Today’s Boston Globe reports that immediately prior to resigning as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Sal DiMasi currently under federal indictment for multiple public corruption charges connected with the Cognos contracting scandal, had the House of Representative sign a contract with the outside downtown Boston law firm of Gargiulo/Rudnick to represent DiMasi in the Cognos matter.
The state House of Representatives has paid, up to this point, according to House accounting records, $378,000 for work performed by DiMasi’s attorneys and legal staff at Gargiulo/Rudnick. According to a House spokesman referenced by the Boston Globe, the open-ended terms of the contract means that “the [private] lawyers could get paid until DiMasi’s case concludes.”
I would estimate, based on my knowledge of the private billing practices of white collar cases such as these, DiMasi’s legal bills for the Cognos matter, if his case goes to trial, will likely exceed $750,000 and approach $1 million. I would assert that this last-day legal fee payment arrangement by former Speaker DiMasi was an outrage to Massachusetts taxpayers, but I ceased being outraged when, a couple of years ago, former House Speaker Tom Finneran was caught trying to gerrymander legislative districts to benefit his political allies and was convicted for lying about his actions in federal court.
Oh well, I assume that if and when Sal DiMasi is convicted of federal corruption charges in the Cognos case, the U.S. District Court judge who sentences DiMasi can order the total amount of the legal fees charged to the state be reimbursed as part of the federal restitution order paid by DiMasi in this case. Until then, Sal and your Gargiulo/Rudnick lawyers, please enjoy your weekly working lunches from Legal Sea Foods in Boston and feel free to charge every dime to the citizens of the Commonwealth!
Do you think this will count as compensation towards his pension?
or the gouging of Massachusetts taxpayers by corrupt state politicans and their ilk in the business community may indeed reach “unprecendented levels.” I note that Andrea Estes of the Boston Globe neglected to state whether the terms of DiMasi’s state-fiananced “open-ended” legal fees contract with his private lawyers covered the entire appeal process, if he is convicted. In that case, I would estimate the state tab to be over $1 million to defend DiMasi of the federal charges against him.
The Spreadsheet with House Outside Counsel shows all “outside expenditures” for the House of Representatives for five years.
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p>Rep. Brownsberger got it from the Comptroller, and posted it on his website.
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p>An enterprising reporter actually READ this and figured out that we taxpayers are paying outside counsel for work that was made necessary by the indictment of Sal DiMasi.
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p>Mind, my understanding is Sal – and probably his campaign fund – are paying for Sal’s defense – but that despite all the legislative counsel on the House payroll, it is outside counsel who are handling subpoenas to the House as an institution “and stuff”.
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p>Just FYI.
Who in the Massachusetts House aided him in the contract? How did the legal firm get the contract? Somehow I doubt it was low bid. What was the quid pro quo?
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p>What was the date the contract negotiations began? Before the indictment? If so, was there a leak? With the feds? The AG’s office?
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p>Oh, so many questions…
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p>We, the people of Massachusetts, so love scandal. Good thing there are so many of them.
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p>“Save the trees. We need them to hang the politicians!” -seen on bumper sticker
Who in the Massachusetts House aided him in the contract? How did the legal firm get the contract? Somehow I doubt it was low bid. What was the quid pro quo?
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p>What was the date the contract negotiations began? Before the indictment? If so, was there a leak? With the feds? The AG’s office?
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p>Oh, so many questions…
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p>We, the people of Massachusetts, so love scandal. Good thing there are so many of them.
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p>“Save the trees. We need them to hang the politicians!” -seen on bumper sticker
The lawyers represent the House and give the House, as an institution, legal services which would be required whenever agents or employees of an institution, private or public, are the focus of an on-going criminal investigation relalted to their employment.
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p>Don’t worry taxpayers. Sal is paying for his own defense. His legal interests conflict by definition with those of the House of Representaives. The House would be crazy not to have lawyers advising it on this. And those lawyers cannot represent both.
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p>There is all sorts of deep legal issues when it comes to feds or others eeking legislative information. As far as House is concerned it is not about sal.
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p>Sal’s yesterday’s news. c’mon, no one is going out of their way for sal.
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p>So please, everyone just caalm down.
I am afraid EB III has missed the point of the Boston Globe article. The internal House lawyers are representing the current employees of the House in the Cognos and associated matters. Sal DiMasi, according to my understanding, has not been an employee, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since his resignation as Speaker went into effect on January 27, 2009.
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p>Absent the sweetheart, last minute contractual agreement DiMasi struck between the House and his private attorneys, DiMasi has no legal right nor an institutional (House) expectation to have the legal fees he has incurred as a result of defending himself in court against the alleged crimes he committed while serving as Speaker to be paid by the state. And if EB III can articulate some specific legal or institutional right DiMasi possesses to have some of his legal fees paid by the House, then surely that legal right or institutional expectation does NOT and should NOT extend indefinitely, as the “open-ended” nature of his House-sanctioned legal contract with his private attorneys apparently provides.
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p>In addition, if DiMasi has a right or reasonable expectation to have the House pay for his enormous and growing legal fees, than why shouldn’t former Senator Diane Wilkerson from submitting her current bill for legal fees to Senate President Therese Murray for payment by the Commonwealth?
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p>Come on, EB III, we all like Sal on a personal level and hope he doesn’t have to do too much hard time, if convicted, in a federal minimum security prison. Nevertheless, this legal fees payment deal he has structured between his private attorneys at Gargiulo/Rudnick and the House “stinks to high heaven” and feeds the public cynicism that many Bay State residents justifiably express towards state government.
The Boston Globe article suggests strongly that the “open-ended” nature of the legal fees contract DiMasi has structured between the House and his private attorneys means that the House, and by extension Mass. taxpayers, are on the hook, not only for the $378,000 incurred representing DiMasi and other House employees, but also for the duration of the pretrial preparations and trial work of the former Speaker’s private attorneys.
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p>I would, however, love to see the actual terms of the House’s contract with Garguilo/Rudnick to learn about whether it is as open-ended as the Globe article suggests, and whether the amount of state legal fees reimbursement has been capped at a predetermined amount.
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p>Not me.
in it as DiMasi did, but to ask you to breathe deeply – that’s too much.