Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Patrick administration’s go-to policy guy on casinos is arrested

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As has already been noted here, Stan McGee, a fairly high-ranking Patrick administration official, was recently arrested in Florida for … well … let’s just call it “conduct unbecoming a state official,” shall we?  Anyway, he’s on unpaid leave until the charges are resolved.

The reason this story is more important than its lurid details is that McGee was a critically important player in the casino debate.  To refresh your recollection, check out BMG’s more or less complete list of the meetings that preceded Patrick’s announcement of the plan for three resort casinos.  McGee attended the vast majority of them, and he was heavily involved in developing the policy that has become the casino bill.

I’m not really sure what all of this means.  I guess part of it is that the administration needs to find another in-house casino expert.  Meanwhile, the MA AFL-CIO has decided to back the casino plan strongly, and will

make the casino proposal one of their top priorities this year, on par with healthcare reform and education. They said they plan to lobby legislators vigorously and will take a lawmaker’s stance on casinos into account when deciding whom to endorse and campaign for over the course of this election year. The union also plans a grass-roots campaign, encouraging members to write letters to local papers, call radio talk shows, and call legislators.

On a par with health care reform and education??  Good heavens.  Even if you’re a casino booster, does that really seem like a sensible ordering of priorities?

What a mess.

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  1. This is bad for so many reasons: because of his high ranking job, because of his involvement in the casino issue, because of his being a prominent champion of equality, because of his husband being the headmaster of the Epiphany School and the scion of a prominent family, because they are (or appear) wealthy, because of, well… just because.  I could go on.

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    p>Also, this is just another blemish that will be (or has already been) ascribed to an administration that doesn’t need any more blemishes.  

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    p>Sure it’s an individual act that may not have even happened, but it’s all too easy for our opponents to say “See?  THAT’S the kind of people Deval likes, hires and hangs out with.”  Anyone listening to D&C on ‘EEI today (the #2 rated morning show after WBUR) heard that all morning.  

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    p>I hate, hate HATE to say it, but the administration needs to distance itself from this guy pronto, regardless of whether he’s guilty or not.

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    p>If I’m Stan, I high-tail it outta here for a fresh start somewhere else while he awaits trial.  

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    p>Ugh.

    • Mcgee is accused of being a pedophile rapist. Just like the neumerous Catholic priest pedophile rapists we have been cursed with. He deserves no special status. The legal process will take its due course.

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      p>Mr. McGee, if convicted, is looking at spending the better part of the remainder of his life in a Florida prison.
      This speaks volumes about the man’s character and judgement. Can you imagine the potential for blackmail by the big money casino interests?

  2. Meanwhile, the MA AFL-CIO has decided to back the casino plan strongly….

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    p>AFL-CIO endorsement makes sense:  construction jobs plus restaurant and kitchen workers are probably union.

    <

    p>BUT, note also, the Massachusetts Teachers Association are endorsing the Devalwood Casino plans, presumably for the exciting field trip potential as the little tykes learn about statistics and probabilities and addictive personality disorders.

    <

    p>Fer crying out loud, the MTA?

    <

    p>Meanwhile McGee is on leave until the whole taudry affair blows over, or he blows another, or something….

    • Apparently the MTA has forgotten all about Richard Anzivino, their fomer finance director who embezzled $802,000 to gamble at Foxwoods and Mohegan.

      • So the MTA endorsement is so we’ll build casinos closer to our MTA embezzlers.  Saves gas.  It’s all about the carbon footprint. And the children.

        • So it is win/win…or win/win/win? Whatever. Shuffle up and deal. And please pass your homework to the front.

      • Is this accurate? I never heard that. A million bucks?
        No doubt the anti casino folks, will be holding this tid bit in abeyance for the right moment!

        • This appears to be a reprint of an AP article from 2003:

          <

          p>

          12.18.2003 6:00 P.M.

          The Associated Press

          BOSTON (AP) – A former finance director of the Massachusetts Teachers Association was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday for embezzling more than $800,0000 in union dues.

          Richard Anzivino, 49, of Needham, pleaded guilty in Suffolk Superior Court to five counts of larceny over $250 and six counts of making false entries in corporate books with intent to fraud. In May, he pleaded innocent to the charges.

          Two larceny charges and one false entry charge have since been dropped, according to Attorney General Tom Reilly’s office.

          Judge Carol Ball ordered Anzivino to serve one year, with the other suspended for five years with probation. The sentence was stayed until Jan. 2.

