MAYOR IN THE MIDDLE AT TRIAL
Walsh on witness list, mentioned by prosecutor in extortion case
A federal prosecutor placed Mayor Martin Walsh dead center in the government’s extortion case against two top City Hall lieutenants, telling jurors in opening arguments Tuesday that the mayor steered a Boston Calling concert promoter to aides who delivered a political “payback” to a union.
“These defendants, Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan, forced a private company, called Crash Line Productions, to hire workers it did not need or want for a music festival on Boston’s City Hall Plaza as payback to a union that was a political supporter and ally of their boss, Mayor Martin J. Walsh,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristina Barclay said.
Brissette, the city’s tourism chief, and Sullivan, the city’s director of intergovernmental affairs, are on trial in U.S. District Court, accused of pressuring Crash Line into hiring unnecessary union labor for the 2014 Boston Calling concert at City Hall Plaza.
The mayor has not been charged in the case but is on a witness list. Walsh has told the Herald he will testify if called. On Tuesday, Barclay stressed the mayor’s influence on the pair on trial.
“When Mayor Walsh introduced Bryan Appel of Crash Line, he told Bryan Appel — if you ever need anything, Kenneth Brissette is your guy,” she said.
Barclay also compared the pair’s push for the hiring of “political supporters of Mayor Walsh that the company didn’t want to hire” to a public official forcing a private company to hire a friend, in emphasizing to the jury the extortion aspect of the case.
William Kettlewell, Brissette’s lawyer, said his client asked the organizers to hire union labor simply to help them avoid a union protest at the upcoming event.
“Mr. Brissette’s job is to make sure events run smoothly,” Kettlewell told jurors. “He didn’t need that kind of disruption on City Hall Plaza.”
Thomas Kiley, lawyer for Sullivan, said there were “no explicit threats” made by the men toward Crash Line.
Walsh’s name came up again later during the testimony of the trial’s first witness, former “Top Chef” location manager Derrick Cunningham, testifying about an incident when a Teamster showed up at a June 2014 “Top Chef” shoot at the Revere Hotel in Boston and was “raising hell” about nonunion work on the show.
Cunningham said Brissette told him it could be a “potential mess” for the mayor, who was due to be a special guest in an episode.
“The concern was if the media got a hold of it it would have some political ramifications for the mayor,” Cunningham said in response to a question from Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Kaplan.