MUSIC TO MARTY’S EARS
Mayor avoids potential trouble, starring trial role
Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh would have played a starring role in the extortion trial of two City Hall aides, but in a stroke of good fortune for Walsh, there won’t be a trial.
In a new filing by federal prosecutors, it’s clear that Walsh’s close ties to unions would have been a central feature of their case against Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan.
“I want you all to know we got a ton of help from City Hall,” a union official wrote in an email to members after organizers of the Boston Calling music festival agreed to hire Union stage hands at the request of Brissette and Sullivan.
“Starting from the top, Mayor Walsh and his staff members Tim Sullivan & Joe Rull ... fought hard for us because Local 11 fought hard for them ... and we MUST keep supporting them & the political candidates who will keep fighting on the side of labor,” the official wrote.
The email released yesterday by the Feds suggests a quid pro quo, that the Walsh administration was going to bat for the union — holding up a permit for the festival — because the union supported the mayor politically.
Walsh “enjoyed the support of multiple unions during his campaign for mayor,” prosecutors noted in their filing of evidence, and “some members of his administration assumed that unions would be among his preferred constituents.”
But now it’s almost certain jurors will never get to hear prosecutors lay out that evidence.
The upcoming trial, slated for next week, was canceled yesterday. Prosecutors conceded the case would end up in a dismissal because they don’t have strong enough evidence to prove that Brissette, the tourism director, and Sullivan, chief of staff for intergovernmental affairs, personally “obtained” anything of value from strong arming the music festival organizers.
The cancellation of the trial averts what would have been an embarrassing few weeks for Walsh and his administration. And the public and jury won’t see the unseemly side of City Hall.
It’s unlikely Walsh himself would have had to testify, but his administration certainly would have been on trial.
Prosecutors plan to appeal any dismissal, but Brissette and Sullivan look to be off the hook for now. And it’s also a big victory for Walsh, who has stood by his two aides throughout the case, even giving them their full pay for more than a year while they awaited trial.