"More donors to Wilkerson had business with state; CEO, contractors said to write her big checks" by Donovan Slack and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | February 8, 2009
Cosmetics executive John Walsh and public works contractor Jay M. Cashman were among the members of Boston's business elite who gave former state senator Dianne Wilkerson contributions to help her pay off personal debts, according to people who have been briefed on the transactions or questioned by federal authorities.
Wilkerson had previously said that any financial help she had received to pay off federal tax debts came from personal friends. But in the case of Walsh, Cashman, and some others previously identified, the donors also had major financial interests in the workings of state government, raising questions about their motives for giving checks as large as $10,000 to the powerful senator.
Walsh, in particular, received key help from Wilkerson.... With large Big Dig, MBTA, and other state contracts, Cashman's business has long depended heavily on state money, including bond issues approved by the Legislature.
While SERVICES are GUTTED and TAXES RAISED!! How's that BOWL of SHIT going down this morning, Mass. resident! Thank Gawd for DemocraPs, huh?
Also writing a check to Wilkerson was Shelley I. Hoon, a construction executive who won a state contract to renovate a housing development in Wilkerson's district and whose husband, John W. Keith, also is a large contractor who has built state-subsidized housing, said the people, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.
Walsh, Cashman, and Hoon declined to comment. Representatives of Cashman and Hoon said they did nothing improper. The Globe has previously reported that another major developer, Arthur Winn, contributed $10,000 to Wilkerson's personal fund-raising drive. Winn spearheaded the planned Columbus Center project that would be built, with state subsidies, over the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston. Winn has said he contributed to Wilkerson because she was a close friend and that he did not expect anything in return.
Wilkerson, in a Globe interview in January, previously said she and her contributors were acting within the guidelines of Ethics Commission rules that permit personal gifts to politicians. As long as she did not let a contribution influence her vote, she said, she did nothing wrong....
They are SHAMELESS and UNCONSCIONABLE, aren't they?
The Globe reported last month that Wilkerson, in the interview, described how she had engaged in personal fund-raising to pay more than $70,000 in tax and mortgage debt. She said she accepted individual monetary gifts from a number of unnamed business executives.
In 1997 and 2003, the Ethics Commission issued Wilkerson written rulings saying she could engage in such fund-raising, but warned her against exchanging official actions in return. It also said she would have to disclose the payments if the contributors had financial interests in the workings of the Legislature. Wilkerson has never made any such disclosures....
Cashman has reaped millions from state construction contracts, including from the massive $532 million Greenbush state commuter rail expansion. A spokesman for Cashman declined to discuss the contribution, saying only that he has "always complied with every legal requirement relating to campaign contributions."
Cashman previously has worked on projects for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Turnpike Authority, Convention Center Authority, Highway Department, Division of Capital and Asset Management, and Department of Environmental Management.
More recently, in 2007, Cashman lobbied the Legislature to amend state law so he could build a wind farm in Buzzard's Bay....
Pffft!
--more--"
Need more stench?
"Evidence sealed in case vs. Vitale" by Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | February 10, 2009
Guess you won't be able to inhale this stink thanks to the cover-up courts of Massachusetts.
A Superior Court judge agreed yesterday to keep an official blanket of secrecy on the details of the state's influence-peddling case against Richard Vitale, a friend and former accountant of former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi....
Vitale, 63, is charged with secretly lobbying DiMasi and other legislators on behalf of his client, the Massachusetts Association of Ticket Brokers, which paid Vitale $60,000 in 2007 to push legislation that would lift the state's current cap on ticket prices. He is charged with 10 violations of lobbying and campaign finance laws.
In arguing against the documents' release, Vitale's lawyer, Martin Weinberg, referred to their potentially damaging contents, which include "proffer letters." Proffer letters are given to witnesses to secure their testimony in exchange for immunity. Neither the prosecutors nor Weinberg would say who has received the letters or whether anyone has been given immunity....
Last month, prosecutors filed an initial list of documents collected in the case, which included phone and bank records, e-mails, invoices, daily calendars, and other material.
The list included several names not mentioned before in the case, including DiMasi staffer Daniel Toscano, and James Holzman, owner of Ace Tickets and head of the ticket brokers group. According to that document, Toscano met with Holzman at Vitale's office as early as June 2006 - a year before the ticket brokers bill passed the House. That meeting was on June 22 - the day DiMasi and his wife were at Vitale's office to sign papers for a third mortgage the accountant and financial adviser gave them on their North End condo. They have since repaid the loan.
