Blue Mass Group

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Dianne Wilkerson has been arrested

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Good grief.

State Senator Dianne Wilkerson was arrested earlier this morning by the FBI following an undercover operation that centered around a deal in Crosstown, where Roxbury meets the South End, according to two government officials. One government official said that, as part of the undercover operation, a bribe was offered from an FBI agent to the embattled state senator…. The charges, which were unsealed this morning in a 32-page affidavit, contend that Wilkerson accepted $13,500 bribes in 2007 in exchange for, among other things, helping the nightclub Deja Vu get a liquor license. The arrest this morning came after an 18-month investigation which included undercover informants and audio and video surveillance of Wilkerson allegedly accepting payoffs in restaurants on Beacon Hill.

More soon — the U.S. Attorney’s office is holding a press conference any minute.

UPDATE: More details, from the Globe:

According to the affidavit, Wilkerson brought along a grandchild when she accept a $1,000 kickback on Aug. 31, 2007, at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant. On June 18, 2007, Wilkerson allegedly stuffed a $1,000 payoff into her bra during a meeting with an informant at No. 9 Park which was surreptitiously recorded with audio and video.

After an initial $500 bribe, Wilkerson allegedly telephoned Mayor Thomas M. Menino on June 17, 2007, to lobby on behalf of the nightclub in call that was recorded by the FBI. Wilkerson told an informant later that day that she had “talked to the mayor” and his office would help obtain a nontransferable license to sell beer and wine until a full liquor license “freed up.”

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Comments

  1. I’m not finding it with Google or Switchboard, and it is not listed in last week’s Weekly Dig, Phoenix, or Boston Globe Sidekick.

    • Wilkerson was set up as a consequence for going after Chang-Diaz with a write in.

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      p>Gotta love the democrats. All wallowing in the swill and excrement of beacon Hill all the while whining that “progressives” will aid in the ‘distribution of wealth”. Wilkerson was certainly good at the distribution of wealth—right into her bra.

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      p>Up to a mere few weeks ago—-Wilkerson was the darling of the progressive left. A champion of the people. Even after her several convictions and being a walking on going criminal conspiracy. The FBI and the US Attorney must have wet their pants laughing at this coup.

      • I seem to recall Blue Mass Group, and many of its contributors, endorsing her opponent in both 2006 and 2008.

      • “Wilkerson was set up as a consequence for going after Chang-Diaz with a write in.”

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        p>Because, of course, the Feds have a time machine and they knew, 14 months ago, that Wilkerson wasn’t going to take defeat lying down. They knew about the sticker campaign back then and have been lying in wait ever since, plotting and planning for this day.

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        p>Why, it’s perfectly obvious now that you point it out!

      • You may soon be joining the ranks of Ernie Boch III in getting an enforced sabbatical if you keep these posts up… let’s call it a gut instinct.

  2. You know, I have felt bad for Wilkerson in the past. I supported Chang-Diaz in 2006 and again this year, but it wasn’t personal. I felt that having a State Senator with such a laundry list of personal issues hurt the progressive movement. I was willing to excuse Wilkerson’s various problems as soon as she took full responsibility for her own lack of oversight on her campaign’s finances. I even thought that if she got her act together then she could still be relevant in state government down the road.

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    p>But this is a completely different ballgame. If these charges are true (and by current accounts they seem to be pretty damning), then I hope they throw the book at her. There is no excuse. There is no leeway for sympathy or understanding. This is pure betrayal of the public trust for personal gain. Period.  

  3. My back-of-the-envelope calculation under the advisory Sentencing Guidelines suggests that based on the amount of the bribes, the number of instances, and the fact that she’s an elected official, Sen. Wilkerson is facing four to five years in prison, assuming that her prior tax evasion conviction doesn’t move her from Criminal History category I to category II. Even if she pleads guilty and gets credit for acceptance of responsibility, the recommended sentence is still roughly three to four years.

  5. First, the Globe article has the bribes at 23,500 not 13,500. I don’t know which was used by the above poster in calculating the time.

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    p>Second, the Globe article reports recording calls from Wilkerson to Menino. Did Menino know the FBI was recording and, if so, assuming he then must have known they were investigating her, did he endorse Wilkerson anyway?

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    p>Third, will the spinless/oportunistic politicians/groups who went against her and the party (who helped elect them) and still won’t endorse Chang-Diaz now do so? Not one of them will ever receive a vote from this independent voter  again.

