In the end, with Sal DiMasi, it all comes back to Dunkin’ Donuts.
William Cintolo, the lawyer who unsuccessfully defended former House Speaker Sal DiMasi against federal corruption charges, is a big fan of the Dunkin’ Donuts legal theory. He’s such a big fan, in fact, that he uncorked it twice during DiMasi’s federal trial last year. Now, as Cintolo works to free DiMasi from prison, Dunkin’ is all over the appeal.
The first time he unveiled the Dunkin’ Donuts legal theory, Cintolo had Gov. Deval Patrick on the witness stand. Patrick had just finished testifying about the political pressure DiMasi had applied to include a $13 million software earmark in a bond bill; DiMasi was secretly receiving monthly kickbacks from Cognos, the earmark’s intended recipient, and laundering the payments through his law partner.
Cintolo showed Patrick a list of corporations that had bankrolled the governor’s inauguration. The parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts had helped fund the party. Patrick confirmed this fact, and then confirmed for Cintolo that he occasionally stops off for a cup of Dunkin’ coffee on his way to work. Was this, Cintolo asked, to return the favor for the contribution the company had made? Patrick said it was not, and Cintolo was pleased with himself. The governor, he announced, had purchased coffee after benefitting from the coffee company’s largesse, but not because of it.
Deval Patrick’s coffee drinking habits figured prominently in Cintolo’s closing arguments. He equated the governor’s coffee purchases with the monthly software checks DiMasi cashed: Both men took money, and then later both men performed actions that put money in the pockets of corporations. The governor wasn’t being paid to drink Dunkin’, Cintolo argued, just as DiMasi, who was receiving $4,000 monthly checks from a Canadian software vendor, wasn’t pushing an earmark for that same software vendor because of the cash it was slipping him. Both acts happened, he argued, but they weren’t related; just taking the Cognos money, Cintolo argued, didn’t make it a bribe.
A jury decided otherwise. Judge Mark Wolf gave DiMasi eight years in prison for selling his office. Former Beacon Hill lobbyist Richard McDonough got seven years.
DiMasi’s legal team filed a lengthy brief in support of their appeal today, and, in large part, it turns on Cintolo’s Dunkin’ logic. DiMasi should be freed, his lawyer argues, because government prosecutors never proved a quid pro quo between the Cognos checks DiMasi took and state contracts DiMasi steered to Cognos.
DiMasi can’t deny that he took the money, because the paper trail proving it is too thick. Instead, he’s left arguing that the money had no bearing on his passing interest in state software vendors.
The problem for DiMasi is that, as prosecutors and Judge Wolf said last year, federal law recognizes that politicians and monied interests rarely fill out contracts for bribery. DiMasi didn’t have to take set amounts of money for specific actions. All he had to do was put a kickback in his pocket, and then bend the system the wrong way. Neither of those facts are in doubt. That means DiMasi is likely in prison for much more than just a cup of coffee.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
In an editorial, the Berkshire Eagle encourages its readers to attend an information session on the state’s Open Meeting Law hosted by the attorney general’s office.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Bridgewater officials are wrangling over whether to hold a contentious recall election prior to the November presidential election or on the same day.
Milford officials sign a pact with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement that will have the agency verify whether all municipal workers are in the country legally, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
A California county thinks its eminent domain power might help solve its foreclosure crisis, Governing reports. Wall Street, however, warns against using eminent domain to seize and restructure underwater mortgages, The Hill reports.
A subcommittee of the Haverhill City Council rejects a proposal that would have required nonprofits to make payments in lieu of taxes, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
The town of Hull is taking a local homeowner to court to force her to remove a bird feeder that attracts hundreds of birds every day for a feeding frenzy that officials say is a health hazard.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Warren Buffett worries about municipal finances.
