He had it, he lost it, and when it disappeared, so did his friends. He owes them nothing.
DiMasi was convicted largely on the testimony of two supposed members of his inner circle.
“I don’t want to be here,’’ moaned Steven Topazio, at DiMasi’s corruption trial. But in exchange for the safe haven called immunity, Topazio was there, connecting the dots and the checks between a company angling for a state contract and DiMasi, his longtime mentor and law partner.
Joe Lally, a salesman for the company that wanted the contract, also testified against DiMasi, whose wedding he attended. In exchange for that and a guilty plea, Lally got a three-year sentence. At the time, US District Chief Judge Mark Wolf said he wanted to send a message “that such cooperation should be rewarded. I hope it gets the public to conclude the system worked.’’
The federal courtroom where DiMasi’s trial played out was mainly filled with family members and the curious. Robert Travaglini, the ex-Senate president who is now a lobbyist, showed up one day for a surprise visit and told reporters “I’m here to show support for a friend in a time of need.’’ But the Beacon Hill crowd that once laughed at the speaker’s jokes and bent to his will mostly stayed away.
According to testimony given at DiMasi’s trial by Dino Difronzo, a longtime friend and political ally, DiMasi met with Robert DeLeo several times to talk about engineering his succession as the next speaker. The day after the verdict, DeLeo called DiMasi’s conviction a “powerful blow to the public’s trust in government.’’ That must have hurt. DeLeo now has a high-powered lawyer, Robert Popeo, who has said the current speaker cooperated with an independent counsel’s report on probation hiring, but is not a target of any investigation.
DiMasi’s role in any grand jury proceeding is speculative at this point. He was recently moved from Kentucky to the Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island, triggering fear on Beacon Hill about what he might have to say about probation hiring in general and individual lawmakers in particular.
