Sheriffs and Taxi Dispatchers

Do campaign finance laws provide an exemption from complying if the treasurer is not professional, or if the calculations are done at "a kitchen table?" If she loved her brother why did she violate laws on his behalf? Ah yes the impersonal "mistakes were made." How better to avoid accountability for humans, than if mistakes made themselves? Are these same principles of law permitted to criminal defendants who are not politicians? Your honor, "Mistakes were made."

When I was unable to pay rent after my last first-year law school exam, I drove a taxi in Cambridge, a prominent part of the former Middlesex County. One of the charming practices was for drivers to pay a fee to the dispatchers so that the dispatchers would favor them when a good job was received by the office. I discussed this issue with one of my teachers at law school. He explained that if you do pay them there is nothing to stop someone else from paying them more than you do, and getting better treatment than you even if you do pay. I did not pay.

One day another driver who did pay was given a job at a stand at a hotel where I was parked. I was discouraged and worked little that day. The next day when I went to get the cab for work the owner called me into the office. He asked me why I did so little work the previous day. I said I went home early. Then he asked why the meter cable was disconnected. I said I did not do that. One of the other drivers who was stealing from the owner by disconnecting the cable insisted on teaching me how to do it. The other drivers with many years of experience kept telling me to steal. I was embarrassing them by turning in all of the money I earned. I was a new driver. There was an indication of something very wrong.

The owner asked me who the dispatchers were feeding good jobs. The only one I knew was the guy from the previous night. I told him.

Soon that man disappeared. I learned years later he was sent to state prison for theft. I thought little of it. But the same man turned up ten years later as part of a team of FBI informants from Boston who were harassing me in another state. One of their favorite patterns was to have me thrown out of wherever I lived. They continued this for 22 years in three states.

When a supervising official is corrupt there are unintended consequences. Corrupt underlings go along with the corruption. Honest employees get harmed because they refuse to participate in the crimes. That FBI informant continued his abuses of power for 25 years. I have much to be grateful for. Unlike his colleague FBI informant in Boston, this cab driving thug did not kill me as James Bulger (now on trial in US court in Boston for 19 homicides) allegedly did to 19 civilians while he worked for the FBI. This is a ongoing problem with government in Massachusetts. There is little over sight of public officials. Why did so many of the deputies sheriffs go along with DiPaola? The cab driving FBI informant did help with a police frame up in 1990 after I complained to the chiefs of police in Cambridge and Somerville. But that is another story.

[From article]
"The investigation found that DiPaola’s sister, Patricia Covelle, 59, of Stoneham, who served as treasurer of his re-election committee, failed to report to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance $4,000 in cash contributions made to her brother between 2006 and 2010 above the individual $50 limit, Coakley said.
[. . .]
attorney Frances Robinson told the Herald, “She loved her brother.
[. . .]
Covelle, Robinson said, was not a professional campaign treasurer. “She was basically doing this at her kitchen table,” she said. “It’s not surprising that mistakes were made.”

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220126ag_sheriff_milked_employees_for_cash/

AG: Sheriff milked employees for cash
By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald
Thursday, January 26, 2012