If I ever get in a jam, I ask for no special treatment. Just treat me like the child of a hack state judge.
Repeat after me: “Do you know who I am?”
Who do these judges’ children think they are, members of the Kennedy family?
Latest example is Roberto Ronquillo III, son of Boston Municipal Court judge Roberto Ronquillo Jr. The Boston Sunday Globe broke the story, but you may have missed it because the headline described the drunkard reprobate not as the son of a judge, but as “a former commuter rail engineer.”
Dad’s black robes weren’t mentioned until the ninth paragraph. The Globe buried the lead on a great story.
According to the paper, the most appalling fact about Ronquillo fils is that at one point in 2014, he had no drivers’ license, but he did have a license to operate commuter-rail trains. Printed out, his driving record runs to 80 pages. He has four OUI stops, but only one conviction – in California, where his father, obviously, is not a judge.
The kid has appeared seven times as a defendant in the BMC, where his father is chief justice. The one time Ronquillo got locked up, after driving without a license in Medford, the Globe reports that Roberto’s papa “was so angry that his son was in jail that he called the Chelsea clerk.”
That’s interesting, because on the judge’s list of witnesses when he came up for confirmation by the Governor’s Council in 2001, he included an assistant clerk in the Chelsea District Court.
Let us peruse the background of the judge, who was nominated by Gov. Paul Cellucci in 2001. See if you can figure out what his main qualification seemed to be.
Like so many state judges, Ronquillo drifted into Massachusetts from elsewhere – Texas. He listed himself as a member of, among other organizations, the MA Association of Hispanic Attorneys and the Hispanic National Bar Association.
Here is how the future judge described his practice in 2001:
“My typical client is an Hispanic male, mid-20’s, marginally indigent, with very little, if any, knowledge of our judicial system. He is usually employed, if at all, in some type of service industry or factory work… Most of my clients are from Latin American countries… the majority does (sic) not speak English. Much of my practice is concentrated on criminal defense.”
In other words, Ronquillo was representing illegal-alien criminals before they were called Dreamers.
His only published work: “Drunk Driving Cases: An Overview.” In retrospect, it seems clear that’s a subject his family is well-versed in, one way or another. Kind of like the Bibauds of Worcester, or the Lawtons of Brockton. Impaired driving and Massachusetts judicial families go together like Scotch and water.
As for political contributions, Ronquillo gave $100 to a Chelsea city councilor named Calvin Brown. Remember Calvin – on election night 2013, he was charged with domestic assault after allegedly getting into a fight with his wife. According to police reports, alcohol was involved. (There’s that a-word again.)
By the way, like the judge, Calvin Brown is also a state hack – he works in the secretary of state’s office for $70,131 a year. Election specialist, don’t you know.
As for the Ronquillos, they get a little bad publicity, but the sweet life in the hackerama goes on. So what if the son drove his car onto the sidewalk on Commonwealth Avenue in 2012, hit a parked car, then drove off and passed out at the wheel a few blocks away? (He may not be a Dreamer, but Roberto III certainly behaves like one.)
Who cares if the cops put an ignition interlock device on his car to check if he were drunk, and he couldn’t start it – in December the RMV let him keep his license.
His father, who is only 59, will remain on the bench for 11 more years. On July 1, he will collect his fourth $6,250 pay raise in 18 months, and his pay is already above $170,000.
He issued this statement about his son to the Globe:
“I have kept and will keep my support of him separate from my job as a judge. I will not comment further out of respect for his privacy.”
Nothing to see here folks, move along. Forget it Jake, it’s Judgetown.
