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SJC orders probation overhaul as report finds rampant fraud

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 10, 2012

Independent counsel Paul F. Ware Jr. conducted the investigation. (Essdras M. Suarez/Globe…)

This article was reported by the Globe Spotlight Team, reporters Scott Allen, Marcella Bombardieri, and Andrea Estes and editor Thomas Farragher. It was written by Allen.

The state’s highest court, firmly embracing a special counsel’s conclusion that the state Probation Department is riddled with fraud and “systemic corruption,” ordered court officials yesterday to move swiftly to fire the probation commissioner, suspend his senior lieutenants, and ask prosecutors to weigh criminal charges.

”Such abuse and corruption are intolerable,” members of the Supreme Judicial Court said in a statement.

The court’s sweeping move to reclaim the probation agency came after it unsealed damning findings by the independent counsel that the probation agency, led by Commissioner John J. O’Brien, “committed pervasive fraud against the Commonwealth” that went on for years and involved dozens of employees.

The independent counsel, Paul F. Ware Jr., concluded that O’Brien and his senior executives oversaw a hiring system that was rigged “on a grand scale,” conducting thousands of phony job interviews when the positions had already been promised to politically connected candidates.

Ware found that O’Brien had completely politicized the 2,000-employee department, giving jobs to candidates backed by state legislators while illegally pressuring employees to contribute to campaigns of key allies, such as state Representative Thomas M. Petrolati and state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill.

The SJC called the alleged conduct by O’Brien and his deputies “a betrayal of the just expectations of the public and of employees in the judicial branch, including those in the Probation Department.”

”Corrective measures must now be taken to repair the damage wrought by the conduct laid bare by independent counsel’s investigation,” the SJC said.

The court called for acting probation chief Ronald P. Corbett Jr. to identify the probation managers “most responsible for the reported abuses” and develop a plan for disciplinary actions by Dec. 1. The court created a task force led by former attorney general L. Scott Harshbarger to overhaul the hiring and promotion process.

The court also forwarded a copy of Ware’s report to US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, state Attorney General Martha Coakley, state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, and the Office of the Bar Counsel of the Board of Bar Overseers “for such actions as any of them may deem appropriate.”