Christmas is for cops and kids.
That may be the most memorable quote ever uttered by the late gangster Whitey Bulger – he said it with a snicker one December in the backroom of his Southie package store as he was stuffing envelopes full of Yuletide cheer of the legal-tender variety for various corrupt elements of the local constabulary.
But now Whitey is gone, and so are his payoffs, I mean, gratuities. And ‘tis no longer the season to be jolly for bent cops.
I was thinking about this bleak holiday season the other day as the G-men lugged yet another state trooper charged with what amounts to stealing a hot stove, and then coming back for the smoke.
This was a particularly sad occurrence, because this (alleged) crook is only 40 years old – in the prime of his stealing career, you might say. His name is Heath McAuliffe, and he’s from Hopkinton.
He’s charged with embezzling $9,825 in federal funds for overtime he didn’t work out on the Mass Pike back in 2015. That may seem like a lot of dough, but consider – the same year he’s charged with embezzling less than 10K, he made $180,215, including OT.
The next year, 2016, he grabbed $164,680.
And now the gravy train is derailed. If McAuliffe’s case plays out like the other seven MSP arrests so far, he’s looking at restitution, 6 to 12 months in Club Fed and, most significantly, loss of incredibly bloated six-figure pension.
Figure this sticky-fingered statie would have had 20 more years of thievery at $200,000-plus, behind which comes the pension at $160,000 per for 20-plus years, and I’m guesstimating Trooper McAuliffe is forfeiting over $7 million in free money… for $9,825.
Sometimes, when a crooked cop or judge talks out the door with a wheelbarrow full of cash while simultaneously in a photo finish with the grand jury, we ask the old question from the New Testament:
“Death, where is thy sting?”
In McAuliffe, we know exactly where thy sting is. This is death, not by 1000 cuts, but by 7.2 million.
Most of the others bagged so far had many more years to lay in big bucks for their post-prison life. The same day young McAuliffe gets lugged, two other crooked MSP cops agreed to plead guilty to, well, acting like state cops from Troop E.
Lt. David Wilson, age 58, pocketed $259,475 in 2016, including $12,450 in that dirty federal dough. That same year Trooper Daren DeYoung made $200,416 – he went down for $14,062 in detail pay for unworked details.
These guys were all brought down by the FBI, and of course we’re all pleased that these crooks have been taken off the board, and will soon have their snouts forcibly ejected from the public trough.
But is there not something a bit… ironic… shall we say, about the FBI leading a crusade against law-enforcement corruption.
I mean, the very same day these latest arrests of staties are announced, the Inspector General of the Justice Department issues a report on the fact that the self-same G-men somehow managed to erase thousands of smoking-gun anti-Trump texts between FBI Democrat, Hillary-worshipping FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and the lovely Lisa Page.
How many messages did the Democrats at the FBI erase before they were caught?
“The OIG (Office of Inspector General) recovered 74,385 lines of text messages from Strzok’s phone and 52,395 lines of text messages from Page’s phone.”
Even more oddly, some damning texts were somehow saved, but the even more damning responses were erased by the bent G-men. For example, in August 2016 Page texted her married boyfriend, “He’s not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”
They saved that one somehow, but not the crooked Strzok’s even more appalling reply re: the next president.
“No, no he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
Here is the FBI’s response to being caught in flagrante delicto trying to steal a presidential election:
“There continues to be challenges in the collection and retentions of text messages sent and receive on FBI mobile devices. The FBI continues to take steps to mitigate those challenges.”
Translation: next time we won’t get caught!
I just want to know, in this Christmas season, will the State Police get the gift of being allowed their own makeover?