The hack family of the week is the Welsh clan of Cape Cod, led by District Court Judge Robert Aloysius Welsh III, the fourth generation of payroll patriots to “serve” on the bench in Barnstable County.
The Welshes cop the coveted Hack Family of the Week award on account of Judge Welsh’s upcoming appearance in court on Tuesday, where he will utter the traditional words of yet another sleazy state judge:
“Not guilty, Your Honor!”
Welsh will be arraigned in Brighton on one felony count of assault and battery on a person aged 60 or over, and on a misdemeanor count of assault and battery on a household or family member.
First, let’s introduce the members of the Welsh family currently slurping at the public trough:
Judge William “Not Guilty” Welsh, $207,855 a year.
Sister Anastasia Welsh Perrino, elected Barnstable County register of probate, $174,532 a year.
Brother-in-law Thomas Perrino, yet another hack state judge, Superior Court, $207,855 a year.
Son Ryan Welsh Mass State Police trooper, $125,577.12 last year and $129,359.70 in 2024.
I believe there may be others as well, including a $76,192-a-year “program coordinator” in the hack-infested Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. But I’ll leave the nephew off the official list until actual confirmation.
Due to his impeccable hack heritage, the inevitable brooming of the charges against Judge “Not Guilty” Welsh is already well underway.
The case has been kicked up from the Cape to Suffolk County DA Kevin Hayden.
Hayden is the hackerama’s go-to guy for putting the fix in. He’s already handling a dodgy piece of business for the doddering septuagenarian DA of Middlesex County, Marian Ryan.
That probe involves a two-year cover up of the killing of a disabled man by a connected state trooper named Scott Quigley. The cop was allegedly driving drunk in Woburn with a BAC of .114. He got a warning for killing the guy. Now everyone is shocked, shocked.
It’s an election year.
Somebody call Kevin! You know what his fellow payroll patriots say about DA Hayden? If you want to hide something real good, just stick it in one of Kevin’s law books.
Compared to that impending fixing of an OUI homicide by a state trooper, making Welsh’s domestic affray go away will be a simple task.
Hayden’s $163,756-a-year fixer, Ian Polumbaum, has already filed a motion to seal everything about this most recent embarrassment to the state judiciary.
“This case has the potential to generate publicity,” he wrote in an affidavit for impoundment. “The subject documents not only contain sensitive details of the crimes charged, but identify the alleged victim throughout by name and description.”
Judge Welch is 60 years old and on his second marriage. Now he is charged with a domestic assault on a family member in his household over the age of 60.
What do you suppose happened?
According to public court files, the judge was divorced from his first wife Tara in 2011. She got the 2010 Toyota SUV and the judge got the couple’s 2006 model. He agreed to pay child support of $600 a week until emancipation etc.
Until now, whenever Not Guilty was written about, the papers always mentioned his allegedly noble judicial heritage. His great-grandfather Walter was from Provincetown and sold ice to fishermen before he retired to a judgeship… in 1914.
Since then, it’s been nothing but gainful unemployment on the bench for the family, from Walter to Robert Aloysius to Robert Aloysius Jr. and now to Robert Aloysius III, also known as “Not Guilty.”
Once you go hack, you never go back. Just ask the Welshes.
They’re not the only local family pigging out at the judicial trough. There are the Brennans, the Heffernans, the Lawtons, et al. But usually the racket peters out after about two generations, into low-level hack jobs on the probation department or, in the old days, as a toll-taker on the Pike.
But Not Guilty didn’t just rely on his hack heritage to score his black robes.
He got his judgeship the old-fashioned way. He gave cash to the governor who appointed him – Mitt Romney. It was just $100, and he didn’t pony up until after Mitt’s election, but that’s the hack way.
Don’t make no waves, don’t back no losers.
By 2004, Mitt hadn’t delivered the goods, so Not Guilty began hedging his bets. Welsh started giving money to Tom Reilly, then thought to be the next Democrat governor. Reilly pocketed $250 from Welsh, but then Mitt came through at the end.
Welsh became the fourth generation of his family to grab the golden parachute. The Welshes – they don’t just slurp at the trough. They lick the plate.
Then there’s the judge’s sister. At least Anastasia Welsh Perrino must be elected by the voters of Cape Cod.
Her husband is Superior Court Judge Tom Perrino. He too did the right thing by his patron, then-Gov. Charlie Baker. Duked him $1100, another $350 to then-Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, and $250 to Mitt when he was getting started in his quest for early retirement.
Previously Perrino had been a hack court clerk on the Cape. His educational credentials were impeccable: Fitchburg State.
And now it all comes to an end for Welsh, not with a bang but a whimper. The retirement papers will soon be filed, count on it.
The unanswered question is, will he go out with one of those phony-baloney judicial-only disability-type payouts, so often utilized in the past by extinguished jurists who got a bad ice cube or two?
Another question: as a former assistant district attorney, will Not Guilty be able to grab a second, smaller kiss in the mail? A lot of that going on as well in the hackerama, among the greed-crazed judiciary.
People on the Cape say Not Guilty is not a terrible judge, at least by current standards. And he’s local – you can tell by that middle name, Aloysius. I had a cousin with that same middle name, and maybe you did too.
It’s a New England thing.
The saddest thing is, with Maura Healey as governor, there’s probably someone even worse getting ready to take Welch’s place on the bench, most likely some blow-in drifter with “they/them” pronouns who now lives on a trust fund in Provincetown.
I’ll bet Healey’s next Ca[e judge will have taken at least a few selfies of “themselves” with Sen. Julian Cyr, probably at Halloween.
That’s the way it is now in Massachusetts. You get rid of somebody bad, but behind them comes somebody even worse.
This state needs an enema.