We will soon know just how serious Massachusetts politicians really are about cracking down on the opioid epidemic that killed almost 2000 of their constituents last year.
The answer will be: Not very.
Because when the legislature is offered the choice of beginning the process of removing an elderly demented judge who can’t even bring himself to wrist-slap major Dominican heroin dealers, not to mention cop killers and sexual predators, they will blink.
Before we go any further, you need to understand the rationale of Superior Court Judge Timothy “Touchy” Feeley, in his own words, for releasing Manuel Soto-Vittini, the Dominican heroin dealer.
These are the brilliant jurist’s own words, transcribed verbatim:
“Uh and um, I uh am uh also um giving uh consideration to the fact that uh this was not a uh drug addict who was uh dealing to fund his um uh addiction uh but rather was a person who made some uh terrible uh judgments and decisions but uh made them for um reasons that at least he thought uh were helpful um to his uh family uh and that’s a little uh different than um the usual uh defendant that presents before this court.”
He was caught with 40 bags of heroin and some cocaine in a hidden compartment of a black Volvo well known to the local cops, because residents had been complaining about his incessant drug dealing for weeks, if not months. This Dominican with the 10th grade education was ruining the neighborhood, not to mention the neighbors.
But Touchy Feeley, who has had his snout in the public trough since 1990, scoffed that it was just a “money crime.” Ya know, judge, some of us believe it’s likewise a money crime when you can give $2200 to two shady Democrat pols and then they hand you, a middle-aged journeyman in the US attorney’s office, a job (as opposed to work) that will soon pay $178,000 a year for 35 weeks of showing up.
This Dominican heroin dealer has been vacationing in the US for 15 years, but he still needs a translator in the courtroom. It was like some low-grade comedy out of a Tom Wolfe novel, as when Touchy Feeley asks him how old he is. The translator puts the question to him in Spanish.
“Thirty-three,” the foreign heroin dealer replies, in English.
“Thirty-three,” repeats the translator, in English.
The judge lives in Marblehead, which is approximately 98 percent white and 99 percent wealthy. But he’s very worried about the family life, if you can call it that, of the heroin dealer and his girlfriend – not wife, but girlfriend.
It was left to the assistant district attorney, Kristen Buxton, to try to enlighten the old fool on the bench that the heroin dealer was using his latest anchor baby, conceived after his indictment, to work on Touchy’s white-guilt feelings about breaking up the Dominican “family.”
(At least now the welfare department knows who the father of this latest anchor baby is, so I’m assuming Tall Deval Baker will make sure the Dominican pays his child support for both children, just like you or I would have to do. Right? Right?)
“That was his choice,” Buxton said of the second anchor baby, “and for there to be any maneuvering to accommodate that conscious decision he made is not a good social or criminal justice policy.”
The judge, though, truly believes no criminal, especially a non-citizen, should ever face the consequences for his despicable behavior. How could Touchy even thinking of sending this nice young heroin dealer, whose brother is also a convicted heroin dealer, to prison, if it means he is to be deported back to the Third World hellhole where he belongs.
By now the prosecutor was practically pleading with the judge to wake up.
“I think it’s a dangerous view to take,” she said, “that being someone who is not a US citizen is somehow mitigating when you’re talking about dealing a very dangerous substance…. He was in the ongoing business of dealing heroin!”
For over a year now, the hacks on Beacon Hill have been wringing their hands about the “opioid crisis.” Their response has been to crack down mostly on Dr. Feelgood and his patient, Granny. Forget the drug-dealing Dominicans in Lawrence and all the other welfare magnets, we’ll get to the bottom of this by making sure Granny can only get eight Vicodins at CVS instead of 20. She’ll have to come up with the copay three times instead of once out of her Social Security, and we’ll threaten Dr. Feelgood if he writes her a second scrip after her hip surgery.
And… nothing… changes. Because the hacks refuse to address the much larger problem, the Dominican drug gangs. Even the BPD has pointed out they control the vast majority of dangerous drug trafficking around here, but the RMV does nothing, and the courts, obviously, do less than nothing.
So now a handful of Republican state reps introduce a resolution to impeach Touchy Feeley and remove him from the bench. As of Friday night, they had rounded up exactly one Democrat co-sponsor – Colleen Garry of Dracut. One! Out of more than 120 Democrats in the House.
That’s how serious the State House is about doing something to stop this plague.
One final point: despite what you have may have read, Touchy Feeley did impose some very tough penalties on the Dominican heroin dealer. He sentenced him to not one, but two sentences of probation, to be served concurrently. Plus the judge hit him with some big-time fines — $90 for the witness fee, and $150 for the drug analysis fee.
Your Honor, we just have one final question. Can Senor Soto-Vittini pay the $240 with his girlfriend’s EBT card?
