Federal prosecutors are asking a US grand jury to weigh charges, including fraud, extortion, and conspiracy, in the widening patronage scandal that has staggered the state Probation Department.
US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz has ordered probation officials to preserve all documents that could be used as evidence in the criminal probe, including e-mails, laptop files, BlackBerry text messages, and all of the agency’s paper records.
This is a friggin' made-for-TV movie here, folks. I've covered this one before, and it looks like not only is it not going away, it keeps getting worse. In fact, it's starting to look like we may continue our record of having the MA Speaker of the House resign before their term is officially over - it appears that our current Speaker Robert DeLeo was recommending his godson for a position in the Probation department currently under investigation. Oh, and also four political contributors who received jobs there as well. Nothing to see here, folks, just another in a long tradition of largess doled out by our political betters.
Should something actually come of this and DeLeo were to lose his position, he would be the fourth MA Speaker of the House in a row to leave office under a cloud of suspicion. He replaced Sal DiMasi, who is currently under indictment for rigging state contracts. DiMasi replaced Tom Finneran, who resigned and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges. And Finneran replaced Charles Flaherty, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges. If DeLeo were to resign his office as a result of this scandal, he would be continuing the fine MA tradition of being as crooked as a dog's hind leg and dumb enough to get caught at it.
At some point, you think they'd learn. "Gee, the last three guys who held this office got unceremoniously kicked to the curb for illegal and/or unethical shenanigans. Perhaps I should make an attempt to keep things on the level." Of course, that would fail to account for the gargantuan egos needed to survive on Beacon Hill, as well as plain ol' human nature - it's like we're hardwired to hand out the goodies when we're in a position of power or something... Now, DeLeo may very well have kept within the boundaries of the law - but it sure looks like there might have been some quid pro quo going on.
Or, as we like to call it in MA, business as usual.
That is all.
1 comment:
Alas in the age of digital communications shredders are of little use. Chances are that there are emails and copies of memos on hard drives across the Commonwealth.
At least they'll have some company at Club Fed.
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