"Grand jury scrutinizes Cape DA; O’Keefe asserts innocence, says he has no tie to illegal betting" by Jonathan Saltzman and Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | April 14, 2010
A federal grand jury is investigating allegations of public corruption against Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael D. O’Keefe that resulted from a wiretap of an alleged bookmaking operation more than a year ago, according to several people with direct knowledge of the investigation.
They are NOW ENSNARING EACH OTHER with their CANNIBALISTIC TYRANNY!
Have at it, guys!
Authorities are looking into whether O’Keefe protected alleged bookmakers operating on the Cape and gave favorable treatment to the grandson of one of them in an unrelated criminal case, said the sources, who insisted on anonymity because grand jury investigations are confidential.
The full scope of the grand jury investigation is unclear, and there is no indication it will result in criminal charges against O’Keefe or anyone else. A number of witnesses have testified before the panel in Worcester in recent months, including a state judge on the Cape.
O’Keefe, a 59-year-old two-term Republican district attorney, issued a statement late yesterday denying he has done anything wrong.
I SMELL SOMETHING in Democratic Massachusetts and the agenda-pushing Glob.
“Some information has apparently been leaked from a federal grand jury concerning illegal betting,’’ he said. “I do not now nor have I ever had any association with gaming. Any assertion of wrongdoing by me or my office is completely false.’’
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The name of a prominent former public official has also come up in the investigation: former lieutenant governor Thomas P. O’Neill III. Now a lobbyist on Beacon Hill and a friend of O’Keefe’s, O’Neill, the son of the late US House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip’’ O’Neill Jr., was heard on a wiretap allegedly placing bets, said the sources. O’Neill declined to comment yesterday.
Dad would be so proud!
The original investigation was initiated by Attorney General Martha Coakley in fall 2008....
Related: Crazy Marty Coakley and Her Next Campaign
Oy!
But the focus shifted to O’Keefe early last year after a relative of Adam Hart, a convicted bookmaker and longtime owner of the Ocean House Restaurant in Dennisport, made a comment on the wiretap that triggered concerns for investigators that the district attorney may have protected illegal gamblers in the past, said people knowledgeable of the investigation. US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz’s office then took the lead role in the investigation being conducted by the FBI and State Police.
Two federal prosecutors — Brian T. Kelly, the head of Ortiz’s public corruption unit, and Fred Wyshak, who prosecuted contractors in Big Dig fraud cases — are leading the grand jury investigation.
Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for Ortiz, said she could neither confirm nor deny an investigation and declined to comment yesterday. Corey Welford, a spokesman for Coakley, also would not comment.
O’Keefe’s lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr. of Boston, said in a statement that grand jury investigations are secret because “the jurors often look into rumors that turn out to be totally untrue.’’ Carney, a state prosecutor for five years, said he never leaked information because “it can be so destructive to a person’s reputation, especially when the evidence proves that he or she has done nothing improper or illegal.’’
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According to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Boston last August, Hart, 84, was involved in an illegal gambling ring that led law enforcement authorities to bug telephone conversations beginning in late 2008. Hart pleaded guilty to a state gambling charge in 2001 and received one year of probation.
He has not been charged as a result of the recent wiretap.
Federal prosecutors have filed a sealed civil forfeiture complaint in US District Court seeking to seize Hart’s oceanfront restaurant and a neighboring resort operated by his family, according to sources familiar with the filing....
In America?
Anything else leak out?
"Judges accepted funds from O’Keefe; 2 barred from criminal cases on Cape Cod after DA covered bill for training program" by Jonathan Saltzman and Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | April 18, 2010
Two state judges in Barnstable were prohibited from hearing criminal cases on Cape Cod for months, after Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael D. O’Keefe covered a bill of nearly $2,500 for one of them to attend a judicial training program in Nevada, according to a high-ranking state judge....
Lynda M. Connolly, chief judge of Massachusetts district courts, confirmed the episode after a Globe report that a federal grand jury is investigating allegations that O’Keefe protected bookmakers and gave preferential treatment to one of their relatives in an unrelated criminal case, according to several people with direct knowledge of the investigation. O’Keefe denied any wrongdoing in a statement issued last week.
Although there is no indication that federal authorities are looking into O’Keefe’s $2,459 payment for District Court Judge John M. Julian’s five-day trip, the arrangement raises fresh questions about the relationship between the district attorney and judges on the Cape....
The arrangement between District Court Judges Joseph J. Reardon and O’Keefe flew in the face of a 1999 advisory opinion by the Committee on Judicial Ethics of the state Supreme Judicial Court, according to Connolly. That opinion said judges were prohibited from allowing police departments and district attorneys to pay for travel expenses to a conference in San Francisco on improving judicial skills in domestic violence cases.
If law enforcement authorities paid those expenses, an “objective person could reasonably question the reimbursed judges’ impartiality’’ when those police officers or prosecutors appeared before the judges, the committee said....
The system is weighted against you before you even set foot in a courtroom, world.
I just thought you should know that about AmeriKan Justice.
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