    • doesn’t look good for Menino, that’s for sure.

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      p>Though, a) nothing reported so far suggests he’s done anything wrong and b) I doubt he’d be that dumb.

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      p>The bigger point is I hope this is a lesson to incumbents to be more careful of endorsing people who have plead guilty to multiple criminal offenses. We have to maintain high standards for this state, as a party, and when we don’t, not only are we doing wrong by our constituents, but we’re setting ourselves up for disaster.  

  6. So the Feds allege that Sen. Wilkerson called directly to the Mayor, on the heels of accepting a $ 500 first payment in a bribe scheme to get a temporary liquor license for a Boston nightclub.  OK.  The Feds further say that the Senator took another $ 13,000 in bribes during 2007. OK.

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    p>So…. Under Massachusetts law all liquor licensing — and most other discretionary licenses and permits a business needs to operate — are issued by local cities and towns. (Yes, there is the State Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, ABCC, but that is essentially an appellate board). So, that means if Sen. Wilkerson was engaged, as alleged by the FBI, in bribery which sought to trade her influence for a liquor license issued by political appointees of the Mayor, she had to have a credible / reasonable game plan in mind that she could get Menino to order a license issued solely on her say so.  She had to have known that the Mayor would be influenced by her action when she “..talked to the Mayor..”  She had to have thought that the Mayor could and would move to issue the temporary liquor license, and further move to issue a permanent licenses when one “freed up..”.

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    p>Simply put, the Feds are alleging that Sen. Wilkerson engaged in bribe taking in order to trade in on her influence with Menino.  Her influence was in turn valuable to a business because the Mayor could control what under the law should be a legal licensing process based on merit, but which is in fact solely an exercise of the Mayor’s political influence and control.

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    p>The allegations of the FBI point to the defining dynamic of the Menino Administration, a style of governing that many reporters and political critics have documented for years:  The Mayor’s personal and invidious style trumps open legal processes, and creates the preconditions in which insider deals, and worse, can prosper.  

    • It’s a no-brainer that elected officials assist each other. I’m sure state reps and senators talk to the mayors and city councilors of the towns they represent all the time when there’s a matter in their district that falls under the city’s purview. Then those city & town officials talk to the reps and senators when they need something done at the state level. If there are questionable quid pro quos involved, it could be shady, but by and large I don’t necessarily see that exchange as cause for concern.

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      p>Elected office is a position that inherently comes with some amount of influence. We elect those we trust to use that influence in a manner that will best benefit their constituents. Wilkerson sold that influence.  

      • They serve the same constituency, of COURSE they talk to each other.

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        p>But some people are willing to assume they KNOW what was talked ABOUT, rather than wait for, I dunno, the expert investigators to outline what they found.

    • The allegations of the FBI point to the defining dynamic of the Menino Administration, a style of governing that many reporters and political critics have documented for years:  The Mayor’s personal and invidious style trumps open legal processes, and creates the preconditions in which insider deals, and worse, can prosper.  

      <

      p>Isn’t this the hallmark of so-called “relationship” politicians, who value friendship, favors, and relationships over transparency, competence, and process?

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      p>This is far from Menino’s exclusive territory — I would say that this is the very definition of “politics”, from the lowest-level city councilor to the highest-level, the president of the US. Access = influence.

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      p>I think that the best way to get around this is directly in front of us, with tools such as blogs and the “My Issues” application on Deval Patrick’s website, tools that will let the public “congregate” and which will attract politicians like flies.  

      • You know—–the ones that precipitated the US financial crisis along with Uncle Barney and cousin Chris.

    • The City of Boston does not issue liquor licenses, the Boston Licensing Board, which is appointed by the Governor, does.

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      p>

      • Does anyone know why the licensing board is appointed by the Governor instead of by the city? Is this the case for all towns? If not, why is Boston different?

        • The powers that be at the State House didn’t trust the city government of the Curley era, even taking the right of the Mayor to appoint a Police Commissioner away. The Licensing Board, along with the Boston Finance Commission, are the last vestiges of that time.  Boston has filed legislation to abolish the Licensing Board numerous times, but hasn’t gotten very far in that effort with the Legislature.

          <

          p>Full disclosure: the writer formerly oversaw federal/state relations for the City, and couldn’t get the darn thing through (not could his predessors and or successors)!

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