Once one of the most powerful politicians in the state and the first Italian-American to be elected Massachusetts speaker, DiMasi will serve eight years in prison for steering state software contracts to a Burlington software company in exchange for secret payments. DiMasi, describing himself as a “broken man,’’ begged for leniency before his sentencing earlier this month.
Thomas Kiley, a lawyer for DiMasi, would only say yesterday that “we’re going to continue to fight to prove Sal’s innocence.’’ DiMasi did not comment on the ruling.
Martin Weinberg, who is a lawyer for McDonough and is leading the defense team in the appeals process, said they will ask the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to stay Wolf’s order that the men report to prison until their appeal can be heard.
Weinberg said that appeals courts have overruled district court judges before and added that DiMasi’s case is testing new legal standards set by a 2010 US Supreme Court decision. His case is one of the first to go to trial since that decision, and he has grounds for an appeal, Weinberg said.
“We will argue that there remain compelling issues that need to be addressed,’’ Weinberg said. “There are issues we consider profoundly important that test the [new standards] of the Supreme Court decision.’’
The ruling narrowed the scope of evidence allowed in honest services prosecutions - the nature of the case against DiMasi - to require that prosecutors show that a public official knowingly caused payments to be made to him or an associate in exchange for official acts.
DiMasi and McDonough, both 66, were convicted in June of conspiracy to defraud the United States, as well as honest services mail fraud and wire fraud for helping the software company Cognos win state contracts. DiMasi was also convicted of extortion.
DiMasi received the longest federal sentence handed out to an elected official in Massachusetts. McDonough was sentenced to seven years in prison.
