The Boston Globe - 27.08.2019

Metro

THE BOSTON GLOBE TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/METRO

B

When FBI agents arrest-
ed Dana Pullman last
week on charges he was
using Massachusetts
State Police union funds
as his personal ATM, it
marked a striking rever-
sal of fortune.
For generations, the
staties were the gold standard for law
enforcement integrity, while the FBI was
institutionally corrupt — an egregious
and repeat offender.
No law enforcement agents did more
to bring the FBI’s institutional corrup-
tion to light and South Boston gangster
andprotectedFBIinformantJames
“Whitey” Bulger to justice than mem-
bers of the Massachusetts State Police.
In the 1970s, after FBI leaders had
encouraged and rewarded Bulger crony
and FBI agent John Connolly’s recruit-
ment of Bulger as an informant, ostensi-
bly to aid the takedown of the Boston
Mafia, State Police leaders like Jack
O’Donovan urged their troopers to take
Bulger down, seeing him for what he
was, a vicious and venal murderer.
In the 1980s, while FBI agents were
socializing with and accepting gifts from
Bulger and his murderous sidekick Ste-
vie Flemmi, even as Whitey flooded
Southie with the drugs he claimed to
keep out of his neighborhood, a cadre of
honest and courageous law enforcement
agents were trying to take him out.
Prominent among them: the Boston
cops Frank Dewan, Jimmy Carr, Kenny
Beers, and Chip Fleming; DEA agents
Dan Doherty, Steve Boeri, Al Reilly, and
Paul Brown; and an army of state troop-
ers led by Bob Long, Rick Fraelick,
Arthur Bourque, Billy Powers, and Jack
O’Malley.
Alas, Connolly and other FBI agents
tipped Bulger off so he could evade State
Police and DEA snares.
In the 1990s, after FBI agents helped
Bulger murder potential witnesses who
could expose their sordid relationship,
staties like Charlie Henderson, Joe Sac-
cardo, Steve Johnson, John Tutungian,
MikeScanlan, TomDuffy,PatGreaney,
and Tom Foley spent every waking hour
lining Bulger up for arrest. Again, the
FBI tipped Bulger off, so he could flee.
He spent 16 years of bliss on the run, liv-
ing in a rent-controlled apartment in
Santa Monica, Calif., near the Pacific
Ocean before he was finally found and
arrested.
Fast-forward, and now the FBI is reg-
ularly slapping handcuffs on state troop-
ers alleged to have cheated the system,
and the taxpayers, by padding their wal-
lets with overtime pay they didn’t earn
and, in Pullman’s case, allegedly using
union dues to buy all sorts of personal
items, including spending $4,000 for
flowers for his mistress.
This kills honest cops like Bob Long.
He is retired now, but once a statie, al-
ways a statie. He now avoids wearing
anything with State Police insignias in
public. “It’s too embarrassing,” he said.
“It’s an invitation for others to bring up a
sore subject.”
To Long, this all comes down to hu-
man frailty and poor supervision. The
places where State Police corruption
took root — the turnpike, the airport,
and the union — have historically lacked
strong supervision. Long also thinks ser-
geants should not be part of the troop-
er’s union, because they can be pres-
sured into looking the other way when
troopers screw up.
For all his despair, Long took heart
while attending the most recent State
Police Academy graduation in Worces-
ter. “The whole ethos of the ceremony
was about proving ourselves again,
about integrity,” he said. “That gave me
some hope. I have faith in these kids.”
Disillusioned by the FBI’s coddling of
a murderer like Bulger, infuriated by the
Justice Department’s disgraceful treat-
ment of Bulger’s victims, I could be ac-
cused, and have been, of sometimes
painting the FBI with too broad a brush.
I know a lot of good FBI agents, includ-
ing my father-in-law.
There is a similarly broad brush being
applied to the State Police right now,
that all staties are corrupt or looked the
other way, that all they care about is job
details and overtime.
Broad brushes are good for smearing
paint. They’re not good for drawing ac-
curate portraits. Take it from someone
who has wielded a brush or two.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He
can be reached at [email protected].

Fortroopers,

fadedglory

Kevin Cullen

By Stephanie Ebbert

GLOBE STAFF

Hélène Vincent had managed to keep a straight face

and a cool head while presenting her candidacy for Boston

City Council to a man who answered the door in his under-

wear.

He wasn’t her first pantsless

voter — not even that day — and

she felt she’d made a good pitch. What deflated her was his

response to her question: “Can I count on your vote?”

“Yes,” the 77-year-old told her, “if no one knocks on the

door who’s more attractive.”

“After all of this conversation, he’s just going to make a

comment on my appearance?” Vincent asked in an inter-

view, recalling the exchange. “It makes you feel pathetic

when you are trying so hard.”

This is what it can be like, campaigning while female:

WHATSHESAID,PageB

By Matt Stout

GLOBE STAFF

In a sign of the widening rift be-

tween Governor Charlie Baker and

the state GOP, party officials have

quietly dismantled the lucrative —

and controversial — fund-raising

operation that helped pump mil-

lions toward the second-term Re-

publican’s two campaign victories.