IELECTION 2012
US Rep. Todd Akin says he won’t drop out of the Missouri Senate race. The National Review gathers a panel of pundits for a symposium on Akin’s mind-numbing statement on rape and abortion. Meanwhile, the Review’s editors join the chorus calling for Akin to quit the Missouri Senate race rather than jeopardizing a potential gain for Republicans. Scott Brown jumps out early in calling for Akin to bow out of the Senate race, hoping to continue to burnish his credentials as a moderate Republican amidst the backdrop of a national party that has swung wildly to the right. Elizabeth Warren says Akin’s comments are in line with a Republican agenda to limit health care and deny women equal pay. A New York Times editorial says Akin has brought the GOP to a “new frontier of extremism,” but Slate’s David Weigel and New York’s Frank Rich both argue that Akin is closer to the party’s orthodoxy than he lets on. Slate points to Akin’s friendly interview with Mike Huckabee, in which Akin says he meant “forcible,” not “legitimate” rape — that is, he meant to exclude statutory and date rape from the conversation.
Paul Levy, on his blog, gives a pre-Labor Day assessment of the Brown-Warren campaign and concludes Brown is winning a race that is largely about personality.
US Rep. John Tierney paints Republican rival Richard Tisei as a clone of Paul Ryan.
Meanwhile, at a New Hampshire town hall meeting, Mitt Romney and Ryan continued to hammer President Obama for proposing reductions in Medicare spending, even though the amount mirrors almost exactly the amount Ryan’s budget proposal would trim from the program. Romney widens his cash advantage over President Obama. The Wall Street Journal outlines the demographic groups the president needs the most.
Mitt Romney is allowing a little more of his Mormonism into public view, the Globe reports.
One member of the Fall River Democratic Committee has resigned in protest amid allegations an incumbent state rep and a Governor’s Council candidate were given questions that would be asked in advance of debates last week.
For the first time in US history, there are no WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) on either party’s ticket, reports the Christian Science Monitor.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
The Cape Cod Times reports on the financial turmoil at the Cape Cod Museum of Art.
Big banks that agreed to a $25 billion settlement over bogus lending and foreclosure practices have learned very little from it all, writes CommonWealth’s Paul McMorrow in his weekly Globe column.
Augusta National Golf Club, home of The Masters, has opened its doors to its first two women members, including former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, after years of resisting the pressure.
RELIGION
The Economist magazine claims some of the country’s biggest Catholic archdioceses, including Boston, have misused and mismanaged millions in parishioner donations, charges that a Boston archdiocese spokesman labeled “a lie.”
EDUCATION
Most Massachusetts school districts will miss a state deadline to approve new teacher evaluation systems that make student achieve a factor in the assessment of teacher performance.
Radio Boston interviews Anant Agarwal, the president of edX.
The Lowell Sun profiles a Dracut family that is moving to Chelmsford to find a better education for their children. Meanwhile, the new superintendent in Dracut fills five key administrative posts.
HEALTH CARE
Steward Health Care, the subject of a feature story in the current issue of CommonWealth, has signed a letter of intent to acquire Mercy Health System in Maine.
The former CEO of Beverly Hospital, who resigned in late 2008, collected $1.56 million in severance over the last two years, the Salem News reports.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
The US Department of Agriculture awards $1 million to plant trees in a section of Worcester County ravaged by the Asian longhorned beetle, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
Low water closes an 11-mile stretch of the Mississippi River, NPR reports (via WBUR).
The Springfield Republican praises state funding for municipal energy saving projects.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A Carver woman, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity after killing her 3-year-old son in 2007 because she thought he was the devil, has been recommitted to a state psychiatric hospital after officials sought to transfer her to a less-restrictive group home.
An illegal alien is held on $750,000 bail after being arraigned on heroin trafficking charges, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, a former federal prosecutor, wants three Rhode Island men to receive jail terms for vandalizing city property, including some historic structures, in what he described as a “wanton attack on New Bedford’s very identity.”
One thousand mourners filled a Mattapan church for the funeral service for Sharrice Perkins, one of the three 22-year-old women shot to death on August 12 while sitting in a car on Harlem Street in Dorchester.
MEDIA
Harvard professor Niall Ferguson’s cover story in Newsweek, which says Obama has to go, is stirring a lot controversy. James Fallows, in the Atlantic, tears apart Ferguson’s logic. Paul Krugman says the piece is riddled with factual errors.