Jury selection set for Walsh aides in Boston Calling case

Jury selection in the trial of two of Mayor Martin Walsh’s top lieutenants will begin today, after a judge tossed the pair’s latest attempt to get their case dismissed last week.

Boston tourism chief Kenneth Brissette and director of intergovernmental relations Timothy Sullivan are facing charges of extortion under the Hobbs Act for their alleged bullying of a concert organizer in 2014. Prosecutors say Brissette and Sullivan pressured concert organizer Crash Line Productions into hiring unneeded union labor for the 2014 Boston Calling music festival at City Hall Plaza.

Federal Judge Leo Sorokin last week ruled on multiple motions by lawyers for Brissette and Sullivan and the government, including rejecting the pair’s third attempt in the past two years to get their case dismissed on the reason that their actions were not a wrongful use of fear of economic harm as defined under the Hobbs Act.

“It was wrongful because there was a licensing agreement between Crash Line and the city which did not require them to use union labor,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Kaplan said in a hearing last week. “Even the requests for proposal did not call for the applicants to use union labor.”

Sorokin previously dismissed the pair’s case in March but was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Kaplan emphasized to Sorokin in the hearing last week the pair’s motion to dismiss brought nothing new to the argument.

Last week, a spokeswoman for Walsh would not say whether the mayor spoke to a grand jury in the case, and it is unclear if he will testify.

“Mayor Walsh will remain focused on the work he does every day, moving the city forward and working to expand opportunities for Boston residents,” a spokeswoman for Walsh said Sunday in a statement highlighting his upcoming events this week and declining comment on the case.

The trial is expected to last two weeks, and will feature witnesses including former Boston police commissioner William Evans, who attorneys for the pair wrote in court documents will be a critical witness because of his role concerning the issuance of an alcohol license to the Boston Calling organizer in 2014.