STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
FORMER TREASURER TIM CAHILL, 54, will not face a second criminal trial for his alleged conspiracy to use the Massachusetts State Lottery as a marketing arm of his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, agreeing instead to pay a $100,000 civil fine and to be put under “pretrial” probation.
“The fact that there will be no criminal admission is something that both sides worked on and worked out,” Cahill’s defense attorney Brad Bailey told the court on Friday afternoon, saying that the Ethics Commission had been consulted. Cahill admitted to a violation of the civil ethics law.
Attorney General Martha Coakley, who was unable to win a criminal conviction against Cahill, issued a statement saying the agreement was a just resolution. “With today’s resolution, Treasurer Cahill has now admitted that he violated our state ethics laws during his 2010 gubernatorial campaign,” Coakley said. “He has paid a significant penalty as a result. With the Treasurer’s admission of these violations and the payment of this fine, we believe this is a just resolution to this case.”
After about a month of trial, the acquittal of his co-worker and former aide Scott Campbell, and more than 40 hours of deliberation by the jury, Judge Christine Roach declared a hung jury and mistrial on Dec. 12. Cahill greeted the mistrial as “a total vindication” when speaking to reporters outside the courtroom at Suffolk County Superior Court.
The joint disposition agreement filed by defense attorneys and prosecutors found a middle ground between the maximum five-year sentences Cahill faced in his criminal trial, and a complete exoneration.
Asked if it was still a vindication, Cahill said, “I feel very good about the outcome.”
“The defense attorneys and the Commonwealth have negotiated as well as we possibly can in making this proposal to you. I cannot imagine doing a better job,” said prosecutor James O’Brien. He said, “I believe that we have all done the best we can to reach an agreement short of retrying this case.”
The agreement places Cahill on probation for a period of 18 months to four years, and requires Cahill to pay $100,000, including $25,000 per year while he is on probation. If Cahill makes the entire payment after 18 months on probation, the probation would end. He is not allowed to “seek or accept” public office while on probation, and, as the judge made clear, a violation of probation could place the case back on track for a trial. If he completes his probation, the case will be dismissed. The probation will be unsupervised, O’Brien said.
O’Brien said Cahill’s agreement includes “an acknowledgment” of a violation of the civil ethics law. Bailey and O’Brien both said that the agreement involves another agreement that “any related or potentially related” cases by the Ethics Commission would not be pursued.
Cahill was charged under a 2009 law that criminalized actions that had previously been considered a civil ethics infraction. Roach, who was previously an ethics commissioner before taking the bench, said all three branches of government had been involved in the case: The Legislature, which wrote the law; Coakley, who obtained an indictment against Cahill for procurement fraud and obtaining and using his official position to obtain an unwarranted privilege; and then the judicial branch.
“Then it was the judiciary’s turn to perform its constitutional role,” Roach said, saying she thought the disposition was fair and had been negotiated by “highly competent, highly experienced, and highly professional” attorneys on both sides.
In the agreement, Cahill agreed to a chain of events, laying out facts that for the most part the prosecutors and defense attorneys did not dispute. Starting on Sept. 29, 2010, the Lottery’s self-promotional ads were “directly overlapping in content, timing, and media markets with Cahill’s gubernatorial campaign TV ads, some of which promoted his association with, and good management of the Lottery.”
The agreed-upon facts stop short of the criminal conspiracy prosecutors attempted to lay out involving the self-promotional Lottery ads nicknamed “permission” ads, concluding, “Cahill’s actions in connection with the timing of the Lottery permission ads gave rise to an appearance of impropriety. In running the Permission ads at the same time as his gubernatorial ads Cahill’s conduct gave rise to the appearance, and he knew or should have known, that he was attempting to use his official position to secure for himself an unwarranted privilege of substantial value not properly available to his fellow similarly-situated gubernatorial candidates.”
A former Democrat running as an independent, Cahill came in a distant third to Gov. Deval Patrick and Republican Charlie Baker. During his trial, Cahill, a Quincy resident, said he was working at Compass Securities Corporation in Braintree.
The former treasurer’s wife, Tina Cahill, had been a steady presence during the trial and the long wait for a verdict that never arrived, but she was not present for Cahill’s hearing on Friday.
“She wishes you all well. She’s working. She’s working. She’s good. Very happy to have it behind us,” Cahill told reporters on his way from the court house.
Denner told reporters it was his “understanding” that Cahill would be able to raise money through his campaign account to pay for the fine.
“If you read the agreement, he can pay it from any source whatsoever,” Denner said.
