A-listed

Posted on by Listify Me

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Sunday, November 28, 2010




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State Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, is the Central Massachusetts politician who is most prominently mentioned in the 400-page Ware Report, the blistering indictment of pervasive corruption and patronage in the state Department of Probation.

But the list doesn’t end with Mr. Brewer, a 22-year Statehouse veteran whom the state Supreme Judicial Court’s special investigator, Paul F. Ware, put near the top of a group of key Beacon Hill lawmakers who allegedly used their influence to get probation jobs for cronies in return for beefing up the department’s budget.

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Also included in the Nov. 18 report, and in The Boston Globe’s investigative series that triggered the Ware inquiry, are current and former Democratic legislators, including: state Reps. Geraldo Alicea of Charlton, Christopher P. Donelan of Orange, Harold P. Naughton Jr. of Clinton, Robert P. Spellane and John J. Binienda of Worcester; former Rep. Marie J. Parente of Milford; state Sen. Richard T. Moore of Uxbridge; and former state Sens. Guy W. Glodis of Auburn (now Worcester County sheriff) and Robert A. Antonioni of Leominster.

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As for Mr. Brewer, the Ware Report ranked him second among the top 10 influential lawmakers who most frequently “sponsored” candidates for probation jobs and among the top 20 most frequent recipients of financial donations from probation employees since 2000.

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The report notes that Mr. Brewer or members of his office were among those who routinely called Stephen Price, executive director of the Office of Community Corrections, to recommend candidates for jobs.

Mr. Ware also points out that Mr. Brewer, along with other top state Senate Democrats, such as former Senate President Robert E. Travaglini and Sens. Steven C. Pangiotakis, John A. Hart Jr. and Marc Pacheco, were all on the powerful Senate Ways and Means Committee, which controls budget appropriations.

While only six of the 44 candidates for probation jobs sponsored by Mr. Brewer were campaign contributors, five of the six who eventually got jobs gave him campaign donations.

In an interview with the Telegram Gazette, Mr. Brewer acknowledged writing a recommendation and calling probation officials on behalf of his former Senate chief of staff, April Messenger of North Brookfield, a $65,040-a-year probation officer at East Brookfield District Court.

Mr. Brewer said Mrs. Messenger, daughter of a former North Brookfield selectman, was qualified for the position for which she was hired in 2002 because of her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Westfield State University and three years’ managerial experience running his Senate office.

The veteran senator also said Mrs. Messenger got the job before Mr. O’Brien became probation commissioner.

“Anyone who knows her knows she does the work of two people,” Mr. Brewer said. “You would not want to preclude someone who was qualified from seeking a job.”

Mr. Brewer said he has written at least 1,000 recommendation letters over the years for constituents, and said that even Mr. Ware noted there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

Mr. Brewer also pointed out that he appears only once on the Globe list of 250 probation employees who have contributed to elected officials, and that was for the $1,320 that East Brookfield District Court probation officer John J. Bish, father of slain teenager Molly Bish, has given him over the years. He noted that Mr. Bish worked for the department before Mr. Brewer first became a state representative in 1988, and that Mr. Bish’s support was because of Mr. Brewer’s advocacy for finding the girl’s killer.

Many in the political world, both in Boston and in Central Massachusetts, were shocked when Mr. Brewer, a popular legislator who represents 29 communities, turned up so prominently in the Ware Report.

But Republican Party leaders, who seized on the report after major GOP defeats in the Nov. 2 election as proof of the dangers of Democratic dominance of the state’s political system, said it was not surprising that so many Democratic legislative leaders, including the long well-regarded Mr. Brewer, were caught up in the probation scandal.

“It’s really an indictment of the entire Democratic power structure, regardless of how nice they were,” said Nathan Little, executive director of the state Republican Party. “It was disturbing to learn that someone who has a good reputation on Beacon Hill was associated with such a sordid report. Being linked to the report tarnishes your image.”

Mr. Brewer, vice chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, was recently rumored to be seeking Ways and Means chairmanship. He declined to discuss his political prospects in the wake of the Ware Report.

The names of Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray and former Gov. Paul Cellucci of Hudson also popped up in a Globe chart of 250 probation employees with connections to politicians.

