Thieving Staties deserve no mercy in Massachusetts

No matter how vile and greedy a career criminal you are, before your sentencing, you can always find somebody to write a letter to the judge attesting to your fine, upstanding character and how this string of unspeakable felonies you committed was merely some kind of tragic misunderstanding.

Just ask thieving, disgraced ex-Mass. State Police Sgt. Bill Robertson, age 62, sentenced this week to three years in federal prison for conspiracy, theft from a federal program and four counts of mail fraud in the gigantic years-long overtime grift.

Judge, this is so unjust. He was a Cub Scout!

In 1995, he changed a flat tire for a stranded motorist out on Route 9.

He once bought some windshield wipers for his niece. He raked leaves for an elderly neighbor – and she had a big yard!

Judge, hasn’t this poor man suffered enough? He was indicted in 2020 and ever since he’s been collecting a tax-free state kiss in the mail of $7,992 a month.

Indictment, where is thy sting? Ditto, conviction. And now sentencing… corrupt as he is, Robertson just keeps rolling in taxpayer cash because… professional courtesy.

I learned about Robertson’s allegedly blameless life from reading the tear-stained letters his sycophants sent to Judge Margaret Guzman.

Before reading these weepy testimonials, I first like to study the feds’ pre-sentencing memo. The G-men are a bit more tethered, shall we say, to the facts.

Let’s start with the description of how Robertson reacted when he realized the feds were closing in on the massive overtime scam in which he was a key conspirator.

Robertson brought the hard files of the incriminating documents – the 637s, as they were called — to one of his minions.

“As the subordinate trooper testified at trial,” U.S. Attorney Josh Levy wrote, “Sgt. Robertson hit him in the chest with a folder containing the 637s and yelled ‘Get rid of these!’”

Cut to the letter to the judge from his former sister-in-law:

“I’ve never heard him yell or swear.”

Back to the prosecution:

“Through tears, the trooper testified that he stepped back but Robertson continued, telling him, ‘Shred those (expletive) things! Go shred them!’”

His daughter Gillian fondly recalled a trip he took her on to South Carolina when she was a teenager.

“As we continued our drive south, we listened to music. My dad has always been a big fan of music.”

Oddly, though, the crooked cop never sang along with Gillian to the Bobby Fuller Four’s biggest hit:

“I Fought the Law,” because the next line is “And the Law Won.”

Naturally, the convicted goon’s spouse must pen some lachrymose note to the judge. The felon’s wife Susan says “Bill is one who doesn’t brag about his achievements.”

I wonder why. His only “achievement” was stealing $32,180 in taxpayer funds, and being ordered to pay restitution of $142,774 – for his role in the cabal of greed-crazed cop criminals.

But Mrs. Robertson tried to tug on the judge’s heartstrings with this statement:

“As the wife of a police officer, in the back of your mind there is always the fear of getting ‘the call.’”

We understand what she means… for most police departments. But this is the MSP, whose motto is “To Protect and Steal.” For the MSP spouses, “the call” is usually quite different:

“Mrs. Trooper, your husband is in jail up in New Hampshire after getting arrested for beating up his girlfriend while drunk….’

“Ma’am, your husband on the gang unit just made a big fentanyl bust tonight and now he’s in the emergency room for a ‘medical emergency….’”

“Might be a problem — your husband just had his service firearm stolen out of his unmarked cruiser in Providence while he was shacked up with his girlfriend and here you are pregnant….”

“Your husband is jammed up because a reporter just found the police incident report at the courthouse from when he shoved your head into the unflushed toilet….”

“The G-men just lugged your husband for taking the payoff of a snow blower – even though he was making $331,000 a year….”

“Your husband just got busted for using union funds to take his girlfriend, a waitress, on a weekend trip to their love nest in Miami….”

“Your husband got arrested for getting drunk and exposing himself to some young kids at a country music concert in Foxboro, and that was after he told a young man sitting next to him that he had a ‘nice ass….”

“Hey, honey, Internal Affairs just opened an investigation of me – it’s about those texts where I told our friends to send you the ‘gift’ to you rather than me after I arrested the woman they want to frame – you know, the hot one I was looking for the nude pictures of on-line….”

“Somebody just ratted out your trooper significant other about the fact that she used to be a gangster’s moll, and that she’s on record admitting her drug dealing, money laundering and lying to the grand jury – after which she was immediately hired by the State Police because… State Police.”

Again, we all understand “the call.” It’s just that waving that bloody shirt, in the context of a law-enforcement agency as irredeemably corrupt as the MSP, seems inappropriate. At least if you’ve been paying attention for the last few decades.

The pity play didn’t work for Robertson, but his lawyers did offer more plausible reasons for a reduced sentence. They mentioned the obvious – that the culture of corruption at the State Police is “plainly widespread,” which is itself an understatement.

They pointed out that of the 11 state cops who have been found guilty in this single scandal among so many others, 9 got no real jail time. The remaining two got no more than three months.

From the memos, it looks like Robertson started out as a Met cop – obviously, he was predisposed to crime. He was on some governor’s detail – nothing good has ever come of posting cops at the State House. They pick up too many bad habits.

But it’s over now, even if I’m sure Robertson figures out ways to keep the big-money pension coming for a while at least, if not forever.

The crooked cop’s sister Kristina told the judge that her thieving brother is “truly a moral and upstanding man” who is “truly remorseful.”

Truly? Truly, we all want to see Bill behind bars, for a lot longer than three years, along with all the rest of his fellow crooked troopers, including the ones who haven’t been indicted yet. Truly…