U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said the indictments are only one step in the investigation of corruption in the department.
This is an updated version of a story posted at 9:41 this morning.
BOSTON - Declaring the charges as only "one step" in her investigation, U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz on Friday unveiled indictments against the former deputy probation commissioner in Springfield and the state's two former top state probation officials .
The indictments, a dramatic development in the ongoing hiring scandal in probation, charge the three former officials with operating a sham hiring system at probation that favored politically-connected candidates pushed mostly by current or former state legislators.
Indictments were lodged against former Springfield deputy probation commissioner William H. Burke III of Hatfield, former probation commissioner John J. O'Brien of Quincy and former second deputy probation commissioner Elizabeth V Tavares of Newton.
At a press conference to announce the indictments in Boston, US Attorney Ortiz said, "This is just one step in an ongoing investigation."
The indictment lists 23 examples of politically-connected hires or promotions. In the examples, the 20-page indictment uses only the initials of the successful applicants and identifies legislators only by their legislative titles or as "members" of the state House of Representatives or Senate.
William H. Burke IIIOrtiz said that "Beacon Hill is full of a lot of hard-working, genuinely committed individuals." But she added, "Where there has been conduct involving political corruption in the past, we will clearly try to ferret it out."
She declined to specify whether legislators would be targets of potential future indictments.
"There's a lot of patronage that was clearly going on, but patronage in and of itself is not illegal," Ortiz said. "Our responsibility is to determine whether or not federal criminal laws were violated."
Here is a link to the indictment issued by Ortiz.
At their arraignments, Burke, O'Brien and Tavares each pleaded innocent in U.S. District Court in Worcester on Friday afternoon.
O'Brien, 55, Burke, 68, and Tavares, 54, were released on conditions but all were led out of the courtroom in handcuffs after their arraignments.
O'Brien, Burke and Tavares were each arrested on Friday and charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy and 10 counts of mail fraud. The mail fraud, part of the alleged illegal hiring scheme, include mostly mailing rejection letters to unsuccessful candidates for probation jobs.
O'Brien and Tavares were each also charged with a count of substantive racketeering.
If convicted, the defendants each face up to 20 years in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine on each count, Ortiz's office said.
Burke, a 35-year veteran of the probation department in Western Massachusetts who retired in 2009 with an $83,000 pension, was enmeshed in the hiring at probation, according to a 307-page report issued in 2010 by Paul Ware, an independent counsel appointed by the state Supreme Judicial Court to investigate probation hiring.
According to the indictment, Burke, deputy commissioner for 10 years before retiring, O'Brien and Tavares participated in a conspiracy between 2000 and 2010 including multiple acts of mail fraud.
They are charged with using a “sham hiring system” that favored candidates sponsored by legislators, judges and others including one hire, listed as only “K.P.,” in the indictment.
“K.P.,” who was sponsored by former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, was hired as a manager in the electronic monitoring program in Springfield in 2001, though she was not the most qualified, according to the indictment. Holding that position is Kathleen Petrolati, wife of Ludlow Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati, who has long been tangled up in the probation scandal and previously agreed to give up his position as the No. 3 power in the House.
John P. Pucci , a lawyer representing Petrolati, who is the dean of the Western Massachusetts legislative delegation, said on Thursday he has "absolutely no reason" to believe that Petrolati could be indicted. Pucci could not be reached on Friday.
As a matter of constituent service, Petrolati made recommendations for people to get jobs, but that is not a crime, Pucci has said. Many other members of the state Legislature also recommended people for positions in probation, he has said.
No legislators or other elected officials have been charged with criminal offenses in connection with the probation scandal.
According to Friday's indictment, the Senate President in 2008 -- who was Therese Murray, the current Senate president, -- sponsored three candidates for probation officers who were hired in Plymouth courts even though they were not the most qualified.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat, is also mentioned in the indictment for sponsoring the son of an aide for a probation officer's job in Boston in 2005. DeLeo was chairman of House Ways and Means at the time. DeLeo sponsored Brian Mirasolo, the son of his assistant Leonard Mirasolo, The son was hired even though he was not the most qualified, the indictment said.
In a statement, Murray said the indictment does not indicate she was aware of any fraudulent actions.
"My office receives many requests for assistance each year, including requests for public, private and institutional referrals," Murray said. "But we have no control over any hiring process and the indictment does not suggest that I was aware of any fraudulent conduct within the probation department. Indeed, when I did learn about what was going on in probation, we led a forceful and thorough overhaul of the department’s hiring practices last year to insure the highest degree of transparency possible."
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr of Gloucester urged Ortiz to leave "no stone unturned" in her investigation.
People should not "rest until anyone who corrupted our state government in this case is appropriately punished, and all possible reforms are enacted to ensure that this behavior never happens again," Tarr said in a statement.
In U.S. District Court in Worcester on Friday, Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman released Burke, O'Brien and Tavares on numerous conditions including that they surrender passports, give a DNA sample, provide an unsecured bond of $25,000 and avoid all contact with possible victims or witnesses in the investigation.
Only Burke had guns to surrender. He was ordered to remove all firearms from his residence and adjoining residence and surrender his firearm identification card to the Hatfield Police Department.
The judge agreed to allow Burke to have contact with his daughter, after Burke's lawyer, James C. Bradbury, told Hillman that Burke's daughter was mentioned in the indictment.
Burke's daughter, called "M.B." was also hired as an assistant manager in the electronic monitoring department in 2001 in Springfield. She also was not the most qualified, and she was sponsored by her father, the indictment said.
Burke's lawyer said after the arraignment that his client is doing "very well." He would not comment further on specifics because he said he had just received the indictment, including whether the hiring of Burke's daughter was legitimate.
"Mr. Burke has not committed any crime in the 38 years that he served the commonwealth," Bradbury said, adding he looks forward to defending his client.
Hillman was going to restrict the defendants' travel to Massachusetts, but because Tavares has an 11-year-old daughter on a traveling softball team, he opened it up to the New England states for all the defendants.
"Good luck," Hillman told the defendants.
The former probation officials hired people sponsored by legislators but also maintained a facade of a merit-based hiring system that increased their ability to win favorable votes on the budget and other interests, the indictment said.
Instead of hiring the best qualified, the former probation officials promoted the most politically connected or sponsored candidates, the indictment said. This was done to increase the probation budget, gain control over the enterprise and build their power, the indictment said.
They kept "sponsor lists" to ensure that legislators' candidates were hired, the indictment said.
"This sham system was used to conceal that the hiring systems were pre-determined and not based on the merits but upon the nature and extent of the sponsorship," the indictment said. "O'Brien would take names from sponsor lists and give them to Tavares, Burke and interview panels."
They sought to ensure that preferred candidates reached the final round of interviews and also had the highest score at the final interview, it said. Scoring sheets were falsified and other methods skewed to reach this result, prosecutors said in the indictment.
Friday's indictment follows the arrest in December of an acting chief probation officer in Western Massachusetts, who was charged with intimidating and harassing another probation officer who is a witness in the federal investigation of hiring practices at the state Probation Department, the U.S. Attorney's office said.
Christopher J. Hoffman, 39, of Hatfield, the acting chief probation officer in Hampshire Superior Court who was placed on leave on Oct. 26, was the first person to face criminal charges in the federal investigation of the probation department. Hoffman was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice.
Material from the Statehouse News Service was used in this report. Lori Stabile, staff writer for The Republican, contributed from Worcester.