The document also revealed that Vitale used money from his consulting company, WN Advisors, to pay off two-year-old $7,500 legal debts incurred by DiMasi's in-laws, Bruce and Mollie Kinlin....
So HOW LONG can you HOLD YOUR BREATH, reader?
"Amorello violated ethics laws, panel rules; Former Pike chief will pay $2,000 fine" by Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff | February 12, 2009
After two years, multiple hearings, and hundreds of hours of legal and investigative work, the State Ethics Commission ruled in a decision released yesterday that former Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew J. Amorello violated ethics laws.
All told, the case cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars to prosecute. But it will cost Amorello only $2,000, the maximum allowable under laws not updated in more than a generation....
Was it WORTH IT, Mass. taxpayers?
Is the RANK ROT and FETID STINK of CORRUPTION enough for you yet?
Amorello led the Turnpike Authority, which had oversight of the Big Dig, for about five years, before being forced out by Governor Mitt Romney in 2006 after a portion of a Big Dig tunnel ceiling collapsed, killing a woman who was a passenger in a car in the tunnel.
Yes, MASSACHUSETTS NEEDS REPUBLICANS in control SOMEWHERE!!
I never thought I'd say this, but I MISS MITT!!!!!!!
Amorello said he would not contest the charges any further and would pay the $2,000 fine.
"I am happy to get this behind me and to move on," he said.
Yup, there are NO CONSEQUENCES for LOOTING the PUBLIC here in Massachusetts -- save for kiss on the hand!
Think that family can put behind the loss of their loved one because of that shoddy loot job?
At least here is something that ISN'T BEING PUT BEHIND US!!!
"Two top Patrick aides to testify; Pair subpoenaed in Cognos probe" by Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | February 14, 2009
.... Federal authorities continue to pursue the Cognos investigation, despite the January departure of former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi. Without citing the ethics controversies that swirled around him, DiMasi resigned as state and federal grand juries probed influence-peddling allegations involving some of his closest associates. Cognos was at the center of some of the most serious allegations....
Oh, you mean the $13 million award for a computer software system that could have cost less than $3 million because the winner was a close friend of the House speaker?
Rubin and Morales joined the Patrick administration in spring 2007. Morales was previously one of former Senate president Robert E. Travaglini's top aides, while Rubin was the mastermind behind Patrick's surprising election victory in 2006. Both worked to rehabilitate Patrick's image after a series of missteps during his first months in office and have become his most trusted advisers.
What is with the NEPOTISM in this state?
The FBI, the US attorney's office, and the state inspector general have been looking into the circumstances surrounding the awarding of two contracts to Cognos, a Canadian software firm with a Burlington office: a $4.5 million education contract awarded in 2006 and a $13 million technology contract awarded in 2007.
Federal authorities launched their investigation after the Globe reported that friends of DiMasi had received huge payments from Cognos or its independent sales agent, Joseph Lally, as the company was pursuing state business.
Inspector General Gregory Sullivan discovered that DiMasi's law associate, Steven Topazio, was on the Cognos payroll, collecting a $5,000-a-month retainer for two years between 2005 and 2007. DiMasi's former accountant, Richard Vitale, received $600,000 from Lally, the bulk of which came on the same day the state wired Cognos its $13 million payment.
A QUID PRO QUO, no?
Both contracts received the required funding from the Legislature. But after the Globe reported problems with the bidding process, the administration rescinded the $13 million contract and asked
So everything is all right now, huh?
As for IBM, get a load of this, will you?
"$5m in tax breaks going to IBM for Littleton project
The Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council approved $5 million in state and local tax breaks for IBM Corp., which recently began a $63 million expansion in Littleton. IBM vice president Bob McDonald said the company plans to create 42 jobs at the site over the next decade. McDonald said the computer giant, based in Armonk, N.Y., has already begun renovating a building and hopes to move into it next month. McDonald said the tax incentives were important, but the company would have gone forward with the expansion without them. IBM has 4,000 employees in Massachusetts, including about 2,000 in Littleton (Boston Globe October 30 2008)."
Excuse me?
A $5 MILLION TAXPAYER GIVEAWAY that IBM DIDN'T EVEN WANT?
Yeah, this state will GET THEM the $$$ somehow!!
Meanwhile, OUR TAXES GO UP and our SERVICES are SHATTERED by this s***-dicks!!!!!!!!!!
How's that SHIT STEW Massachusetts serves you up, citizen?
Ready for a TEA PARTY yet?
