If a regular citizen gets in trouble, he gets arrested, or indicted, and maybe he might even end up in prison.
But if a state trooper gets jammed up, he’s allowed to walk away scot-free with a six-figure pension at the age of 50.
What a great system, huh?
Remember the old Bobby Fuller Four song, “I Fought the Law and the Law One.” All these troopers bolting for the exits one step ahead of the posse have rewritten it – they fought the law and they won. Of course, it’s a lot easier when “the law” is Atty. Gen. Maura Healey, who leaves no stone unturned, except the ones the Democrat perps are hiding under.
The phrase of the week at the State House is “bad actors.” It was dusted off Monday by acting Senate president Harriette Chandler as she described the crime wave known as the Massachusetts State Police. Gov. Charlie “Tall Deval” Baker upped the ante further – he called the troopers “really bad actors.”
The only head hack who isn’t calling the troopers “bad actors” is House Speaker Bob DeLeo. But then, as an unindicted coconspirator in an earlier massive corruption case, perhaps it’s only professional courtesy not to put the blast on his fellow bad actors. DeLeo settled for merely being “deeply disturbed.”
Which is still more outrage than Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito has been able to muster. But then, her BFF from Shrewsbury is suspended Trooper Leigha Genduso, the admitted drug dealer, perjurer, money launderer, income-tax evader who somehow not only got on the job but landed in the coveted K-9 unit. Karyn and Leigha are thisclose. They take selfies together, sometimes with Leigha’s ex-boyfriend, the corpulent lieutenant colonel who recently “retired” after one of the earlier MSP scandals.
Busted, Karyn tried to make a joke about her underworld selfies with the drug-kingpin trooper at Halitosis Hall on St. Patrick’s Day. It went over like a lead balloon with the hack audience. Those Southie payroll patriots know enough to remain silent, lest anything they say be used against them in a court of law….
So this week’s first MSP scandal is the fact that F Troop at Logan Airport has not been reporting all of their payrolls to the state comptroller. The MSP and Massport, two of the shadiest agencies in state government, are pointing the finger at one another. Isn’t there some way they can both lose?
Asked about this sneaky attempt to cover up their sticky-fingered behavior Monday, Tall Deval tried to out-Inspector Clouseau even Maura Healey, saying this of the MSP-Massport scandal.
“It was clearly deliberate for some reason.” Ya think, Tall Deval? “I don’t know what the reason was.” You don’t? Really, Governor? “It was 2010.” Translation: it was Small Deval’s fault.
“I certainly would be the first to agree that it’s important for the State Police to get its act together.”
Actually, Tall Deval, you are very close to being not the first, but the last person to demand that the troopers get their “act together.” You’d almost think the Staties have something on you.
Maybe Tall Deval expects his secretary of public safety to get to the bottom of these unending scandals. After all, Daniel Bennett only stands accused in a current federal civil suit of taking part in “an overarching and far-reaching conspiracy” including “multiple felonies” – the attempted brooming of an OUI case involving the junkie-prostitute daughter of a hack judge Bennett used to work with in Worcester.
One the other hand, perhaps Tall Deval and Hold It Healey should turn these multiple MSP corruption cases over to some real cops – I’m thinking DEA, because the FBI itself is currently afflicted with its own bad case of whatever ails the MSP. But whoever handles this unprecedented series of scandals needs to start making arrests, ASAP, and stripping these bums of their six-figure pensions.
And while they’re at it, the DEA should expand the probe beyond the troopers. How about Massport’s lame excuse for hiding the damning hackerama evidence, that they considered F Troop “vendors?”
Apparently, Massport is as dirty now as ever – think back on all their greatest hits, including the topless booze cruise, the surly ex-girlfriend shipped off to the London “office,” Jane Swift’s hack office with no telephone, Tom “Combover” Kinton’s $450,000 payday for unused vacation time, the Dukakis-era chairman demanding an F Troop report that he deemed embarrassing to serial-killing cocaine dealer Whitey Bulger, and then transferring the trooper to the boonies after he refused to go along with the Dukakis hack’s command.
The more things change at Massport, apparently….
Meanwhile, the legislature is considering some “oversight hearings.” Oooh, that will really put the fear of God into these cops who go to work every morning, as Matt Damon said in The Departed, dressed like they’re getting ready to invade Poland. Will Sen. Brady be investigating the cops who pulled him over the other morning? Oversight hearings are almost as scary as those “internal investigations” the troopers conduct on themselves.
Fact: last week 20 members of Troop E (the Pike) were summoned for hearings in yet another burgeoning MSP scandal, this one involving overtime fraud. Ten instantly “retired,” nine were suspended without pay, one had already been suspended in one of the earlier scandals, and one was cleared to return to duty.
One of 21 cleared – less than five percent. This is how bad it’s getting for the MSP. They’re turning out to be a carbon copy of the Massachusetts judiciary – it’s not that every judge is bent, it’s just that 95 percent of them who give such a bad name to the other five percent.
If I ever hit the jackpot, I ask for no special favors. Just treat me like a Mass. State trooper.