Yesterday Martha Coakley announced the indictments of former probation boss John O’Brien and Scott Cambell, Tim Cahill’s former chief of staff. I cannot find the indictment. Anyone have a link to it? Why hasn’t the Globe posted it? They posted Sal’s the day it was released. Hmmm
From the newspapers I glean that A.G. Martha Coakley says that O’Brien conspired with Campbell to fraudulently obtain a job at the treasury for O’Brien’s wife. In return O’Brien held a fundraiser for the state treasurer where $11,000 was handed over. A good chunk came from Probation Department employees.
Soon after O’Brien’s wife received a low paying customer service gig. She still works there and has since received a promotion or two and some raises. Also, according to the Herald story the indictment mentions a phone call from the notorious Sal DiMasi’s office to Cahill’s concerning the hiring.
These are the facts in the light most favorable to the prosecution. (without benefit of reading the indictment. hmmmm)
This all occurred in 2005. I believe the statute of limitations were about to expire when the indictments were handed down last June.
I have no idea what to make of this. Is there is evidence I am not aware of? (I need to read the indictment) There must be. Martha Coakley is indicting a camapign donor and a state official’s chief of staff because of two undisputed facts: 1. O’Brien held a fundraiser and 2. O’Briens wife was later hired.
What other evidence is there?
Now we can cry all we want about the ethics of this. But damn it, wannabe judges and state employees from the very top down to the very bottom have been using this method since John Winthrop became our first governor.
So in my mind there has to be more. Much more. (where’s the indictment)
Then again this is Martha Coakley.
Ladies and Gentlemen. I urge you to rent the move Conviction. It is the true story of a guy who did 18 years in the can for a murder he didn’t commit. He was framed by the Ayer Police Department. His sister went to law school just so she could help him. In the end justice prevailed.
But guess whose name was thrown around in the movie as the person most responsible for blocking justice? That’s right. Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project is portrayed in the movie as dumbfounded that Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley refused to release evidence from the case so the new science of DNA match can take place.
The refusal occurred after she was presented with overwhelming evidence that something wasn’t right with the conviction and a DNA test may uncover the truth.
In fact she is currently fighting a proposed law that would allow convicts access to DNA samples for acts occurring before the tests were available. Truth be damned.
Let’s not forget her stance on the Fells Acre case. The trial judge in that case, Robert Barton, says they were screwed. ‘Too bad’, says Martha. Or her humiliating performance as our attorney general arguing before the United States Supreme Court. Her lust for attention trumped her abilities in a big way on that day. She should not have been there.
Don’t forget, this is the GOVERNMENT. The idea that everyone has been doing something for years and years with the understanding that no laws were being broken but then an unpopular person is indicted for it is a basic constitutional no-no. She is applying a law to a set of facts which previously was okay.
Time to look at Martha’s campaign contributors and the payroll in the A.G.’s office.
Show me the indictment!
seascraper says
Good for her, I hope she gets more of your hack buddies
SomervilleTom says
Say what?????
mannygoldstein says
the Fells Acre case seems pretty awful to me, a textbook case of the misuse of testimony from children. Based on Stephen Ceci’s research on how children behave as eyewitnesses (incidentally Ceci’s a former professor of mine), and the utter lack of physical evidence, there is very reasonable doubt as to the Amirault’s guilt.
While I did vote for Coakley for Senator, it was with a heavy heart due to my knowledge of the Fells Acre case.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
I remembered the movie as i was writing this. It’s a tool to help my argument. That’s all.
Manny, don’t you think it’s funny that both you and christopher wrote comments on this thread defending Martha yet each needed to mention a case that caused them to think less of Martha?
This, to me, says much about the job she is doing.
mannygoldstein says
I simply stated that a movie isn’t a great way to form an opinion on someone.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
I didn’t base my opinion on the movien and never said I did. So take it back. Or Im tellin
kirth says
Here’s the Wall Street Journal on Coakley and the Fell’s Acre case, published during her Senate campaign:
Here’s another WSJ article on the case, from 1995.
The Fells Acre case is a stain on our state’s history, and a tragic miscarriage of justice.
Christopher says
When she ran for DA I was turned off by her touting her role in the Louise Woodward conviction for murder when the evidence IMO pretty clearly pointed to manslaughter.
kirth says
Beyond the Fells Acre case and her poor performance before the SCOTUS, there are these “highlights”:
* Her office ignored the ongoing police campaign against citizen oversight of public police activities, where they arrested people who recorded them performing their jobs. The cops based their actions on the ridiculous assertion that the recordings violated the two-party consent law, which interpretation was recently ruled unconstitutional by a Federal judge.
* Her actions in the Keith Winfield rape case were truly bewildering.
* She contributed to MA becoming a laughingstock over the Aqua Teen Hunger Force farce.