A federal jury today found the state’s former Probation Department commissioner and his top lieutenants guilty of racketeering conspiracy for running a years-long rigged hiring system in a verdict that had family members erupting in court.
Former Probation Commissioner John J. O’Brien and his deputies — William H. Burke III and Elizabeth V. Tavares — were accused of a patronage-based scheme in which they would hand out jobs to the politically connected.
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O’Brien, Tavares and Burke were all found guilty of racketeering conspiracy today.
O’Brien and Tavares were also found guilty of four counts of mail fraud and one count each of racketeering. Burke was found not guilty of mail fraud.
Sentencing is set for Nov. 18. They all face 20 years in prison on any of the various counts.
The courtroom erupted in emotion as the verdicts were read, with family members weeping and a medic called to help a person who collapsed in the front row.
"The government is corrupt," an O'Brien family member shouted as the long list of verdicts were being read out loud. O'Brien's wife, Laurie, was also taken away by ambulance after she fainted in the court — as the guilty verdicts against her husband continued to be read out loud in Moakley federal courthouse on the waterfront in South Boston.
"After weeks of testimony it became clear that there was serious corruption in the practices of the probation department," said U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. "This is especially troubling to those of us in law enforcement who understand the critically important role probation plays in the criminal justice system."
Prosecutors spent 10 weeks arguing that O’Brien, Burke and Tavares conjured up a fixed hiring process in which they chose sometimes-unqualified applicants under the guise of a legitimate process, and in return saw their department’s budget and staff boosted.
An all-star defense squad argued that their clients did nothing wrong — they were part of a business-as-usual approach to hiring in the Bay State. They vowed to appeal the verdicts to both the judge, first, then a federal appeals court.
The case, which explored the crony-rich hiring process in Massachusetts state government, brought to light the fact that patronage hires weren’t limited to the Probation Department. Defense attorneys showed that the Massachusetts Trial Court maintained an extensive list of job candidates sponsored by a veritable who’s who of top pols, prosecutors and judges.
Jurors heard 35 days of testimony, and saw more than 50 witnesses and dozens of exhibits parade through federal court. Outside of court, House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo unleashed a series of salvos at U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz for trying to tie him to the O’Brien corruption trial, calling the tactic “desperate.”
Prosecutors said DeLeo conspired with O’Brien in a rigged scheme to score Probation jobs for lawmakers in return for their votes in DeLeo’s bid to succeed former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi.
DeLeo went on the offensive.
“Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the United States senators or congressmen from the district shall recommend the candidate for the office of United States attorney,” DeLeo said in a scathing 628-word statement.
“But that is, and has been, the long-standing practice, even though it is the job of the United States attorney to investigate political corruption.”
In 2013, O’Brien was found not guilty by a Suffolk Superior Court jury of multiple counts of conspiracy to commit bribery. Jurors found that he did not use his power as the head of Probation to score his wife a job at the state Lottery Commission in 2005.
