Federal prosecutors, in a series of recent court filings, have painted their most detailed portrait to date of the elaborate schemes they say former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and three associates cooked up to profit from his speakership.
The allegations, which come six months after DiMasi and his associates were indicted on corruption charges, depict how DiMasi could have taken bribes from a software firm in return for helping the company win multimillion-dollar state contracts. Using phrases like “quid pro quo bribe,’’ and “concealed conflict of interest,’’ prosecutors call the case “a classic scheme’’ to defraud the public and enrich the defendants.
Yeah, paying $13 million for a computer software system that could have cost less than $3 million is all right because the winner was a close friend of the House speaker.
So how is that golf game, Sal?
DiMasi, they charge, “used his official position as speaker of the House to arrange for the passage of legislation in order to obtain financial benefits for himself and his co-conspirators.’’
The court filings respond to objections by defense lawyers who, soon after the indictment last June, called the initial allegations unduly vague, ill-defined, and not fully explained.
DiMasi and the other defendants are charged with steering two contracts worth $17.5 million to
Related: Lingering Sal Stench
Slow Saturday Special: The Looting Lobbyists Of Massachusetts
The Stinky Speaker of the Mass. Statehouse
Although DiMasi had already allegedly begun to collect payments from Cognos in 2005 - funneled through his law associate Steven Topazio - the prosecutors wrote, “this extra revenue was not sufficient for DiMasi’s financial well-being.’’
Related: More Statehouse Stink From Massachusetts
To supplement those payments, prosecutors allege, Vitale did two things. They say he provided DiMasi the $250,000 credit line, and made him a silent partner in a real estate management firm, Genesis Management Group LLC. A few months after the company was formed, it won a $1.4 million contract to operate the state’s 900,000-square-foot Transportation Building.
Prosecutors allege Genesis partners tapped DiMasi because they believed he could help the company win government contracts. Though DiMasi allegedly assigned a staffer to help Genesis secure work, prosecutors say they found no evidence that DiMasi or his aide ever succeeded or shared in any profits. Nevertheless, they wrote, the charges related to Genesis should remain in the case because they show a second way in which DiMasi and Vitale allegedly conspired to profit from his position.
Though the Genesis information was not sufficient to bring additional charges or add new defendants, the allegations are helpful “to fully explain the chain of events that unfolded as part of the charged conspiracy, to show the nature of the illegal relationship between Vitale and DiMasi, and to explain some of their motives and conduct,’’ wrote Assistant US attorneys Theodore Merritt and Anthony Fuller....
Defense lawyers challenged the so-called honest services fraud law that federal authorities are using to prosecute DiMasi and the others. They say the 28-word law, which makes criminal “a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services,’’ is so broad as to be meaningless and does not apply in this case. The law has been used in recent years to go after politicians and business leaders. Prosecutors defended their use of the honest services fraud statute....
Yeah, the defense is not denying any of these things took place -- and how could they? It is them talking to each other!
In a superseding indictment handed down in October, prosecutors charged DiMasi with extortion under the Hobbs Act, which prohibits public officials from accepting payments in return for official acts. That charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison. The new charges, prosecutors said, were added for “legitimate precautionary reasons’’ and to “bolster the government’s case’’ in light of the Supreme Court cases.
Translation: the slime will weasel out of it.
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Related: DiMasi's Leftovers
More Dirt on DiMasi I don't like this one.
"DeLeo’s stance on fees rejected; Detailing expenses would not harm DiMasi case, prosecutors say" by Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | December 24, 2009
Federal prosecutors have rejected assertions by House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo that detailing hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded legal fees the House racked up in the corruption investigation of former speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi would compromise the criminal case.
Related: A Surreptitious State House
DeLeo has been under fire from some House members for refusing to divulge details of $378,000 in legal bills the House has incurred from the law firm Gargiulo/Rudnick since DiMasi left office in January, to help the chamber navigate its legal responsibilities in DiMasi’s case.
Last week, four dissident lawmakers wrote a letter to the US attorney’s office asking for an affirmation of DeLeo’s argument: that disclosing details of the payments would harm the investigation. “Given the facts presented in the materials which accompany your letter, it does not appear that the government’s case would be affected in any way by such a release,’’ Brian Kelly, chief of the public corruption unit in the US attorney’s office, wrote back Tuesday to the lawmakers, led by state Representative Lida Harkins, a Needham Democrat.
The letter increases pressure on DeLeo for an accounting of the $378,000 in legal payments, which the Globe disclosed earlier this month. “At this point, I can’t think of any reason why the speaker shouldn’t release all of the documents,’’ said Harkins, a frequent DeLeo critic. “We were told we would be obstructing justice, but it sounded like a lot of gibberish to me. “We’re not asking to disclose details of the case,’’ she added. “We’re asking for the billing information.’’
Yeah, I get that feeling a lot when I'm reading or listening to what a politician is saying.
DeLeo appeared unmoved yesterday by the letter, and gave no indication he would disclose the material anytime soon. Instead, he reiterated a pledge he made last week to appoint an independent lawyer to review the contract. That lawyer, he said, would look at the contract’s “scope, scale, performance and cost.’’
Translation: He is trying to bury it.