Mr. Murray also is the subject of a story that appeared Wednesday on the CommonWealth Magazine website reporting that he has taken more than $5,000 from probation workers in Worcester and that the lieutenant governor’s name is on a list maintained by Probation Commissioner John J. O’Brien of officials recommending people for jobs.

Mr. Murray’s former Statehouse chief of staff, James B. Leary, now a University of Massachusetts Medical School associate vice chancellor, handled most of the recommendations, the story said.

For Mr. Alicea, his alleged involvement in the probation scandal could be particularly damaging, given the high-profile Nov. 2 election he apparently lost to Republican Peter J. Durant, a Spencer selectman, by four votes, and then by one vote after a recount. Mr. Alicea is promising to challenge the election results in court, pointing to a contested absentee ballot that, if valid, would tie the election.

A former probation officer, Mr. Alicea shows up four times in the Globe chart of connected probation employees. Three probation employees gave him a total of $1,775, including Danny Baez of Southbridge, a top Alicea campaign strategist who makes $88,000 as acting chief probation officer in Hampden Juvenile Court in Springfield.

Mr. Alicea said he did not get promotions or jobs for any probation employees, including Mr. Baez, who he noted has a law degree and has steadily advanced within the department over the years.

Mr. Alicea said both Mr. Baez and community corrections official Timothy Gagnon, whom he described as “good friends,” worked in the Probation Department with him before he was elected to the state House of Representatives four years ago. He said he did not write recommendation letters or make calls for either of the men.

As for Derek Berry, an associate probation officer and former probation intern, Mr. Alicea said he wrote a letter for him, but noted that Mr. Berry was not his own intern but rather an intern for the probation office for which he worked. He said that he saw Mr. Berry’s job performance in the intern job and recommended him based on that experience.

“I wrote a letter of recommendation for him based on his merit and integrity,” Mr. Alicea said.

Mr. Alicea said he has read the Ware Report. “I share the same concerns as anyone about the report,” he said.

“I’ve been out of probation for four years,” he said. “I was a line probation officer, doing my job. I’m concerned that there should be some reforms done in the hiring process, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that there are some really good people who go in there every day to do the right thing, and I was one of them.”

Mr. Durant blasted the patronage system detailed in the Ware Report and said Mr. Alicea’s inclusion on the Globe list indicated cause for concern about his possible role in improper probation hiring under Mr. O’Brien, whom the Ware Report paints as the architect of a wide-ranging corruption scheme.

“The bigger problem here is the report may very well just be the tip of the iceberg. Whenever you have corruption of any scale, let alone of this magnitude, public confidence is irreparably harmed,” Mr. Durant said. “And I think it’s significant that Mr. Alicea’s name is (associated with the scandal). This is a department for which he had worked for a number of years under Jack O’Brien.”

The Ware Report also relied on several witnesses from Central Massachusetts who detailed alleged corruption in the upper reaches of the department. They included three Worcester police officers who gave testimony about the locally well-known case of Ashley Losapio, a Westboro District Court probation officer and the stepdaughter of First Justice Paul Losapio of Uxbridge District Court.

In a new development in the 2008 Losapio case, Mr. Ware concludes that Ms. Losapio should have been fired, instead of transferred from Worcester to Westboro — where she still works — for giving inside court information to known criminals with whom she socialized.

Mr. Donelan, state representative from Orange and former probation officer who was elected Franklin County sheriff on Nov. 2, said he was dismayed to find his name on the Globe list because the five probation employees who contributed money to him all worked with him when he was with the department.

“It paints too broad a picture. None of these people got jobs through me,” Mr. Donelan said. “There’s no doubt the report uncovered something unseemly.

“But we’re talking about a handful of legislators and a small percentage of probation people, when the majority are hardworking probation employees,” he added. “No one’s talking about them.”

Mr. Glodis, the sheriff and former senator, was listed in the Ware Report and was the fourth most frequent recipient of contributions from probation workers, with 25 contributions. Mr. Brewer had nine and Mr. Antonioni, the former Leominster senator, had eight.

Contact Shaun Sutner by e-mail at ssutner@telegram.com.

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