State Senator Brian Joyce says he won’t seek reelection
I'm always happy any time some $cum is skimmed from state government; however, I do wonder who he pissed off.
Let's face it: the Ma$$achu$etts $tate Hou$e is $teeped in corruption, and thus there must be more to the story then the good government.
"FBI, IRS raid Canton law office of state Senator Brian Joyce" by Milton J. Valencia, Astead Herndon and Andrea Estes Globe Staff February 17, 2016
Federal investigators Wednesday raided the Canton law office of state Senator Brian A. Joyce, a former assistant majority leader who has been under fire for alleged ethical lapses, including accepting free or discounted services and charging his campaign fund for a family party.
In early afternoon, more than a dozen FBI agents entered the law office building in downtown Canton as passersby stopped to watch. The agents removed dozens of boxes that appeared to contain records during a raid that lasted for several hours.
“The FBI and the IRS are conducting court-authorized activity in connection with an ongoing investigation,” said Kristen Setera, an FBI spokeswoman.
A person familiar with the investigation said the raid stemmed from recent Boston Globe stories detailing several ways in which Joyce allegedly used his position as a senator to benefit himself and his law practice.
I'll bet he canceled his subscription even if it was getting delivered.
Federal and state laws prohibit public officials from using their position to get things for themselves.
Which proves the arbitrary way in which they apply it.
I mean, there is a whole industry called lobbying that makes campaign contributions.
Hello?
Joyce’s attorney defended the Milton Democrat and said that he has been cooperating with various investigations that have been ongoing, and will cooperate with the new federal probe.
“It is unfortunate that recent stories in the media appear to have sparked an investigation,” said attorney Howard M. Cooper in a prepared statement. “Senator Joyce has been cooperating with each inquiry that has taken place to date resulting from those stories and believes that he has done absolutely nothing wrong.”
Joyce is already under investigation by the state Ethics Commission and he recently settled allegations of improper use of his campaign fund with another agency. Under an agreement made public last month by the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance, Joyce agreed to pay nearly $5,000 for tapping campaign funds to pay for his son’s 2014 high school graduation party, the Globe reported. Joyce did not admit wrongdoing.
These guys always think if you give the ill-gotten loot or monetary equivalent of service that it is all okay. That's their problem.
Jerry Richman, who said he gave Joyce free dry cleaning for more than a decade starting in 1997, said he would gladly speak to federal agents about the arrangement. Richman, who owned Woodlawn Cleaners in Randolph until 2008, said Joyce brought in $50 to $100 worth of dry cleaning almost weekly for years, and did not pay.
“All I can do is tell them the truth,” said Richman, a former Joyce supporter who said he originally offered free dry cleaning with no idea that Joyce would so fully take advantage of him for so many years.
Related: Boston Globe Dry Cleaning
That's about when the Globe started hanging out his dirty laundry.
Joyce has said the free dry cleaning was Richman’s payment for legal work, but Richman said the deal began years before Joyce did any legal work for him. If Joyce did receive the dry cleaning as payment for services, he would have had to report the value of the services on his taxes, according to former US attorney Michael Sullivan.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Republicans Wednesday called on Joyce to resign in light of the FBI raid.
I wanted tar and feathers, but that will do for now.
“Joyce’s remarkable disregard for the law is a byproduct of the Democratic culture of corruption on Beacon Hill, where abuse of power appears to be a fringe benefit,” said party chairwoman Kirsten Hughes in a prepared statement.
Can't really argue with that.
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a fiscal watchdog group, also called for Joyce to step down.
“No public servant should use their Senate office as a one-stop shop for personal enrichment,” said Paul D. Craney, executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. “Legislative leaders should begin the process of expelling Joyce, like they did in 2014 with disgraced former state representative Carlos Henriquez.”
Why do you think he got into politics, and....
Ex-legislator, ousted from state House, may be eyeing campaign
Henriquez to decide on House run within weeks
He was once hustled out in handcuffs, but.... he could be back!
A spokesman for Governor Charlie Baker’s office called the raid on Joyce’s office “very concerning,” but Baker did not call for his resignation.
Baker has previously said that reports of Joyce receiving free dry cleaning “is the sort
of thing the Ethics Commission should take a really hard look at.”
Of course, they waited to long and no criminal charges can be filed because the statutes ran out.
“The issues that were raised here were troubling to begin with, and obviously there is now a pretty aggressive ongoing investigation,” Baker said during a media briefing. “I think to some extent we should wait to see where that goes.”
Joyce has said he is not even considering resigning, according to other legislators, portraying himself as a victim of unfair media scrutiny.
“I did almost nothing else — responding to questions [from the Globe] for the past 13 months day in and day out,” Joyce said in a recent appearance on WGBH News’ “Greater Boston” with Jim Braude. “These stories have hurt me personally, professionally, and politically. It also hurts my family.”