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State Representative Thomas Stanley of Waltham, who had joined Harkins in pressing DeLeo for an accounting of the payments, called on DeLeo to scrap the audit, release the information, and cancel the contract with the law firm. “I don’t think we need to waste taxpayers’ money on an audit,’’ he said.
Oh, they are GREAT at doing that!
“They obviously don’t want to release the information for some reason. Every House member and every taxpayer of Massachusetts is owed this.’’
I want my money back.
Also see: State Government On Probation
"Officials lag in reporting information on donors; Cahill has lowest disclosure rate" by Kelly Glista and Pamela King, Globe Correspondents | December 30, 2009But, he's the TREASURER!!!!
Related: Cahill the Corrupt
Yeah, THOSE are ONLY FOR YOU, s***-chewing public.
Yuk-yuk-yuk!
Two of next year’s gubernatorial candidates, Governor Deval Patrick and Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, have failed to collect and report the occupation, employer, or both for more than 9,000 major donors in recent years, even though state campaign finance law requires them to do so....
Patrick is the Massachusetts version of Shemp.
Patrick, who ran for governor in 2006 on a pledge to bring transparency to government, did little to fulfill that promise in his 2006 campaign reports: The occupation or employer for 37 percent of his donors was never collected. That information is required for anyone who gives $200 or more....
I must be jaded after three years because I expect nothing but mealy-mouthed lies and garbage from this guy.
There remain 5,000 Patrick donors since 2005 whose business connections are unreported.
See: Patriots' Kraft Passes Checks to Patrick
The Boston Globe Censors Patrick's Past
Yeah, that could get embarrassing.
Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray has also been lax in collecting and reporting the information....
Oh, do we ever need a Republican governor.
Related: The Perils of One-Party Politics: The Problem
The same information, for the first 11 months of this year, is missing for 18 percent of major donors to Charles D. Baker, a Republican candidate for governor who began raising campaign funds only this year. Rob Gray, the Baker campaign spokesman, said all of Baker’s donors are new, unlike those of Patrick and Cahill, who have many repeat donors for whom required information is easier to come by.
In contrast, Attorney General Martha Coakley reported occupation and employer information for 97 percent of her contributors in five years of fund-raising before she entered the US Senate race this year. Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, who recently won reelection, has collected and reported the information for 92 percent of major donors since 2005.
You know, if THEY CAN DO IT, why can't the rest of them?
Maybe Marty is okay to send to the Senate.
Think an AG would at least follow the law, right?
Typically, the Globe analysis found, campaign reports for most major officeholders omit the identifying information for 20 percent or more of their major contributors. One surprise: Secretary of State William F. Galvin, whose office oversees and polices statutory disclosure by lobbyists and securities firms. Galvin has not reported occupation and employer for about 22 percent of his major donors since 2002.
I wish I could say I was surprised!!!!
Asked about the nondisclosures, some officeholders admit they have been either sloppy or inattentive.
And yet they SIT UP THERE coming down on OUR ASSES, throwing away tax loot, raising taxes, and stuffing their pockets!!!!
The 1994 disclosure provision provides little incentive for compliance. If, for instance, a donor sends a candidate a $500 check with a name and address, but provides no occupation or employer, all the law requires is a standard letter asking for the missing information. If the donor tosses out the letter, the candidate need do nothing more and is in compliance with the law....
Some law.
Is there not ONE THING they do that is NOT SELF-SERVING, folks?
In a recent interview, Cahill acknowledged that he has not been diligent in seeking the information. “We don’t want to harass people,’’ Cahill said. “. . . It’s like a form letter; they ignore it. But we could probably be more aggressive in calling people and doing that stuff, and maybe we should be.’’
Yeah, but they DON'T MIND HASSLING YOU, citizen of Massachusetts!!!
Galvin expressed surprise at his campaign’s nondisclosure rate and acknowledged that his campaign committee had been sloppy, calling the shortcoming “a failure to complete the process. We’re not trying to hide our contributors. We need to be better at it.’’
Voters, interest groups, or reporters who download campaign finance report spreadsheets from www.mass.gov/ocpf, a state website, are often faced with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of lines where the only entries in occupation and employer columns for donors is “information requested’’ or “letter sent.’’
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The reporting requirements have contributed to Massachusetts being ranked 37th in the nation in the effectiveness of campaign disclosure requirements, according to a 2008 study by the California-based Campaign Disclosure Project.
Gee, to listen to the smug, self-righteous liberals around here you would think we are number one in all things.
If candidates are not scrupulous in collecting the information, then voters are left in the dark, said Pam Wilmot, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Massachusetts.
That's newspaper coverage of the campaigns for you.
“This is critical information that paints a clear picture of which interests are supporting which candidates,’’ said Wilmot, who along with Common Cause spearheaded passage of the 1994 law. “This is about the public’s right to know.’’
Then shouldn't MASSACHUSETTS candidates be SETTING an EXAMPLE and FORKING the stuff over?
Full disclosure, Wilmot said, “can expose potential conflicts of interest and help voters make informed choices.’’
Like it matters?
I've given up expecting anything but lies from our Zionist-controlled government and media.
Full disclosure? Never in an AmeriKan newspaper. If nothing else, this blog has proved that about the BG.
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