Judges to decide on trial in Boston Calling case
Feds want extortion charges reinstated
Federal prosecutors yesterday appealed to reinstate the extortion case against two city hall lieutenants of Mayor Martin J. Walsh and bring Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan to trial after the case against them was derailed last spring.
Brissette, Walsh’s tourism, sports and entertainment czar, and Sullivan, chief of staff of intergovernmental relations, were front and center at today’s packed arguments before federal appellate judges Juan R. Torruella, William J. Kayatta Jr. and David J. Barron in Boston’s Seaport District. At stake for Brissette and Sullivan: potential 20-year prison sentences if they’re tried and convicted.
U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin pulled the plug on the case in March days before Brissette and Sullivan were to go before a jury, accused by federal prosecutors of threatening Crash Line Productions into hiring unneeded union labor for the 2014 Boston Calling music festival on City Hall Plaza. Prosecutors said they could not win if Sorokin insisted on instructing jurors the government had to prove the men personally benefited from obtaining wages and benefits for International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees workers. Brissette and Sullivan were neither members of nor agents for Local 11.
The two were prosecuted under the Hobbs Act. The U.S. Supreme Court holds that a Hobbs Act conviction “in no way depends upon” a benefit for the individual who obtained the property, contrary to Sorokin’s ruling.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall E. Kromm impressed upon Torruella, Kayatta and Barron that Crash Line had a “longstanding licensing agreement permitting them to hire who they wanted.” Local 11 workers were added to an existing workforce and represented paychecks Crash Line hadn’t budgeted for, Kromm said.
The judges will consider whether Hobbs Act extortion applies in a situation where the property obtained is transferred to a third party by the persons accused of making the threats.
Said Kayatta, “So, ‘A’ says to the victim, ‘Give me your cash or I’ll punch you in the nose.’ That’s clearly extortion, everyone agrees. Here we have ‘A’ saying, ‘Give ‘B’ the cash or I’ll punch you in the nose.’ ”
Brissette lawyer Sara Silva contended no money exchanged hands “until the Local 11 union did the work” and earned the wages they were rightfully entitled to.
Attorney Thomas Kiley, arguing for Sullivan, called the feds’ appeal “groundless,” but did not directly address why the appellate panel should be persuaded Sorokin made the right call.
“This is an unusual case,” Barron told Kiley during one of many attempts to keep the lawyers focused on the personal-benefit dispute. “Like any unusual case, there are many possible points of attack. You seem to be suggesting that we canvass many points of attack. We just can’t operate like that as a court of appeals.”