Howie Carr has this to say regarding yesterday’s less-than-bombshell announcement that three former probation department officials had been indicted:
The feds called it racketeering, but it’s more like hacketeering. But as Peggy Lee might say, “Is this all there is?” …
The indictment was amusing, but it had a familiar ring to it, and I don’t mean the Ware Report of 2010. Some of it reads like a primer in how to set up a hackerama. Plunkett of Tammany Hall would have recognized this setup: “A rigged hiring system that catered to requests from state legislators and others.” …
Maybe Sal’s lawyer, Tom Kiley, was on to something when he wondered aloud, “Since when is it a crime for a solon to get a job for a constituent?”
To quote the immortal Sen. Plunkett, “They seen their opportunities and they took ’em.”
It’s “Plunkitt,” of course, not “Plunkett” (Howie is no doubt confused by the name of the former Patriots quarterback). But beyond that, Howie may be onto something here. The basic allegation, as I understand it, is that (a) legislators and other influential folk recommended people for jobs in the probation department; (b) the probation department hired those people in order to curry favor with said influential folk, even though other more qualified people had also applied; and (c) … I guess that’s it, actually. Notably absent from the indictment is any allegation that O’Brien or any other defendant benefited personally from the “scheme.” It’s all about whether O’Brien et al. used jobs to “increase their ability to obtain favorable votes on their budget requests.”
Bad practice? Yes. Should it be stopped? Absolutely. But … a federal crime? I guess we’ll find out. But when you realize that this whole case hinges on the fact that rejection letters were sent out via U.S. mail – which is what creates the federal hook for mail fraud, which seems to be the entire basis for the racketeering charge – you start to wonder whether it might not be the strongest federal case ever assembled. Maybe it’s just “hacketeering” after all.
bigmike says
Agreed that this is a bad practice that should be stopped. But the question of whether this should also be a federal crime is really interesting to me — because it reminds me of the argument made by Arthur Winn at his sentencing hearing earlier this year.
After being convicted of bribing local politicians, his lawyers basically threw up their hands and said: Your Honor, you can’t send our client to jail, because our system offers plenty of legal ways for wealthy, connected people to use government for their advantage…so you shouldn’t send our client to jail on a technicality.
As an attorney and an activist working to get money out of politics, I must admit, I think could be a good faith argument. Given the profound degree of legalized corruption at the highest levels of our government, there just may be a valid argument that says we’ve come to the point where it would be an affront to equity to send any individual to jail merely for currying favor with a politician.
SomervilleTom says
So, apparently, what we’re saying is “(cluck cluck) Yes, a terrible thing, but certainly not a federal crime.” Which is, essentially, “nothing to see, move along”.
The excuse offered by Tom Reilly when the clergy sex abuse scandal started taking off was that he couldn’t bring indictments because “(cluck cluck) Yes, the abuse was a terrible thing, but it wasn’t against any law I can find, so I’m not bringing indictments. Nothing to see, move along.”
Look guys, if this racket isn’t criminal, then there is a gaping hole in our criminal system.
Do you really think that the defendants didn’t personally profit from the scam they operated? Have you forgotten the connections to the Bulger family? Have you forgotten the number of high-profile public officials who benefited from this scam, and the legions of attorneys, judges, and elected representatives who looked the other way? The ID bracelet scam? And it’s not like this is the only game in town.
When we spend a long time around really odoriferous materials, our sense of smell gets so numbed that we no longer perceive just how awful the stench is. I fear that perhaps you have been too close to this crowd for too long. These guys stink. Everything about this stinks. The total disinterest of our Attorney General stinks. The apparent involvement of the judiciary stinks. The involvement of people like Mr. DeLeo and Ms. Murray is bad bad news.
It’s bad enough that all this is happening. The attempt to minimize, excuse, or explain it away makes it worse.
David says
Absolutely wrong. It is, in my opinion, a mistake to assume that everything that is “wrong” is (a) criminal, and (b) a federal (as opposed to a state) crime. That’s apparently your view. I don’t share it. Do you really want federal prosecutors (think Chris Christie as the exemplar) as the ultimate arbiters of what is right and good?
Whether you or I “think” that O’Brien and the gang “personally profited” from the probation jobs business is, I should hope, entirely irrelevant. If there’s evidence that they did, by all means let’s see it – that would be an entirely different level of bad conduct, and quite clearly criminal. But it’s precisely that kind of assumption, based on nothing but your gut feeling about what you’re sure you “know” about something, that we so vociferously – and correctly – object to in some of our friends across the aisle.
