The independent review paints a picture of many legislators, not just Petrolati, using their influence to get people hired at the probation department.
State Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati, D-Ludlow, is frequently mentioned in the review by independent counsel Paul Ware of the Massachusetts Probation Department, but Petrolati's lawyer said nothing in the report indicates that Petrolati could be charged with a criminal offense.BOSTON - A scathing independent review warned that hiring and promotion in the state’s probation department “has been thoroughly compromised” by systemic rigging in favor of candidates who have political or other personal connections with state legislators.
The report frequently mentions state Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati, of Ludlow, but the legislator’s lawyer said nothing in the report indicates that Petrolati could be charged with a criminal offense. The report paints a picture of many legislators, not just Petrolati, using their influence to get people hired at the probation department.
Petrolati said previously that he recommended qualified candidates for jobs, but didn’t make the final hiring decision.
In a statement accompanying the release of independent counsel Paul F. Ware’s 307-page report, justices on the state Supreme Judicial Court said the state’s top administrative judge will immediately begin proceedings to fire Probation Commissioner John J. O’Brien and will place on leave three deputy commissioners who will face disciplinary actions including possible job termination.
“The report describes in careful detail a systemic abuse and corruption of the hiring and promotion processes of the Probation Department,” the justices of the state Supreme Judicial Court said in their statement.
“Such abuse and corruption are intolerable and are a betrayal of the just expectations of the public and of employees in the judicial branch, including those in the Probation Department.”
The report was filed on Thursday by Ware, a Boston lawyer appointed by the state Supreme Judicial Court in May to look at patronage and other hiring in the state’s troubled probation department.
Ware said that probation employees were solicited for political donations in violation of state campaign finance law.
With some limited exceptions involving Petrolati, O’Brien determined the candidates on behalf of whom the hiring and promotion process would be rigged, the report said.
O’Brien, suspended with pay since May, and a deputy commissioner solicited donations for Petrolati in the cafeteria of a state office building, the report said.
The report said it was “especially troubling” that O’Brien and other probation leaders solicited probation officers and other employees for contributions to politicians, such as Petrolati, widely thought within the department to be influential in hiring and promotion decisions.
Petrolati, the No. 3 power in the state House of Representatives, and former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, a Boston Democrat, both cited the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify under oath in front of Ware during his investigation, the report said.
Petrolati’s wife, Kathleen Petrolati, a regional program manager in probation’s electronic monitoring program, also refused to testify under oath, the report said.
The report found the hiring and promotion process in probation is corrupt and has disproportionately favored politically connected candidates.
Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, D-Boston, and State Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati, D-Ludlow, seen in this file photo, both plead the fifth during a lengthy investigation into the hiring practices of the state's Probation Department. O’Brien and certain of his deputies refused to cooperate or testify in the investigation, the report said.
The report said “politically anointed” candidates were hired in the department. In return, legislators saw to it that the probation budget increased at a steady rate.
John P. Pucci, a Northampton lawyer for Petrolati in the probation investigation, said that report indicates that Petrolati will face no criminal charges.
“There is nothing in this report - zero - suggesting any evidence that Tom Petrolati participated in any criminal activity,” Pucci said.
Pucci said Petrolati refused to testify on his advice, partly because he considered some of the rules for testimony unfair.
Petrolati’s name is included almost 90 times in the report.
In one instance, a regional supervisor in probation testified that he felt pressure to attend Petrolati’s annual fundraiser in Ludlow because he was invited by a deputy commissioner and the commissioner would be there. Probation officers believed they had to contribute to politicians to get promoted, the former head of the probation officers union and another regional supervisor testified.
Petrolati has denied any such quid pro quo arrangements.
The Ludlow Democrat was not among the 10 state legislators who most frequently sponsored job candidates at probation, the report said.
But William Burke, a former deputy probation commissioner, testified that he sometimes received calls from Petrolati with the names of favored candidates in Western Massachusetts and he acted on them without going through the commissioner.
