This is an excerpt from the original article published in the Boston Globe on Labor Day. It was interesting that this article was published on the same day the candidates gathered with all the unions at the Greater Boston Labor Council breakfast. As he worked the room did the blue collar union workers realize that their Clerk of Courts had a secondary job making over $90,000 dollars on top of his salary. He certainly can’t relate to the blur collar laborer.
Michael Sullivan regrets work as adviser
DA candidate did not seek ruling on ethics
By Walter V. Robinson
| GLOBE STAFF SEPTEMBER 01, 2014
BARRY CHIN/GLOBE STAFF
Michael Sullivan hopes to unseat Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan in the Sept. 9 primary election.
Michael A. Sullivan, whose campaign for Middlesex district attorney has been bedeviled by ethical questions, says that he wishes he had not taken a secretive $6,000-a-month consulting contract with a Cambridge real estate developer after he took office as the elected clerk of Middlesex Superior Court in 2007.
“I wish that back then, someone had advised me otherwise because my good name means a lot to me,’’ Sullivan said in an interview last week. He added: “I didn’t do anything wrong, but the appearance bothers me.’’
Ten weeks after he relinquished the council post, Sullivan agreed to a consulting arrangement with Alexandria Real Estate Equities, a development firm with major properties in Cambridge that often required city approvals. Over 16 months, from October 2007 through January 2009, the company paid Sullivan $91,350, according to tax returns that Sullivan made available to the Globe. He said he did the consulting work at night and on weekends.
Sullivan had refused to identify the consulting firm until the Globe recently pressed him to do so. Ethics rules that govern the conduct of court clerks discourage outside work that might raise conflicts of interest or which in any way undermines public confidence in the judiciary. Sullivan acknowledged in the interview that he never asked a court ethics committee whether the consulting work was permissible.
The consulting contract is one of two ethical issues facing Sullivan in the closing days before the Sept. 9 primary election between him and Marian Ryan, who was appointed district attorney in 2013.
The second involves Sullivan’s decision to retain his City Council post after he took office as court clerk in January 2007, even though an ethics advisory panel of the Supreme Judicial Court advised him not to, because of numerous potential conflicts of interest. Under public pressure, he resigned from the council seven months later.
David says
Cutting and pasting complete stories like this puts us at risk for violating the “fair use” provision of copyright law. Thank you.
CathleenJ says
This is very interesting. It just seems he does not have good judgment at all. Just the radio ad using victims and this is enough of a reason to not want to have him as The Middlesex DA.
jconway says
Sullivan actually gives his personal documents to the Globe and they imply he is secretive and shady, Ryan still insists on keeping her professional documents on a murder case sealed, and without any confidence the Globe endorses her hoping she learned from her mistakes.
striker57 says
Actually, Michael Sullivan is very well known to most of the people who were at the Labor Breakfast and to the Unions that represent them. First as a City Councilor and then two terms as Mayor, Michael Sullivan voted with, stood with and walked picket lines with working women and men in Cambridge. He took the time to listen and then take action to support responsible employers, workers’s rights and community-based wages and benefits. That is why so many Unions endorsed Michael Sullivan for DA.
As for retaining his City Council seat – now State Rep Marjorie Decker won her election and remained on the Cambridge City Council until the end of her term – effectively serving in both roles. State Rep Tim Toomey is elected to the Cambridge City Council and effectively serves as both a State Rep and City Councilor.
JimC says
My comment here might be off base. I might be confusing my Sullivans.
jconway says
I might add Majorie Decker promised not to run for re-election to the Council, but did promise to complete the term she was elected to. In Cambridge during a vacancy the votes from the most recent election are recounted with the votes of the retiring incumbent transferred to other choices. It’s a complex and expensive recount, and one they were both right to avoid. The only reason the Ethics Commission did not advise her that it was inappropriate is because she didn’t ask for their advice! Sullivan asks for advice on an ethics question, follows it to the letter, and gets criticized as unethical because of it? Talk about hypocrisy. He releases his faces to the Globe and they hammer him on it , Ryan keeps her records under seal and she gets the endorsement.
Majorie, Toomey, and Sullivan have all been strong allies of labor. As is Dan Wolf and Martin Walsh who also held other jobs-should their progressive credentials be seized as well? Marian Ryan can’t do one job right, so she attacks Sullivan for doing his two jobs well.
jmooney says
The individuals that you cited are all State Legislators. They would never have to hear a case that the City of Cambridge may be involved in at the Middlesex Superior Court in there roles. Totally different circumstances. The SJC also says a clerk can not practice law at all but on his tax returns the globe said he collected legal fees. Sullivan does not pay attention to detail. Not someone i want as the Top Law Enforcement official.
jconway says
Last I heard the clerk of courts didn’t “hear” cases since theirs is a clerical and administrative position rather than a judicial one.
He also listed his nine years of private practice on the first page of his clerk’s website, in addition to his tax returns, hard to argue, as you have repeatedly, that he has ever hid this fact or tried to suppress the records-unlike the incumbent.
jmooney says
He assigns cases and the dockets. You want me to peel back the onion go ahead. I am trying to positively support my candidate but if you would like I can start giving you more facts and figures.
jconway says
And yes, I’ve been asking for facts and figures for quite some time.