The long-awaited indictments, the first to come from the 16-month investigation of the probation hiring scandal, contend that O’Brien, Tavares, and Burke masterminded a phony hiring system set up to deceive the public while they funneled jobs to friends, relatives, and supporters of politicians, judges, and court officials.
The grand jury did not indict any legislators who benefited from O’Brien’s hiring system, but the indictment cited 26 instances in which probation officials hired or promoted candidates supported by legislators and judges, even though they were not the most qualified. Senate President Therese Murray sponsored three of the successful candidates cited in the indictment, while House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo backed one, his godson.
“This is just one step in the ongoing investigation,’’ Ortiz said during a press conference at the Moakley federal courthouse Friday morning. “This is a very serious matter. We’ve just indicted three former state public officials who were supposed to be working on behalf of this Commonwealth and who were engaged in criminal activity.’’
But a lawyer for O’Brien said that the charges against all three are a “travesty’’ and a misuse of a federal racketeering law originally passed to combat organized crime.
Ortiz did not allege that the defendants had received specific personal benefits for what she called their “racketeering conspiracy,’’ other than a larger budget for the agency and “to aggrandize power to themselves.’’ But prosecutors said the defendants had violated the racketeering law by using the department as a front for crime, fraudulent hiring.
“The allegation that the Massachusett Probation Department under these individuals amounted to a criminal enterprise involving racketeering is preposterous,’’ said O’Brien’s lawyer, Paul Flavin, speaking outside the federal courthouse in Worcester. “I consider it a misuse of the purpose for which the [racketeering] statute was enacted.’’
