BOSTON CALLING EXTORTION APPEAL HUNG UP
Solicitor General requests more time for review
The U.S. Solicitor General has still not decided whether to allow federal prosecutors to fight the dismissal of extortion charges that were looming over two top aides of Mayor Martin J. Walsh.
The government’s opening appellate brief was due to be filed today. Prosecutors notified the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit yesterday they need until at least Aug. 8.
“The Office of the Solicitor General has informed the undersigned that it will require additional time to complete its review and to decide whether or not to pursue an appeal,” the motion reads.
Kenneth Brissette, Walsh’s $99,910 director of tourism, sports and entertainment, and Timothy Sullivan, the $123,624 chief of staff of intergovernmental relations, returned to work shortly after the charges were dropped. They were also released from all pretrial conditions they were under while awaiting trial.
The two men had been facing up to 20 years in prison had they been convicted of using threats to bully Crash Line Productions into hiring unneeded union labor for the 2014 Boston Calling music festival, formerly staged on City Hall Plaza. They were accused of withholding permits and suggesting the event would be disrupted by a giant inflatable rat.
U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin dismissed the extortion indictments in March just days short of the case going to trial. He had planned to instruct jurors that in order to convict Brissette and Sullivan the jury had to find the men obtained property from Crash Line — in this case, wages and benefits for International Alliance Of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 11 workers — and that Brissette and Sullivan personally benefited from the alleged scheme.
Prosecutors informed Sorokin they could not prove their case if what they deemed was his misinterpretation of Hobbs Act extortion stood.
In contrast to Sorokin’s view, the U.S. Supreme Court has held since 1956 that a conviction for Hobbs Act extortion “in no way depends upon having a direct benefit conferred upon the person who obtains the property.”