And consider this: if a man like this is getting such shoddy health care while in prison, what are the unimportant rabble receiving?
"Imprisoned DiMasi weak with cancer, wife says" by Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, March 07, 2013
Former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi has grown frail and thin in a prison hospital in North Carolina, where he is battling a rare form of cancer that went undiagnosed for months as he was bounced from one facility to another, according to his wife, Debbie.
Just 16 months after he reported to federal prison to serve an eight-year sentence for corruption, DiMasi has lost 50 pounds, has suffered bouts of pneumonia, and has a feeding tube attached to his stomach. He sips apple sauce and pudding and cottage cheese, if he can sip at all.
DiMasi, 68, may also be facing a recurrence of the cancer in his tongue and throat despite intense radiation treatment that has left him unable to swallow solid food, his wife said.
In a rare interview at the request of the Globe, Debbie DiMasi agreed to discuss her husband’s failing health and their struggles to cope, but also her frustrations with what she called an incompetent federal prison system where he was supposed to be sent for punishment, but not to suffer like this.
Or an uncaring one.
“He was frustrated, trying to get help, knowing something was wrong,” Debbie DiMasi said Wednesday from her office at a suicide prevention organization in Downtown Crossing, surrounded by pictures of her and her husband when he was one of the most powerful politicians in the state. “He had spent so much time knowing this was in his body, for so long.”
And DiMasi said some of her husband’s suffering could have been avoided if prison doctors had examined him when he first reported suspicious swelling in his throat and neck.
Instead, his cancer was not diagnosed until months later — April 2012 — giving the disease time to grow and spread.
“I do think it’s important for people to know what he’s gone through,” she said. “But this is a systemic problem, so it’s more than about Sal. This is the way things happen here.”
DiMasi said she has met wives of inmates and the son of another, who described the same pains in seeing their family members go untreated: One family member said he had to seek the help of a US senator to get treatment for his father, and by then the cancer was terminal.
“It’s not right,” she said. “I never thought we’d be in this situation, but it’s been eye-opening and heart-breaking, both personally and with the other stories we’ve heard.”
The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for this article, but has maintained in previous inquiries that it provides the necessary care for all inmates.
Despite Sal DiMasi’s current health, he has little hope of gaining early release from prison, based on a recent Human Rights Watch report....
Some of DiMasi’s former Beacon Hill allies said it is tragic that a politician who was a driving force behind the 2006 Massachusetts health care reforms that became the model for President Obama’s overhaul should suffer from poor health care.
“What a horrible, horrible irony: That the man who was hugely responsible for helping millions of people access health care would now be denied access to quality health care is extraordinarily painful and terrifically unjust,” said Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Caucus. “He deserves a lot better.”
Defense attorneys said the apparent failure to provide proper care for DiMasi reflects a prison system that has been overwhelmed by an increase in aging, nonviolent defendants sentenced to lengthy prison terms....
Looks like it is TIME to END the WAR on DRUGS and LEGALIZE!
Sal DiMasi, who received the longest sentence ever for a Massachusetts elected official, has maintained his innocence and an appeals court is considering his request for a new trial.
More on that below.
Meanwhile, with the loss of DiMasi’s income, a judge last year approved the foreclosure of the family’s condo on Commercial Street in the North End.
Debbie DiMasi said she has taken her struggles in strides. Last July, inspired by a history of suicides in her family, she began working for a suicide prevention organization. She is thankful for the support of friends and family and living by the philosophy that, “Life is hard, but I think it’s how you get through it.”
She said she has tried to convey that to her husband, who needs the mental support as much as anything. In June, he was finally transferred to a medical facility in Butner, N.C., after a doctor complained of his lack of care, his wife said.
There, he underwent three weeks of initial chemotherapy to reduce the tumors, followed by seven weeks of more intensive treatment because the cancer had grown so much.
But the treatment caused a buildup of fluids in his throat, which his wife said was later determined to be undiagnosed lymphedema, and his esophagus started to close. Doctors were able to reopen his airway weeks later, but it repeatedly closed, she said. Several times, DiMasi aspirated into his lungs because of the narrowed esophagus, causing pneumonia, she said.
Debbie DiMasi said the family couldn’t visit him again until October, because he was too weak to come to the visiting room. They couldn’t speak, either, because DiMasi couldn’t talk on the phone.
“I felt terrible for him,” said his wife, who said she started sending him directions on how to swallow again, and how to massage the fluid from his neck area, something she figured the prison should have done.
DiMasi underwent a PET scan in December to look for traces of the cancer, but it was inconclusive.
The scan did detect some potentially cancerous cells in his mouth but the doctors said that could also be a result of swelling.
DiMasi had hoped that he would have undergone a new scan by now. He told his wife he is not due for the procedure until April.
--more--"
By one measure, Sal the Scum is getting what he deserves (the imprisonment, not the cancer). By another measure, his peddling of influence for state contracts regarding test software is small fry compared to the tens of millions of dollars in debt interest payments that are funneled to banks every month.
What you need to do is step back and see the bigger picture. Sal was the lone and single reason we didn't have casinos in this state, and then this corruption thing comes up and now we have casinos after the pro-casino DeLeo took over.
Now, I'm sure if DeLeo strays his involvement in the state probation office scandal will suddenly bubble to the surface. For you see, dear readers, that is Massachusetts politics. The whole system is a rancid, rotting hulk of corruption.
Related: What Secrets Did Sal Know?
Now he can't even speak.
Those speaking for him:
"DiMasi appeal to test ruling on bribery; High court has redefined fraud" by Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, February 03, 2013
Lawyers for former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and a lobbyist who were found guilty of political corruption in 2011 will ask a federal appeals court Tuesday to overturn the convictions, in a case that could help to redefine the standards for political bribery in federal courts across the country.
Lawyers for DiMasi and his good friend, lobbyist Richard McDonough, will argue that a 2010 Supreme Court decision redefining what constitutes bribery should apply to their case and that they should be acquitted under the new standard.
DiMasi’s case, in spring 2011, was one of the first to go to trial following the Supreme Court decision known as Skilling v. United States, and lawyers and even the judge who oversaw DiMasi’s trial agreed that they were exploring new legal ground following the precedent-setting decision.
The Supreme Court had essentially narrowed the scope of evidence that would constitute a federal crime of bribery by requiring that prosecutors prove there was an agreement to have a public figure take an official action for his benefit. A mere failure to disclose a conflict of interest, while working with a lobbyist, for instance, could not constitute a bribery charge known as honest services fraud....
Honest services from government?
--more--"
Related: Court asked to void DiMasi conviction
Think they will commute?
