Blue Mass Group

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Supreme Court decision seems likely to allow DiMasi prosecution to go forward

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The Supreme Court today narrowed, but did not invalidate, the federal “honest services” law that has been used to prosecute many people charged with public or private corruption, including former House Speaker Sal DiMasi.  The essence of the Court’s holding is this:

Section 1346, which proscribes fraudulent deprivations of “the intangible right of honest services,” is properly confined to cover only bribery and kickback schemes.

If I recall correction, the essence of the case against DiMasi was a kickback scheme — he allegedly received cash in exchange for directing contracts to Cognos Corporation.  

DiMasi’s lawyer, unsurprisingly, has characterized today’s decision as a big win for DiMasi:

DiMasi’s lawyer, Thomas Kiley, said he believes the Supreme Court ruling means the statute cannot be used in DiMasi’s case.

“It’s clear that the statute has been narrowed so that it does not apply to undisclosed conflicts of interest,” Kiley said. “The court has once again tried to put a brake on the government’s use of this statute to capture all manner and means of supposed inappropriate use of office.

“This is the decision we’ve been waiting for. The decision echoes the arguments that we’ve been making.”

Kiley is right that undisclosed conflicts of interest now cannot be prosecuted under the honest services law.  And that may result in some of the charges against DiMasi being thrown out.  But I don’t see how the central allegation of the case — that DiMasi received cash in exchange for steering contracts to Cognos — is adversely affected by today’s decision.  Anyone with a better recollection of the details should feel free to correct me in the comments!

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Comments

  1. may be harder to prove for any number of reasons.

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    p>That is probably why the Gov’t so dearly loved those conflict of interest charges in the first place. Easier to prove.

  2. It’s unclear why the fact Cognos and Harrah’s have a business partnership has never been mentioned in any of the news coverage about DiMasi. According to The Globe story announcing his resignation:

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    DiMasi blamed “powerful special interests,” particularly the gambling industry, for fueling the ethics investigations swirling around him, and predicted that gambling interests would cheer his departure. “I can hear the clanking of the slot machines now,” he said.

    DiMasi’s claim was met with little reaction.  After all, what would a software company like Cognos have in common with powerful billion-dollar casino interests like Harrah’s which is gunning for a casino in Boston?

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    “With Cognos we established a closed-loop marketing system to be able to support our customer loyalty objectives. From analyzing customer behavior to developing and tracking the effectiveness of focused campaigns, we can use our data to better serve our customers and in turn decide how to improve our operations to increase their overall satisfaction. Both strategies complement each other in such a way that the combination of the two is more powerful than either individually.” – Tim Stanley, Senior V.P. of Innovation, Gaming & Technology and CIO at Harrah’s Casinos in a 2009 business case study about Cognos.

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    p>There is no dispute that Sal DiMasi was the most powerful opponent of casinos in the state. There is also no dispute that Harrah’s and Cognos are business partners. Are these facts unrelated or is there truth to DiMasi’s claim that he was railroaded by gambling interests?

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    p>Les Bernal

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