I wonder if the Globe realized what was under the scab of corruption that they ripped off to further their agenda of moving them out of the Seaport because that is how this all started:
"State Police trooper admits getting free guns, is cooperating in criminal probe" by Shelley Murphy Globe Staff July 20, 2018
A Massachusetts State Police trooper has admitted receiving free guns from a state-contracted firearms dealer and is cooperating with prosecutors in an ongoing criminal investigation into the sale of department weapons, according to two people familiar with the probe.
Trooper Robert Outwater testified earlier this month before a state grand jury investigating allegations of wrongdoing involving at least two former troopers who worked alongside Outwater in the armorer’s unit, the sources said.
Attorney General Maura Healey’s office launched the investigation two years ago into allegations that the three troopers sold about 500 used State Police guns to a Greenfield firearms dealer in 2015 on behalf of the department. The troopers allegedly received nearly two dozen of those weapons as personal gifts, the Globe reported at the time.
The probe is focusing on whether the former troopers, Michael Wilmot and Lieutenant Paul Wosny, violated the law by receiving guns after negotiating the deal with the company, Jurek Brothers, sources said. No charges have been filed.
Wilmot’s attorney, Daniel J. Moynihan, said the trooper did nothing wrong and is being unfairly blamed for the failings of State Police higher-ups.
That is how it usually works when it comes to CYOA/scapegoat government in this state.
“The armorer’s office was another example of a complete lack of management on the part of the command staff,” Moynihan said.
The three-member armorer’s unit maintains the department’s massive inventory of weapons, ammunition, and body armor.
Outwater signed an agreement in September with Healey’s office, which agreed not to seek criminal charges against him in exchange for his cooperation, the sources said. He acknowledged he violated state ethics law by accepting 10 guns from Jurek Brothers and paid a $5,000 civil fine, they said.
Outwater’s attorney declined to comment on the case Tuesday.
Records regarding Outwater’s agreement with prosecutors and his ethics violation have not been made public.
Emalie Gainey, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, declined to comment, citing “an ongoing criminal investigation.” MassLive first reported last week that a grand jury was looking into the years-old allegations.
To date, no criminal charges have been brought against anyone as a result of the gun sales.
The state’s largest law enforcement agency has been embroiled in several recent scandals, including allegations that about 40 troopers were paid thousands of dollars for overtime that they didn’t work. Four current and former troopers were recently charged with embezzlement as a result of an ongoing federal investigation.
State Police suspended Outwater, Wosny, and Wilmot in September 2016 when allegations involving the guns surfaced and referred the matter to Healey’s office, according to agency spokesman David Procopio.
Outwater remains suspended without pay. Wosny and Wilmot retired shortly after they were suspended, Procopio said.
Wilmot’s lawyer, Moynihan, said it’s unfair that the investigation into the gun sales has focused on the troopers, while high-ranking officers “completely mismanaged” the unit.
Moynihan declined to comment on whether Wilmot received free guns. He said there were no written policies or procedures for trading in used guns, and Wilmot, a longtime member of the unit, followed practices that he’d been taught during training.
Needham attorney Timothy Burke, who represents Wosny, said his client had been an exemplary member of the State Police and had no prior history of discipline.
“We are certainly not aware of any inappropriate conduct on his part,” Burke said.
The Globe revealed in September 2016 that Healey’s office was investigating the armorer’s unit’s controversial gun deal with Jurek Brothers the previous summer.
Investigators examined how some 500 guns — an assortment of pistols, rifles, and other firearms — were tagged as surplus and traded to Jurek Brothers.
Jurek Brothers, which has a contract to supply firearms to State Police, did not pay for the hundreds of used firearms but instead gave the department a credit toward the purchase of new weapons, according to the sources familiar with the probe.
This is how the police have been militarized and how the gun manufacturers can keep on hitting the bull$eyes. Gotta replace and upgrade.
The investigation has looked at whether Outwater, Wilmot, and Wosny were authorized to negotiate the deal and whether the state received sufficient compensation for the weapons, according to several people familiar with the investigation.
Lawyers for the troopers previously said it was common practice for decades for the armorer’s unit to trade old guns to companies contracted to sell the department new ones.