Boo-hoo-hoo.
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg has remained silent as Joyce’s actions have come under scrutiny. On Wednesday, as federal agents seized records from Joyce’s law office, Rosenberg issued a terse statement through a spokesman.
“The Senate will of course be fully cooperative with any and all requests from law enforcement,” wrote the spokesman, Pete Wilson. “We will wait until the authorities have completed their investigation before commenting further.”
Agents remained at Joyce’s office until about 6 p.m. Their presence stunned the quiet neighborhood, and onlookers watched from across the street. “I was shocked,” said Paula Rotondo, a neighbor.
Catherine Andreotti, a former Canton resident who was visiting the area while the raid was underway, said she was disappointed to hear about the investigation. She met him at a holiday parade once and always liked him.
“He’s a very nice guy. He seemed to love people and people loved him. You just don’t want to hear about this from someone like that.”
Joyce stepped down as assistant majority leader last year amid another investigation by the Ethics Commission, which was launched after the Globe reported last May that Joyce had met with state insurance regulators on behalf of a private client, Energy.
He must have resigned because he's completely out of energy.
David Giannotti, Ethics Commission spokesman, wouldn’t comment on his agency’s ongoing investigation, citing “strict confidentiality restrictions imposed on the commission by statute.”
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His colleagues are already cutting him loose:
"Beacon Hill leaders distance themselves from Joyce" by David Scharfenberg and Joshua Miller Globe Staff February 19, 2016
Beacon Hill leaders distanced themselves from state Senator Brian A. Joyce Thursday, a day after an FBI raid on his law office, but stopped short of calling for the Milton Democrat’s resignation.
With questions swirling about what, precisely, federal agents are investigating, lawmakers were left in the awkward position of declaring general concern about Joyce’s conduct while maintaining his right to due process.
“I’m very concerned about [the raid] and I’m also concerned about how it reflects on the Senate,” said state Senator James B. Eldridge, an Acton Democrat, adding that Joyce should consider whether he’s going “to be effective” for his constituents before launching a reelection campaign this fall.
I wouldn't be worried. It can't really get any worse.
Still, Eldridge said, the legal process must be allowed to unfold.
Joyce has been the subject of a series of Globe articles detailing ways he allegedly used his position as a senator to benefit himself and his law practice....
Why did the Globe have it in for him?
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That pretty much sealed his fate, and speaking of such:
DiMasi diagnosed with prostate cancer
So the stuff has spread from his neck?
An ill Sal DiMasi deserves better treatment
Agreed!
May sound strange coming from me, but he doesn't deserve to suffer so for taking chump change on an education software contract. Was all done to clear the deck for casinos!
The second part of it is, what kind of state do we want?
One that neglects it sworn obligations to care for those in its custody?
DiMasi’s accidental death sentence is anything but just
I wonder what secrets are going to die with him?
"DiMasi’s wife lobbies for inmate care law; Seeks ‘compassionate release’ of critically ill prisoners in state" by Milton J. Valencia Globe Staff October 18, 2015
Deborah DiMasi never quite envisioned that she would appear before the state Legislature under such circumstances, but there she was this past Wednesday, the wife of former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, supporting a compassionate release law that would help critically ill inmates — inmates like her husband.
“From Sal and the other stories that I have heard from other spouses, I have been exposed to the inhumane and substandard care that exists within our prison system, just outright neglect,” she told members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
Well, I will say this for Sal: he chose a wonderful woman to be his wife, standing by her man and all.
Massachusetts is one of just five states without a medical placement program, often called a compassionate release program, a mechanism to transfer a terminally ill inmate out of state prison custody and, in many cases, back to their families.
Another Massachusetts myth exploded in your face!!
What does deep-blue liberali$m mean anymore anyway?
A change in state law would not benefit Salvatore DiMasi, who was convicted in 2011 of federal corruption and is four years into an eight-year sentence. But Deborah, who was by her husband’s side during his high-profile trial, challenged anyone to prove that the medical care at a state prison is any better than at the US Bureau of Prisons.
Instead, Deborah DiMasi likened her husband’s story to the countless examples of neglect she has heard from others: “I hear the story of the inmate with stage 4 liver cancer dying in pain on a prison floor, the inmate with stage-four throat cancer who sought help for six months before succumbing, the inmate who collapsed and was left to die in a prison yard,” she told legislators, according to a transcript of her speech.
In her husband’s case, she said, he was bounced from one prison to another, from Kentucky to Oklahoma, to Brooklyn, to Providence, and to Worcester and back — a “six-week odyssey,” as she put it — after he had already developed a lump in his neck. It was only months after he had been first sent to prison.
Still, she said, he received “virtually no medical care.” He now has stage-four cancer of the tongue, “struggling not only against a horrible disease, but against a stark institutional indifference,” she told legislators.
