Every sports fan is missing some events more than others, whether it’s Opening Day, March Madness, the Boston Marathon, the Masters golf tournament, etc.
Me, I’m missing the political corruption trials in federal court.
Except for the occasional illegal immigrant Dominican or Ecuadoran, or the odd Haverhill felon in possession of a firearm, everything at the Moakley Courthouse is pretty much on hold, so I thought I would give an update on the more entertaining ones that are in limbo.
First of all, there is a silver lining to this dark cloud, at least if you’re the perps, because not only are they not yet in prison (where they all so clearly belong), most of them remain gainfully unemployed on the public payroll, or at least grabbing a kiss in the mail.
Take Judge Shelley Joseph — please. She was indicted by a federal grand jury last year after she let a twice-deported drunk driving cocaine-possessing illegal immigrant Dominican career criminal out the back door of the Newton District Courthouse to escape waiting ICE agents.
She has pleaded not guilty on grounds of being a Beautiful Person — a former member of the Democrat State Committee, loyal contributor to Deval Patrick and Marsha Coakley, native of the People’s Republic of Brookline (also the hometown of her judge, Leo Sorokin, who as you might imagine was appointed by Barack Obama).
Until the day she was indicted, Joseph’s legal bills were paid for by you and me — $127,000. Then her lawyer, who’d collected the 127G, announced he’d work pro bono. (How generous!) Now she’s got her own Go Fund Me page. It’s great to be a Democrat, isn’t it?
Plus, she’s still collecting her $184,694-a-year hack salary, while finishing life at home in her spare time in her mansion in South Natick. Meanwhile, her codefendant, the court officer Wesley MacGregor, immediately retired, and he too is living large with a state pension of $47,286 a year.
Their trial is postponed until a June 2 hearing on multiple motions to dismiss, and I’m concerned — after all, releasing dangerous illegal immigrant Dominicans to continue their crime waves against Americans is just more of “the fundamental transformation of America” promoted by Obama.
Plus, Sorokin has a proven soft spot for hacks — he recently threw out the convictions of Mayor Marty Walsh’s City Hall coat holders in the Boston Calling extortion case.
And those two hacks weren’t even from Brookline.
Then there’s Jasiel Correia, the extinguished boy wonder mayor of Fall River, who was touching everything but the third rail before his recent retirement due to ill health. (The voters got sick of him.) He’s the first pol to go down on corruption involving the state’s new marijuana industry, but he certainly won’t be the last.
There will be a telephone status conference on his case at 9 a.m. Monday, with trial scheduled to begin May 4, which is now unlikely. My only request to the feds: Please put into public evidence the Facebook photo of the governor, Tall Deval, with his arm around the crooked mayor. That way we can run it in the newspaper.
Speaking of Gov. Charlie Parker, he’s been letting the State Police run amok for years now, with zero oversight whatsoever. Now, another of his MSP pets is also awaiting trial — Dana Pullman, the corrupt ex-boss of the troopers’ union, State Police Association of Massachusetts (SPAM).
Like the ex-mayor, Pullman is charged with stealing a hot stove, without gloves, and then coming back for the smoke. Needless to say, Tall Deval has done nothing to strip him of his pension — $62,974 a year. Pullman has a codefendant, wrinkly lobbyist Anne Lynch, who has been awaiting Monday’s 11 a.m. status conference in the luxury of the Sunshine State.
In a filing before jetting off to Orlando March 3, Lynch reported to the court that she had given the Probation Office “an itinerary detailing where she will be staying and with whom she will be staying each night including the names, addresses and phone numbers where she can be reached at all times.”
I hope she cc’ed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He is almost as concerned as the Probation Office about tracking out-of-staters during this time of pestilence.
State government — if you’re indicted, you’re invited. Some things never change, even in this season of the plague.