However, the state’s conflict of interest law prohibits state employees from receiving gifts or gratuities valued at more than $50 either to influence their official actions or because of their position.
OMFG, the lobbyists on Beacon Hill drop that with every visit!
State Police, citing the ongoing investigation, have denied requests for records detailing the department guns sold to Jurek Brothers and how much the company paid for them.
Jurek Brothers has a three-year contract through the end of October to supply firearms, ammunition, and equipment to State Police, the Department of Correction, and the Environmental Police.
Procopio, the State Police spokesman, said the agency stopped doing business with the company when the allegations surfaced two years ago. Other law enforcement agencies continue to make purchases from the dealer.
Thomas Merrigan, an attorney for Jurek Brothers, said Friday that the company’s contract with the state remains “active and ongoing.” He declined to comment on the state grand jury investigation, but said, “There’s been no wrongdoing by Jurek Brothers.”
Jurek Brothers was previously at the center of a fraud investigation for allegedly giving personal benefits, including a trip to Florida and hundreds of dollars worth of Omaha Steaks, to a Department of Correction lieutenant who served as the agency’s purchasing agent.
Gary Mendes pleaded guilty in 2011 to procurement fraud and conflict of interest and larceny, and was placed on probation.
No charges were brought against Jurek Brothers. Overall, the state has paid the company $2.95 million since 2010, according to purchasing records.
So we are just like Illinois?
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Seems like a no-brainer, huh?
I'm still wondering where the weapons went after the dealer got ahold of them.
"For some State Police, it’s a posting in paradise" by Kay Lazar and Todd Wallack Globe Staff July 14, 2018
NANTUCKET — Amid sun-kissed cobblestone streets, cool island breezes, and multimillion-dollar homes sits a wood-shingled State Police barracks that features lush hydrangeas and a fenced-in backyard, and offers free housing for the commander and his family.
It is a sleepy outpost. Very sleepy. By ordinary police standards, there is very little for the four troopers here, much like their counterparts posted to nearby Martha’s Vineyard, to do.
Maybe two incidents a day. Perhaps two arrests a month. A police blotter that, on average, sees fewer than two new entries each 24 hours.
The numbers are about the same 27 miles across the chop of Nantucket Sound, on the more populous Vineyard.
A world away from gangs and grime, the troopers are more likely to escort dignitaries than tangle with drug dealers. They receive more calls for animals in the road than assaults. And public records show a majority of their runs are for security or property checks, giving troopers on the islands duties more aligned with those of a private security force.
So THAT is why the Globe and its ilk don't want them on the islands! Elite islanders literally want their own private sanctuary literally above the law. It's also easier for elite richers to control and influence the locals than the higher-ranked State Police!
Dozens of current and former Troop E members have been linked in recent months to the alleged pay scandal, resulting in a wide-scale audit, a series of internal State Police investigations and the disbanding of the entire unit.
They haven't been disbanded; they simply brought in some new commanders. The Troop is still working the same shifts out of the same barracks, but that is for another post.
The State Police posts — both of which supplement local police departments — were recommended for closure years ago in a state-commissioned report that envisioned a more efficient use of taxpayers’ money. Yet the island stations have endured, even as criminal investigations, broad cost-cutting measures, and staff realignments continue to batter the State Police back on the mainland.
And somehow, despite the leisurely pace of police action, most of the six full-time troopers assigned to island duty earned more than $35,000 each through overtime and additional pay last year, on top of salaries that exceed $90,000.
Wow, the richers got 'em on the cheap as compared to the rest of the state!
“It sounds like there are a lot of resources that could be reallocated and we need to have that conversation,” said Eileen McAnneny, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
David Procopio, spokesman for the department, said the agency serves everyone across the Commonwealth equally.
“Residents on, and visitors to, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard deserve the same State Police services available to every other resident in Massachusetts,” Procopio said.
This may surprise you, but I ACTUALLY AGREE WITH HIM! Despite all the shenanigans and corruption, every single citizen of this Commonwealth is entitled to a State Police presence.
Along Nantucket’s bustling Main Street, shop owners and other residents greet a question about the role of State Police here with a blank stare. Residents are well acquainted with local police and the dozens of bicycle-riding community service officers hired each summer to help with parking and related issues. That’s when the island of 12,000 year-round residents explodes to more than 50,000, but the role of State Police, for many, seems a mystery, and it was news to most that the station commander lives rent-free on an island where a fixer-upper can run in excess of $700,000.