          In a six-year period starting in January 1996, one month before he was promoted to chief financial officer, Anzivino wrote himself about 270 MTA checks, according to prosecutors.

          Anzivino allegedly only wrote checks for less than $5,000, so he wouldn’t need a second signature, and then listed the payments as valid expenses.

          Anzivino was fired from his $90,000-a-year job last September after union officials were alerted by the union’s bank to suspicious transactions.

          Prosecutors said used some of the embezzled money to fund gambling trips to Connecticut casinos.

          Anzivino appeared to live modestly, commuting to work on public transportation. He received good performance reviews during his time at the MTA, according to prosecutors.

          The MTA, the state’s largest teachers union, has an annual budget of $30 million, raised from the dues of some 98,000 member teachers. Its funds are fully insured, so dues and union services are not affected by the alleged embezzlement.

          Anzivino’s attorney, Thomas Healy, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

        • Herald abstract May 6, 2003-

          <

          p>Richard C. Anzivino was widely known to local union activists as the MTA’s public face in meetings held across the state about the union’s annual budget. His easy-going personality made his indictment last month even more surprising.

          <

          p>Assistant Attorney General Eric Hightower said Anzivino frequented the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in Connecticut on a “fairly regular basis.”

          <

          p>Anzivino worked his way up the MTA, beginning work at the largest union in the state as an assistant accountant. The union represents 97,000 teachers and administrators in K-12 and public higher education.

  3. I’m not saying this is what happened, but setting someone up to get caught in a compromising position just like this one is the sort of tactic you’d expect to come from, oh, say, casino interests and Las Vegas types.

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    p>Just sayin’

    • you simply can’t conspire for a man to put his lips on a 15 year old’s genitals.  He’s got to either choose to or be forced to — there’s no middle ground.

      • …his point was that the boy is lying to frame McGee.

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        p>I don’t buy it and speculating on something like that at this point seems a bit unsavory.

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        p>  

          • Maybe the idea was that the Las Vegas casino interests didn’t like the idea of more competition from another city?  I don’t think that makes very much sense either, since weren’t some of the big Vegas casinos among the likely operators for MA, anyhow?  Either way, it doesn’t seem like a very likely scenario.

  4. Pedophilia is bad, and there’s no defending it, and people who are convicted of sexually abusing children should be punished severely.
    OK, now that I got that out of the way, I do have to say that there’s something disturbing about the article itself. Look at the last sentence:

    McGee married John Finley IV on Nov. 12, 2005, and former Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios officiated, according to the New York Times column on the wedding.

    I’m usually pretty quick to call people out on BMG if I think that they’re being a bit alarmist in seeing bias where it probably doesn’t exist. (The Barry Scott incident, for one.) But that last sentence bothers me. So McGee married a man. A prominent gay guy officiated. McGee got caught sexually asaulting a 15 year old boy. What exactly does one thing have to do with another?
    Usually when some guy gets arrested for sexually assaulting a fifteen year old girl, the paper doesn’t generally recount the details of the assailant’s marriage to a woman. So why mention McGee’s non-traditional marital status in this article? It has nothing to do with the assault. It just has shades of the old myth that gay people are sexual deviants, and they’ll molest your kids.  

    • …to a prominent person such as Barrios would be pointed out regardless of the sexual orientation of the accused.  This is just something the press likes to do.

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      p> It would be possible to disclose this information without actually naming McGee’s husband or identifying that they are same sex spouses, but I don’t see it as inherently suspect.  

      <

      p>No mention was made of of Barrios’ sexuality.  

      <

      p>Tried to do some research into old Herald articles to see if mentioning the spouse was at all common, but you have to pay to read anything more than a week old.

      <

      p>I would put this in the, hmmm, let’s see how the Herald treats this story going forward before casting final judgment category, but my interest has been piqued.

      • When one comes from a prominent family or something else attracts notoriety it always winds up in the story somewhere. Sells newspapers, like gory pictures.

  5. Rhodes Scholar in 1992.
    In NWO parlance that puts him in the ruling class of the elite.  Wide Stance McGee, I like it!

  6. The gov has to quickly and decisively distance himself from Steamer McGee to avoid issues he has worked on from being side tracked.

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    p>If the accident on Tuesday did not give the gov a chance to advocate for elderly driver testing McGee’s issue with a young boy would have stayed longer in the news cycle.

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    p>  

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