Think about that for a minute, too.
He was an important person, and if he is being neglected..... what must it be like for the average nobody inmate.
Beyond that, the release of these dying inmates would probably help save money.
See:
"State governments across the country are finally waking up to the enormous financial and human cost of mass incarceration. In recent years, at least 27 states have rolled back mandatory-minimum laws and other “tough-on-crime” legislation that has turned the United States into the world’s biggest jailer. The reason? At a cost that typically runs more than $55,000 a year per inmate, even conservative states are balking at the expense of swollen prison populations."
That's why they are revising sentencing laws and why Obama is letting drug dealers out of prison (except one). Not because they are any more humane or compassionate towards prisoners.
The world's biggest jailer -- and they called it the Land of the Free!
Btw, it is not lost on me that those adjusting prison policies should be in one themselves.
Deborah DiMasi later said in an interview that she agreed to testify in partnership with Massachusetts Prisoners’ Legal Services, a prisoners’ rights law firm that is lobbying for a compassionate release law that would allow critically ill inmates to be returned to the care of their families.
“She’s humbled by what Sal’s experience was and wants to be helpful,” said Leslie Walker, the group’s executive director, who said DiMasi “was able to convey to legislators and members of the public that incarceration can happen to almost anyone, and what it means to have a loved one in prison you cannot help.”
Statewide, there are more than 30 inmates who have been diagnosed as terminally ill or permanently incapacitated, leaving the state responsible for their medical care. Advocates have sought alternative ways to have inmates released from state prison, for instance by seeking a governor’s commutation or pardon for certain inmates, to no avail.
Meanwhile, the state continues to see an aging inmate population and skyrocketing health care costs.
I'm sick of excuses when they have $145 million-plus for GE and $58 million to dole out to Hollywood, among other corporate tax loot giveaways and goodies.
So how much do the prisoners need for health care?
Massachusetts spends $100 million a year on health care for inmates, according to Department of Correction figures. State legislators, former Governor Deval Patrick, and county sheriffs have lobbied for a compassionate release law but with restrictions: for instance, that convicted murderers are excluded. They also proposed mechanisms that would call for an inmate’s return to prison if his or her condition improved.
What would that say about state health care, huh?
These bills, however, have failed to win legislative support in recent years, and the bills’ sponsors recognize that their colleagues are reluctant to show “compassion” toward convicted criminals.
Knowing how many frame jobs, frauds, testifies, and the general corruption regarding AmeriKan JU$TU$ all these years, why?
Nowadays it seems that inmates are more likely to be innocent, and maybe it has always been that way. Those that should be in jail (Wall Street looters and their war-criminal enablers in government) are not.
State Senator Patricia Jehlen, a Democrat from Somerville and a longtime sponsor of the proposal, said legislators are mixed over who would be eligible and where inmates would be placed if they are released from jails.
“There’s just not consensus as to how it would happen,” she said. “It’s more complex than you would realize than just talking about the principle. We just want to make sure we have a system in place.”
Seth Gitell, a spokesman for House Speaker Robert DeLeo, issued a statement that read: “Medical release legislation is currently being studied by the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. Speaker DeLeo awaits the review of the committee and its members.”
At the legislative hearing Wednesday, DiMasi said she was speaking for the “dying and permanently disabled.”
“In their wheelchairs and walkers, shackled to their beds, in their diminished physical and mental capacities, they are not a danger to society or to anyone,” she told legislators.
Good point.
DiMasi said later in the interview that “it’s so important for the public to know what is going on, and how they’re treated so inhumanely,” and she said she was most struck at the hearing by the stories of others.
I agree.
“I was just hearing the other stories, hearing what other people had been through,” she said. “Having gone through this with Sal, and hearing the stories, it’s frightening, and I think people need to see the human side to this. I feel the human side to this has been lost.”
And when government loses that it is nothing but the tyranny of state terror.
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Related: Walsh supports ‘compassionate release’ of former speaker DiMasi
Did you see who was his cellmate?
"Former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal told a federal judge Friday that when he asked state prison officials for a hepatitis C drug earlier this year, they said he was too healthy to qualify and the treatment was too expensive."
Should have been this guy:
State board votes to appeal Finneran pension ruling
Tomn Finneran stands to collect $225,000 in back payments
"Finneran’s successor as speaker, Salvatore DiMasi, a North End lawmaker, was also convicted in federal court of extortion and other charges, becoming the third consecutive speaker to be convicted and forced out of office. DiMasi is currently serving an eight-year sentence following his 2011 conviction."
And he is slowly dying.
I was going to jump for joy because this was the end of posting for today, but the ending kind of left me down.
Maybe if they released Sal.... ????
NDU: Joyce’s role in solar project probed
Globe now shedding some light on that.