“I’ve only seen them on Milestone Road, doing radar” checking for speeding cars, said Melanie Kotalac, a 40-year resident who works at Mitchell’s Book Corner. Kelly Steffen, a 29-year-old bartender who has summered on the island for 20 years, said he is unfamiliar with troopers on the island. “Everything you see here is the municipal guys.”
If the number of calls for State Police assistance on the islands is infrequent, arrests are downright rare. Each island barracks logs about one arrest per month, typically for motorists driving without a license.
And we know how unimportant a violation of law that is!
The idea of abandoning State Police stations on the islands has been pitched before.
In 2011, while Massachusetts struggled out of the recession, the state spent $752,000 to study cost savings for the State Police.
I wonder which well-connected politico's company got the contract, haw!
You coulda saved the..... never mind.
The report recommended a massive realignment of resources by eliminating or consolidating nearly a third of their 36 barracks. The island posts were recommended to be phased out, “if alternate arrangements can be made with other law enforcement authorities for shared facilities” when State Police were needed on the island.
Procopio said the department has since deemed the island stations too important to close. He said he didn’t have figures for their total cost.
If the stations were eliminated, the buildings would fetch millions on the real estate market.....
That's when I went aaaaaaah and shook my head!
The big wigs on the island got the Globe to run the story so they could take over and sell the land!!
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I'm told it's a "piece of paradise," and I'm about as far as you can get from it between 7 and 9 in the morning.
If only they had the right O’Tooles:
"Former public safety secretary to consult with scandal-plagued State Police" by Matt Rocheleau and Danny McDonald Globe Staff July 18, 2018
Kathleen M. O’Toole, a trailblazing former Boston police commissioner known as a specialist in reforming police agencies from Seattle to Ireland, will serve as a consultant to the beleaguered Massachusetts State Police, the agency announced Wednesday.
If they are "beleaguered," well, they brought it on themselves.
The move follows several pledges of reforms earlier this spring from State Police Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin and Governor Charlie Baker, and it comes amid a criminal investigation into a trooper overtime scandal as well as other disclosures of misconduct and mismanagement across the ranks of the 2,200-member police force.
O’Toole, a former State Police lieutenant colonel and state public safety executive, will serve on a pro bono basis. She told the Globe she plans to focus on helping the state’s largest law enforcement agency regroup.
Finally, a “light at the end of the tunnel!”
The light is actually the image she is being hired to shine while putting the scandals back into the dark.
O’Toole said she’s had preliminary talks with State Police leaders about her role, adding that she doesn’t know much about the recent scandals plaguing the department beyond what’s been reported in the media.
Then you know as much as we do!
O’Toole said she offered to help Gilpin when the two first met this spring at a forum at Harvard University. The department was facing public backlash at the time over fraud allegations and other problems. Shortly thereafter, Gilpin reached out to O’Toole to take her up on the offer of assistance.
“Former commissioner O’Toole possesses a wealth of knowledge about, and experience in, leading and bringing positive change to major police agencies, and my command staff and I look forward to her input and ideas about law enforcement to help improve the department,” Gilpin said Wednesday in a statement.
The president of the Massachusetts State Police union said bringing O’Toole on board should help restore confidence to a department that sorely needs it.
“She is a respected leader and she doesn’t make [foolish] decisions,” said Dana Pullman. “She takes all sides into consideration. From a union perspective, she has been nothing but a voice of reason.”
The union just confirmed her clean up and cover up role!
O’Toole, a Pittsfield native, has deep ties to the state’s law enforcement community.
Then wouldn't she have been part of the problem all these years?
She joined the Boston Police Department in 1979 after graduating from Boston College. She joined the State Police and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the early 1990s. In 1994, then-Governor William Weld appointed her to head the state’s public safety secretariat, which oversees several agencies including the State Police. She held the job until 1998.
O’Toole, who receives an annual pension of $75,000 for her state work, said she doesn’t think that her law enforcement ties pose any conflicts.
