confinement Monday. He blamed the positive readings on his Colgate Total Whitening and Sensodyne toothpaste, which contain the sugar alcohol sorbitol.

“While I knew that mouthwash or cold medicine would set the machine off, it did not occur to me that toothpaste would,” Galluccio said in a statement.

“I am fully committed to sobriety and continuing treatment, and remain focused on serving my constituents,” he said.

Galluccio pleaded guilty Friday to an Oct. 4 hit-and-run in Cambridge that left a father and his 13-year-old son injured.

The two-time drunken driving offender was sentenced to six months of home confinement, and he was ordered by Judge Matthew Nestor to not touch a drop of booze. He was also required to submit to random alcohol testing, surrender his license for five years and pay a $1,000 fine. He was placed on probation for two years but was being allowed to attend formal Senate sessions and Sunday Mass.

Probation spokesman Coria Holland said last night Galluccio has been ordered back to Cambridge District Court in Medford today for a detention hearing.

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz, whose office prosecuted the case, said last night Galluccio should have been tossed in jail in the first place. Cruz sought a year sentence with six months served in jail.

“He hurt two people. He should be held accountable for that,” Cruz said. “It doesn’t matter who you are. You should be held accountable.”

A spokeswoman for Senate President Therese Murray said, “We expect Sen. Galluccio to comply with the terms of his probation.” Galluccio earns $61,400 as a state senator. He has stepped down from legislative chairmanships that paid him additional stipends.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1220665

Anthony Galluccio laps up wrist slap
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Cops: By the way, we gave Galluccio a lift Police finally admit to driving Galluccio home

Cambridge cops kept secret for a month the fact that they had driven home a state senator after responding to a report of an intoxicated man just hours before the lawmaker slammed his SUV into a minivan and fled, raising questions of a cover-up.

It was 25 days after an Oct. 4 hit-and-run wreck allegedly involving Sen. Anthony D. Galluccio when cops finally wrote up a report on the free ride.

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Anthony Galluccio laps up wrist slap

So Christmas comes a week early for state Sen. Anthony D. (for Drunkard) Galluccio.

After his latest brush with a bad ice cube, the besotted solon gets . . . home confinement. Nice. Most guys jammed up as often as Galluccio would have gotten confinement in a new home, namely, the House of Correction.

This bum should be bunking with John Buonomo in Billerica, instead he’s telling reporters, “I’m going to open my home to constituents.”

The only problem is, sometimes when he’s got a load on he forgets where he lives. But you’ll be able to spot his house easily enough. It’s the one with the swinging doors.

“I have made a firm decision that there will be no alcohol in my life.”

Are you aware, Senator, that beer is in fact alcohol?

If I ever get in a jam, I don’t ask for any special favors. Just treat me like Sen. Galluccio.

There’s an old saying in the military that sums up this squalid case: “different spanks for different ranks.” I don’t so much blame the judge – Galluccio has been pardoned for two OUIs, and the clerk/magistrate in Boston broomed his demolition derby caper in the Back Bay. And of course, he ran away from his latest crash and hid long enough to make a Breathalyzer immaterial.

But still, the fact is, a lot of guys have done a lot less behind the wheel – and haven’t sent anyone to the ER – and they still ended up doing six months in Plymouth, or Dedham or Deer Island. They lost their licenses, their jobs, their families.

Galluccio gets a Dianne Wilkerson sentence, as they say at the State House. Hell, even Dianne had to go to a halfway house.

And Galluccio has the audacity to say, “I cannot overstate my regret for the decision I made that day.”

Give me a break. Not sticking around for the field-sobriety test – the sidewalk Olympics – was the best move he ever made, and he knows it. And where were the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) outside the courtroom?

I know, the apologists will be out in force. They’ll say he has a problem. Actually, the real problem belongs to the drivers who are on the road with him. And supposedly he loses his driver’s license for five years.

Yeah, right, just like Judge McEvoy supposedly had her license pulled for six months after her OUI. Four days later, she was tooling around Belmont. Another one of those “hardship licenses” . . .

Senator, to ask the question from the old song, was it the high cost of living, or the cost of living high?

Anyone can get into trouble once. As Rudyard Kipling wrote, there comes a night when the best gets tight. But when it happens over and over and over again, the phrase the cops use is “habitual offender.” As they say at the academy, it’s a trend as opposed to an anomaly.

This guy is acting like his last name is Kennedy. The only thing missing from yesterday’s sob story was a claim that he was on his way to a vote at the State House.

“This experience,” he blubbered, “has been a life-altering one for me.”

No it hasn’t. Six months in the House of Correction – that’s life-altering. This is a broom.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1219877

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