Ashe said he received Petrolati's help to get a probation officer's job for his son.
Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe, left, said he received the help of Massachusetts state Rep. Thomas Petrolati, right, to win a probation officer's job for his son, but he said there was no deal to return the favor by hiring the legislator's supporters at the Ludlow jail.BOSTON - Hampden County Sheriff Michael J. Ashe said he received the help of state Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati to win a probation officer’s job for his son, but he said there was no deal to return the favor by hiring the legislator’s supporters at the Ludlow jail.
“It is what it is,” Ashe said. “There’s no question that to get a job in probation, particularly in Western Massachusetts, it is well understood you need to go through Tom Petrolati.”
In a prepared statement issued in May, Petrolati said that he can only recommend job candidates and that the final hiring decision is up to Judge Robert A. Mulligan, chief justice for administration and management. “I am appreciative that I have been in the position to recommend many qualified people for available positions,” Petrolati wrote at the time.
Ashe’s son, Stephen P. Ashe is currently the acting chief probation officer in Hampden Superior Court, receiving $93,000 a year. After the sheriff sought Petrolati’s recommendation, the son was hired as a probation officer in 1997 and has worked his way up through the ranks.
Petrolati, a Ludlow Democrat, is awaiting the release of a report by a special counsel on hiring and management practices in the probation department. Paul F. Ware, a lawyer named to investigate the probation department, filed his report on Nov. 9, but it has been impounded by the state Supreme Judicial Court.
The state’s two top judges in May placed probation commissioner John J. O’Brien on paid leave pending the results of the report.
In a story last month, The Boston Globe, citing unnamed sources, reported that Petrolati resented Ashe for failing to hire more of the legislator’s references for jobs at the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow. In 2005, to send a message to Ashe, Petrolati persuaded the probation commissioner to block a promotion for Ashe’s son, The Globe reported, until Ashe made peace with the legislator.
Ashe said he never had a deal with Petrolati to allow the promotion of his son.
“I would never go in the tank or be subjected to that kind of thing,” the sheriff said.
Ashe said his son had a master’s degree in criminal justice from American International College in Springfield before he was hired.
Ashe said he had heard that Petrolati had stopped a promotion for his son, but he didn’t know if it was true.
“I have no knowledge that he and O’Brien attempted to do that,” Ashe said. “If he did do it, I’m obviously disappointed.”
Stephen Ashe was promoted to an assistant chief probation officer in 2003, a first assistant in 2006 and to his current position in 2008.
John P. Pucci, a Northampton lawyer representing Petrolati in the probation investigation, said he didn’t know about any possible conflict between the legislator and the sheriff, or whether Petrolati worked with O’Brien to prevent a promotion for the sheriff’s son.
Pucci said the bigger picture is that Petrolati fights to make sure that a reasonable number of jobs at the jail go to his constituents.
“It’s not a scandal,” Pucci said. “It simply is an appropriate use of a legislator’s authority and power ... to make sure some of the jobs at the Ludlow jail go to Ludlow residents.”
According to a 1989 law approved for the siting of the jail in Ludlow, the sheriff must favor Ludlow residents in the hiring of up to 25 percent of the new employees for the jail.
Richard J. McCarthy, a spokesman for Ashe, released statistics for the number of hires for every year since 1992 when the jail opened. The percentage of hires that were Ludlow residents fluctuated, with no pattern around any hiring or promotion of Stephen Ashe, McCarthy said.
Of 26 new employees hired so far this year, only two, or 7.7 percent, were from Ludlow. There were five new hirings last year, but none were from Ludlow. In 2008, 78 people were hired including eight, or 10.3 percent from Ludlow.
In 2007, there were 207 new hires because of the opening of the Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee, McCarthy said. A total of 14 of those hires, or 6.7 percent, were from Ludlow, records show.
In 2006, 151 people were hired including nine from Ludlow, or 5.9 percent.
In 2005, when the Globe reported that Petrolati blocked the promotion of the son, there were 77 employees hired but only two from Ludlow, or 2.6 percent.
During 1998 to 2001, the percent of Ludlow hires was somewhere between 10 and 14.5 percent each year.
A higher percentage of new employees were from Ludlow in 1995 and in 1996 than in 1997, when Stephen Ashe was hired, the records show.