The Massachusetts Victory

Committee, a joint effort the Mass-

GOP launched with the Republican

National Committee in 2013, has

collapsed in recent months, taking

in next to no cash after raising $

million over the previous five

years.

Jim Lyons, a conservative for-

mer lawmaker elected as party

chairman in January, has also scut-

tled the state GOP’s longtime fund-

raisers, and he has questioned

spending at both MassVictory and

the party under Baker allies.

The moves, some in and around

the party fear, could sap the long

cash-strapped GOP of badly need-

ed resources at a time when the

fractures between Lyons, a Presi-

dent Trump supporter, and the

more moderate Baker, a Trump

critic, have never appeared wider.

“It’s clear that a successful fund-

raising operation is not a priority of

current MassGOP leadership,”

John Cook, the finance chairman

of MassVictory since 2015, wrote

Monday in a scathing e-mail to

state’s 80 GOP committee mem-

bers. The MassVictory committee

“has been closed down” — suggest-

ing it was Lyons’ decision — and

party fund-raising has badly lagged

since, Cook added.

“Our GOP candidates up and

down the ballot in 2020 are unlike-

ly to receive any direct financial

support from the party, and the vi-

tal programs the MassGOP pio-

neered over the past five years are

at risk of being mothballed,” he

said.

GOP,PageB

GOP

funding

source

folded

Movehighlights

Baker,partyfissure

Needed resources

may be in jeopardy

PHOTOS BY SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF

Forfemalecampaigners,stopscanconfound

Women risk their safety to serve

WHAT SHE SAID

JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF

Hélène

Vincent

smiled as

she listened

to a resident

explain why

they couldn’t

answer the

door on

Smith Street

in Mission

Hill, where

she was

campaigning

. She is
running for
Boston City
Council
District 8.

FORMER SPRINGFIELD MAN

RECEIVES PURPLE HEART

T

he United States Coast

Guard honored

Seaman Norman

Wood Finch of Springfield

with a Purple Heart

Ceremony at the Chatham

Coast Guard Station on

Monday. Finch was killed,

along with 129 others, when

the USCGC Tampa was

torpedoed in 1918. Above,

the Coast Guard Color Guard

began the ceremony. Right,

the seaman’s relatives, twins

Steven and Brad Finch,

collected his purple heart.

B

By Vernal Coleman

GLOBE STAFF

The services of the national tran-

sit experts tapped to examine MBTA

safety procedures — after a June

Red Line derailment that caused

widespread delays — come with a

hefty price tag.

The agency has agreed to pay a

group led by Ray LaHood, a former

US transportation secretary,

$35,000 a month in consulting fees

as part of a contract signed last

week, while former Federal Transit

Administration director Carolyn

Flowers will receive $499 per hour,

according to documents released

Monday.

Under a third contract, MBTA of-

ficials agreed to pay Carmen Bianco,

the former head of New York’s Met-

ropolitan Transit Authority, just

over $400 per hour, with separate

fees of $200 per hour for two mem-

bers of his staff.

The trio of consultants are being

brought in to assess the state of the

T’s rail operations and infrastruc-

ture, and determining whether the

MBTA,PageB

T safety exam comes with hefty price

Consultant contracts

may run past Nov.

By John R. Ellement

GLOBE STAFF

Four men are now facing charges

for a ferocious gunfight on a Boston

street in April that led to the death

of a 74-year-old Mattapan grand-

mother who was described Monday

by Suffolk District Attorney Rachael

Rollins as a “beautiful” woman who

was “robbed of her life.”

The four men include the grand-

son of Eleanor Maloney, who was

mortally wounded outside her home

on Mattapan Street around 5 p.m.

on April 6 while she was spending

time with her family, authorities

said. Maloney worked at Boston

Medical Center for 44 years and was

a member of the region’s medical

community who cared for victims of

the Boston Marathon bombing.

According to Rollins and Suffolk

Assistant District Attorney Masai

King, Maloney’s 37-year-old grand-

son, Anthony Davis, got into an ar-

gument with 23-year-old Dane Hen-

ry, a Roxbury man, in the middle of

Mattapan Street.

Davis allegedly fired first, hitting

Henry in an arm. Both men then re-

treated to the sidewalk and opened

fire on each other, eventually firing

at least 16 bullets during the gun-

fight that left eight spent .45-caliber

shell casings on one side of the

street and eight 9mm shell casings

on the other side.

One of the bullets hit Maloney in

the neck. She was pronounced dead

at the scene.

Davis was arraigned in Suffolk

Superior Court Monday where he

pleaded not guilty to first-degree

SLAYING,PageB

Mattapan man is arraigned on murder charge

Woman, 74, killed

in April shoot-out

FAITH NINIVAGGI/POOL

According to authorities,

Anthony Davis, 37, fired first in

the middle of a Mattapan street

in April.

TheMBTAhasretainedthe

servicesofnationaltransitexperts

toexaminesafetyproceduresand

agreedtothefollowing:

$35,

amonthinconsultingfeestoRay

LaHood,formerUStransportation

secretary

$

anhourto aformerfederaltransit

officialand justover

$

an hourtoaformerNewYork

transitofficial