Between the Lines: The Corruption Factory
Andrea Estes broke the news that federal prosecutors were veteran legislators in their sights. At trial, the case against the government DiMasi seemed about as open and closed as they come; defense team DiMasi was completely unable to challenge the documentary evidence and testimony that their client had taken bribes from a company software in exchange for help obtaining lucrative state contracts.Even after the verdict, as DiMasi faced reporters, he was unable to offer a convincing alternative narrative, only a vague legal analysis amounting to a little syllogism: "It is a crime of intent, and I knew I did not have the requisite intent to commit the crime. "
In front of a witness by the partner DiMasi of the old law, Steven Topazio, on the flow of $ 65 000 from the software company Cognos for DiMasi, reinforced by testimony copies of vouchers note on "the intention "seemed desperate at best.This feeling of despair coming from a man of 65 who can spend the rest of his life behind bars, struck a nerve in me that neither the facts of the case, nor the most history of corruption in high places could touch.
Obviously, in a nation that seems full of scandals pols be fair, I do not put the sordid saga of sex by Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the same category as the ethical lapses of Charles Rangel, James Traficant and Tom DeLay-DiMasi crime are not at all shocking.Unfortunately, in the wake of criminal convictions of former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson (2008) and former city councilor Chuck Turner, Boston (2010), both on charges of extortion, misconduct DiMasi n is not an anomaly, but part of a pattern. Like all news stories last week DiMasi noted, it is the third consecutive Massachusetts Speaker of the House to be indicted by a federal court, after Charlie Flaherty and Tom Finneran, who both entered into agreements advocacy with the government rather than stand trial.
Massachusetts and Maryland have launched efforts to tie teacher evaluations to student performance. Reflecting similar moves elsewhere, a persistently