And I have to say that your comparison of this situation to the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal is wearing thin – I’m actually with Christopher on that, to some extent (though I don’t agree with him in other respects). I don’t care how much you don’t like what happened in the probation department – it simply does not approach, in any way, shape, or form, what the abusive priests did to the kids, and what the church hierarchy did in tolerating, condoning, and enabling it.
Finally, do you really think that Howie Carr, of all people, is adopting a “nothing to see here” attitude? Because it’s his column that I’m riffing on. He’s the one who makes the accurate point that much of what is alleged in the indictment is in many respects the kind of thing that has been going on since, well, since government was invented. He’d been screaming about the “hackerama,” including the probation department, for years before the Globe published its series. His problem, and the reason that nobody ever investigated based on what he was saying, was that he was too lazy to do enough actual reporting to connect the dots.
SomervilleTom says
I completely agree with you in many respects. There are many wrongs that are not criminal. Not every state crime is a federal crime. So we don’t differ there. I strongly agree with you that I don’t want federal prosecutors “as the ultimate arbiters of what is right and good”. It is because of all this that I am so disappointed with Martha Coakley and her predecessors.
I’m sorry that my comparison to the clergy sex scandal wears thin. I have never said or implied that the offenses are comparable. On the other hand, in both cases we have the very strong appearance of criminality combined with prosecutors who for whatever reason appear to have a pronounced disinterest in developing the evidence that we both agree is needed to proceed.
I’m not an attorney, I’m just a voter. I’m a voter who sees ever-growing evidence of ever-growing corruption. I see an entrenched Democratic establishment that apparently will not do anything about this metastasizing cancer of corruption. I despise Howie Carr and all he and his ilk stand for. That’s why I hate watching us relentlessly validating some of the worst things that they allege about we Democrats.
So let me put it as a question. If this behavior is not criminal — how do you suggest it be stopped?
David says
I agree with a lot of that. And I understand letting one’s rhetoric get away a bit – I’ve certainly been guilty of that.
Your final question is an excellent one – and I think it’s fair to say that democratic societies have struggled with it pretty much from the beginning. Of course, crimes should be prosecuted when they happen. And I agree with you that the non-presence of the state law enforcement authorities in all this is troubling.
One possible answer is to change the hiring system by doling out jobs via a civil service exam. That was discussed for probation – not sure if it has actually happened. But civil service brings problems of its own.
Ultimately, of course, the solution is to put better elected officials in office.
bob-gardner says
That would be a pretty strange indictment. Assuming that the prosecution at least referenced some statute, I don’t see what you’re driving at. You say you deplore this kind of behavior, but you wish there was no law against it.
David says
as for whether there were laws broken, we’ll find out when the courts weigh in. The specific statute referenced in the indictment is mail fraud, specifically, mailing rejection letters to unsuccessful applicants for jobs in the probation department. Doesn’t strike me as the strongest case, but maybe it’s good enough.
Not sure where you get the idea that I “wish” there were no law against what allegedly happened here.
howlandlewnatick says
Like the mob, if government officials want to get you, you get got.
Yes, local, state, federal government agencies hire hacks. There is a reason those people in stripes and plaids carry signs for certain candidates. Always been that way, probably always will. This case isn’t about crime. It’s about launching a political career.
We’re seen before the power of prosecutorial abuse, whether it’s hiding evidence and with the gang rape charge against athletes, or exposing to the media, a governor that was chasing hookers while powering an investigation into corrupt Wall Street activity.
Here, it won’t matter as to guilt or innocence. The government can make you pay into bankruptcy to defend yourself while they have deep taxpayer funded pockets. It will be best for the targets to plea bargain. The on-coming political campaign can then tout “Corruption Buster!”
(Anyone want to guess how attorneys general are appointed?)
“Congress-these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage.” — Mary McCarthy
lanugo says
Bad practice sure, but a felony. Crappola, unless there is more to it.
farnkoff says
Think of all the tax dollars that get wasted and lost in the hands of all the unqualified people hired to perform state functions. For every hack who doesn’t know his job that well, doesn’t care about his job, and performs that job poorly, there is an economic price we all pay. Maybe it means that there’s less money available for education, social services, infrastructure, or something else that government could be doing. This built-in inefficiency and waste is a drain on all of us, besides being an unjust way to hire people. Surprised to see people defending/ minimizing Ye Olde Hackocracy.