Massachusetts State Police scandals pile up like a bad traffic jam

The Massachusetts State Police are as corrupt as ever, but one thing is changing.

As befits their breathtaking six-figure income these days, the crooked troopers are going High Society in their shakedowns and crimes.

You might even say they’ve started robbing the swells in their own refined social circles.

Take Lt. Daniel J. Griffin — in the latest federal indictment, the 57-year-old Belmont man is charged with, in addition to traditional MSP crimes like embezzlement and income-tax evasion, committing wire fraud to get financial aid for two of his sons from Belmont Hill School.

Belmont Hill School! Think about that. Can you get any more hoity-toity than Belmont Hill School? Tuition is $52,900 a year.

That’s where Mitt Romney sent his sons. Your kid doesn’t have to have two last names to get into Belmont Hill, but it doesn’t hurt.

Just look at the alumni list: Kingman Brewster, Mortimer J. Buckley, C. Loring Brace IV….

This ain’t Richard Schneiderhan (Bureau of Prisons # 23403-038) being recruited into the mob in a Combat Zone dive by Johnny Martorano. This isn’t some drunk statie exposing himself at a country-music concert in Foxboro.

This isn’t the brass hiring some hot-looking drug-dealing, money-laundering mobster’s moll as a trooper and then putting her on the sought-after K-9 unit.

All of those MSP scandals (and all the other ones we don’t have room for) were just so … trashy and low rent.

Now a lieutenant stands accused of robbing … Belmont Hill School.

This brazen thug is charged with trying to muscle the school for a free ride for his two sons. But according to the feds, at the same time Griffin was crying poor mouth he was touching everything but the third rail, a multimillionaire living large off his cop rackets.

As you can imagine, Belmont Hill School is not happy to be defrauded this way, especially by the hoi polloi. In response to my questions, this is the statement the school issued Tuesday:

“Due to the ongoing investigation, Belmont Hill is unable to comment on the matter at this time.”

The feds, though, laid it all out, calling Belmont Hill “the Private School,” and making repeated references to Griffin’s private security company, KnightPro. On that bit of moonlighting, the feds accuse him of, uh, forgetting to report $727,712.58 in income.

Among other crimes, Lt. Griffin is accused of “submitting false tax return documents; understating hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets (e.g. retirement accounts, 529 college saving accounts, bank accounts and financial gifts from relatives); and concealing other assets such as the Cape House from the Private School.”

For example, in 2018-19 he reported that he had zero money in his 529 account. In fact, the feds said he had $254,847.

The feds said he owned rental property in Belmont that paid him $400,000 in income from 2011-20. KnightPro made “nearly $2 million.” He was “part owner of several Boston gyms.”

He was allegedly embezzling federal overtime money. They say he was taking out-of-state trips and billing expenses to both his company and the State Police.

Bottom line: Griffin was a multi-millionaire. But all that cash wasn’t enough.

In 2017, the bent cop decided to play the class card, after one of his sons “only” received $28,750 in financial aid from Belmont Hill.

“GRIFFIN sent a series of emails to the Private School financial aid office complaining that he was being honest about his financial means; that other families were abusing the system “by hid(ing) monies … and making significant cash ‘under the table.’ ”

This guy bragged that he was being “honest.” Wow. How entitled are these greedy staties?

But you can always class-shame a place like Belmont Hill. The school gave him another $4,000 in “aid.”

In October, Griffin finally raised his snout from the public trough, just ahead of the indictment, but not before taking a “buyout” of $91,800, according to the state comptroller.

This year he made $224,550, in 2019 he grabbed $223,440. He’s averaged over $200,000 for the last decade or so.

Such a public servant was of course very interested in politics. According to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, the beneficiaries of his largesse were, of course, his then-neighbor in Belmont, Willard Mitt Romney, to whom he gave $1,075.

Griffin also liked Bill Keating, which is also to be expected. Keating is a Congressman, making about $174,000 a year, plus his state pension (he was a district attorney) for another $113,669 a year.

No wonder Griffin took care of Keating. They both loved living large off the taxpayers.

By the way, when the federal heat started coming down, Griffin ordered his troopers to destroy all the evidence. Or so say “Troopers 1, 2, and 3.” This fall, “GRIFFIN told Trooper 1, in sum and substance, ‘Don’t tell them (federal investigators) bleeping anything.”

Funny, when I called Belmont Hill School, I got pretty much the same response, minus the obscenity. I guess that means Griffin has been assimilated into the Beautiful People. Or vice versa.