“That, plus additional evidence, suggests that Petrolati’s involvement in patronage hiring within probation is far greater than the sponsor lists demonstrate,” the report said.
Burke testified that Petrolati’s support was useful to those probation employees seeking promotions in Hampden and Hampshire counties partly because the department’s relations with Petrolati were important for the probation budget.
Ware said he did not uncover direct evidence that legislators offered to sponsor candidates in exchange for campaign contributions but there is statistical evidence that “pay for play” was the reality.
To compile the statistical evidence, the report looked at the 10 legislators who most frequently sponsored candidates for probation jobs, plus House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, D-Winthrop, and Petrolati, a 24-year veteran of Beacon Hill.
In the aggregate, the sponsored contributors to these 12 legislators had a 62 percent success rate for being hired or promoted within a year of being sponsored while sponsored people who did not contribute only had a 25 percent success rate, the report said.
Petrolati was far and away the leader on a list of 20 legislators who most frequently accepted campaign contributions from probation employees since 2000.
Report of Independent Counsel, In the Matter of the Probation Department of the Trial Court
Petrolati received 87 contributions from probation employees, and state Sen. Stephen J. Buoniconti, a West Springfield Democrat who lost the Nov. 2 contest for Hampden district attorney, was No. 6 on the list with 20 contributions.
Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, was ranked No. 2 on a top 10 list of legislators who most frequently sponsored candidates for jobs. Brewer, the only Western Massachusetts lawmaker on the list, sponsored 44 candidates, but accepted campaign contributions from only six of those.
Brewer welcomed the report, saying it would lead to an overhaul of the way hiring and promotion is done at probation.
The report makes no mention of a dismissed 14-year-old sexual harassment complaint against Petrolati. A former program director at the Ludlow Boys & Girls Club had filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in 1996, charging she was fired after she protested the advances of Petrolati, then a honorary board member.
The state commission found no probable cause and dismissed the complaint. But during its investigation, the wife of a witness was invited to interview for a probation job after being told earlier that she was not being considered for the position, according to The Boston Globe.
The witness, James G. Moriarty, chief executive officer of the boys club, confirmed that he and his wife did testify in Ware’s investigation of the probation department.
Ware did not explain why he took testimony from Moriarty and his wife but left it out of the report. Ware did write that his report on probation was incomplete. He said many obvious avenues could not be fully explored given limits on time and resources.
Ware said that dozens of probation employees took part in rigging the application process to leave the appearance of an objective system. Ware said, however, that O’Brien ahead of time selected candidates for almost every opening in the agency, which has 2,025 employees.
Suspended Probation Commissioner John J. O'Brien is seen here during a visit to Springfield in 2003.The report cites examples of O’Brien and other probation leaders hiring and promoting substandard applicants pushed by legislators including a man who had been convicted of a felony drug charge and later relapsed into drug use and left the department.
In a positive move for the Petrolati camp, the report said there is no evidence that Petrolati was a determinative factor in the hiring of Robert P. Ryan, the husband of Petrolati’s chief of staff, Colleen Ryan, as $93,000 chief probation officer in Eastern Hampshire District Court.
Ryan is extremely well qualified for the position, with experience that included 25 years in the federal probation service, the report said.
The justices said that pending disciplinary proceedings, Judge Robert A. Mulligan, the state’s chief administrative judge, will place on leave First Deputy Probation Commissioner Elizabeth V. Tavares, Deputy Commissioner Francis M. Wall and Deputy Commissioner and Legal Counsel Christopher J. Bulger, the son of William M. Bulger, former state Senate president and former president of the University of Massachusetts.
The court also provided a copy of Ware’s report to U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, state Attorney General Martha M. Coakley, state Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan and the Office of the Bar Counsel of the Board of Bar Overseers.
In addition, the high court set up a task force to be chaired by former Attorney General L. Scott Harshbarger for a comprehensive review of hiring and promotion within the Probation Department.