“I’m a straight shooter,” O’Toole said. “I call them as I see them and I’ve done that throughout my career, and I’ve been separated from the [State Police] organization for so long I don’t really know anyone there any more.”
I know another straight shooter who is getting raked over the coals for what happened in Helsinki. Good luck to ya'!
Other than that, the straight shooter designation seems to be a preemptive strike to establish some credibility with the cover up going forward.
In 2004, she was named the first female commissioner in the history of the Boston police.
After leaving that role in 2006, she served as chief inspector of the Gardia SΓochΓ‘na Inspectorate, “an oversight body responsible for bringing reforms and greater accountability to the 17,000-member Irish national police service,” according to the State Police.
She became Seattle’s first female police chief in 2014 and retired from that role in December. O’Toole recently moved back to Massachusetts and worked as a consultant for police agencies in Chicago and Ireland.
Chicago, huh?
Related: Man killed by Chicago police appeared to be armed, officials say
The place is the most violent city in AmeriKa, so I guess you can't win them all.
Also see:
"Chicago schoolteacher Kimberly Bermudez has always been the chatty type. So when she was on a Southwest Airlines flight to Florida to visit her parents last week, and her seatmate asked her what she did for a living, she told him about her first-graders, some of whom are homeless, and all of whom come from low-income families. He asked her: ‘‘What’s the most challenging part of your job?’’ When children come to school hungry, she said, and seeing hard-working immigrant parents struggling to provide basic necessities for their families. ‘‘These parents are amazing. They won’t eat to feed their child,’’ Bermudez, 27, said in an interview with The Washington Post....."
What is so amazing about that? Show me the parents that don't do that! The implication by the elitist pre$$ is that American parents take food out of their kids' mouth -- as opposed to the heroic migrants that are morally superior to the American slob.
That the same Washington Post that is owned by the richest person in history and where last week unionized employees approved a new contract with the company after 14 months of tense negotiations because he has a long history of thwarting unionization efforts in the United States?
Just checking. Thank God he's looking out for the welfare of us all, huh?
Guess what she found when she got back from vacation.
O’Toole said she sees herself as “a trusted confidante” for Gilpin.
“I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers, but I’ve seen similar situations elsewhere, so hopefully some of those lessons learned can apply here,” she said.
Wednesday’s announcement comes after months of controversy at the agency. Three state troopers were arrested late last month and accused of pocketing thousands of dollars for overtime they didn’t work, marking the first charges in a broadening federal probe into allegations of rampant fraud at the agency. One trooper pleaded guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors.
In May, the scandal-plagued Troop E unit was eliminated as part of an overhaul in response to allegations of false charges for overtime.
When they repeat what is at best a distortion..... sigh.
This week, a criminal case that triggered a different State Police scandal was resolved.
That problem, which involved the arrest report of a judge’s daughter, resulted in Gilpin’s predecessor and three members of the command staff retiring.
When O’Toole took the helm of the 1,400-officer Seattle agency in June 2014, it was grappling with federal scrutiny over its use-of-force practices and biased policing of minorities.
O’Toole instituted a series of changes during her tenure there, with former City Council member Tim Burgess telling the Seattle Times, “She modernized policing in Seattle and helped restore the public’s confidence.”
“Under her leadership, the use of force by our officers declined dramatically,” he told the newspaper.
She’s also led and served on committees and commissions to overhaul aspects of the Boston Fire Department, worked as a consultant to the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, and helped the Massachusetts Gaming Commission vet casino license applicants.
O’Toole’s portfolio, as both an insider and outsider, will help, said Brenda Bond, an associate professor at Suffolk University who specializes in organizational change in law enforcement. Still, it won’t be easy.
Can you be both?!!!!
“I hope there is the will to invest in the long haul because this change won’t happen overnight,” Bond said. “It will take a decade. It’s hard to change institutions and people. But you’ve got to take your first step and go.”
Why did Trump and Russia just pop into my head?
Ten years from now, the Globe can write this as background about the scandal to come, just as we are being told how this current scandal is reminiscent of the state employee travel stipend scandal that erupted ten years ago.
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She is a fixer and part of the political elite!
UPDATE: Why can’t Mass. politicians say no to sweetheart deals for cops?
I need to answer that for her?
