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Dianne Wilkerson arrested

Bra readjustment?

On federal corruption charges, PolitickerMA reports.

The Globe reports the federal government alleges Wilkerson was caught on tape taking bribes.

UPDATE: Read the FBI affidavit. Or take a look at photos allegedly showing Wilkerson putting cash in her bra (including the one above - the entire collection is a 1.2M PDF file).

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

She must have been set up by someone from Southie.
500 bucks Dianne? Really? Wow.

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Will she be disbarred? Or embarred?

Maybe she's just going to jail to improve her street cred.

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Google and Switchboard are not finding it for me, and I don't see a listing in last week's Weekly Dig, Phoenix, or Globe Sidekick.

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Deja Vu, which is a national nightclub conglomerate, says that their Boston location is on the corner of Washington St. and Essex St. They advertise exotic dancers, wet T-shirt contests, and special performances by XXX stars.

I don't remember seeing a sign for the club last time I walked through there, but given the advertised entertainment it may be just an easily missed blank door. Maybe under the RMV?
http://www.cd-factory.com/DEJAVU/dejavu.htm

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Deja Vu was going to open in the Crosstown center on Melnea Cass Boulevard. The complaint alleges that Wilkerson did some heavy lobbying of Tom Menino for one of those special new liquor licenses the city got and that Hizzona agreed to do her a favor and have one of the licenses "freed up."

The complaint makes interesting reading, of course, and provides a handy summary of all the legal action against Wilkerson over the years, including the case over which she might have been disbarred.

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Interesting link, but are you sure this would have been a branch of that, rather than just an unrelated local restaurant with the same name?

If it was going to be part of that chain, advocating for it would surely be against the interest of her constituents who live nearby.

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Looks like the complaint talks about a club opening on Melnea Cass Blvd., and not in the former Combat Zone. However, if there was already a club called Deja Vu in Boston then a new one either would need to be part of the same chain or change its name.

The FBI knows for sure. But given the neighborhood around the corner of Mass. Ave. and Melnea Cass Blvd., the Deja Vu chain may be exactly what constituents in that area want.

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Hahaha, Awesome.

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The Herald reports:

The source said photographs that will be attached to the criminal complaint filed today will allegedly show Wilkerson sticking cash up her shirt during one of the deals.

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And in another case:

According to the affidavit, Wilkerson brought along a grandchild when she accept a $1,000 kickback on Aug. 31, 2007, at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant.

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she accepted a $1,000 kickback on Aug. 31, 2007, at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant

Wouldn't that be "fill-a-bustiere"?

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A stack of lettuce in a warm pita = The Dianne Wilkerson.

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Wouldn't that be "fill-a-bustiere"

*** line of the week ***

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A horrid pun ... it just sort of popped out at me.

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I demand a recount. That spot is reserved for a joke off color.

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that is, 2 out of 40. The other one was Arlington's Jim Marzilli.

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I do not know whether Wilkerson is guilty of this alleged crime.

But this does remind me of something a colleague once told me had surprised him when he got into journalism (in a different part of the country).. He wasn't surprised that so many politicians could be bought; what did surprise him was that the bribes were *so small*. A $5K bribe could translate to actions worth millions of dollars to a business.

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He wasn't surprised that so many politicians could be bought; what did surprise him was that the bribes were *so small*.

Of course. It's not democracy if none of your constituents can afford you.

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Local lawyer claims one voter voted early for her because her Web site erroneously listed an endorsement from El Mundo. The campaign took down the link this week, a week after Wilkerson took down a page that listed a slew of endorsements from elected officials who were no longer backing her.

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If someone got the false impression that El Mundo had endorsed Chang-Diaz, it's pretty likely they got that from reading the paper.

El Mundo editor Alberto Vasallo told the website that while another editor at the paper, Maximo Torres, had penned a column endorsing Chang-Diaz, it did not represent an endorsement from the newspaper.

Sounds like a newspaper problem, not a Chang-Diaz problem. At most newspapers, there's a unified editorial voice, and when there's an actual editorial endorsing a candidate, it's the newspaper's endorsement.

Attorney Brian Monohan seems pretty dumb:

Attorney Brian Monahan said that Natalie Hernandez based her decision to vote for Chang-Diaz instead of incumbent Senator Dianne Wilkerson in the September primary on her belief that the challenger had been endorsed by the paper.

Other Hispanic voters also took the endorsement into account, he said.

"They are members of the Latino community and they read the newspaper and the endorsement of that paper was a big factor for them in deciding to vote for Ms. Chang-Diaz," Monahan said last night.

So he's suing Chang-Diaz because of what El Mundo printed? Hack.

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I want to hear the tape with Mumbles.

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"This is senator Wilkerson claiming she had a conversation with the mayor and then relying that information," said Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Menino. "There was never any intercept of the mayor's phone conversation with FBI."

And then under her breath after she hung up the phone: "...and thank fucking god for that, because otherwise the entire Boston city government would be fucked."

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Nathan Spencer twitters:

Sen. Wilkerson has disappointed her staff, supporters, the MA State Senate and her constituents most of all.

Jeff Cutler: Now she's got more to worry about than race and the race...

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I am thrilled to hear that she has finally been exposed as the cheat and the fraud that she is--but it is ridiculous that in this city it's so difficult to get a liquor license that you have to bribe elected officials to get one. Did she really get into all this trouble over 1000 bucks? Unreal. I guarantee that her political career is not over.

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No, it's $23,500 in bribes.

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But some of the bribes were for as little as 500 or 1000 bucks--23,000 is the total. So cheap!

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...that if this is the way the candidate "of color" (per Jean McGuire) behaves, then maybe it's good that the primary went to the candidate who comes from a "different community" (per Chuck Turner).

If you're going to run a campaign where your surrogates go out and abuse the opposition based on race, as if you are more of a stand-up person and "representing a core" of your community (per Wilkerson herself) because you are black and you suggest your opponent is not even latino...then getting busted by the Feds on undercover video and audio for extortion and taking bribes is obviously not the way to go about being that pillar of your race for which you propose to represent.

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is here.

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Here (1.2M PDF file). It's the appendix to the complaint linked above. One example:

Bra readjustment?
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IMAGE(http://i3.tinypic.com/82t4hnt.jpg)

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You've seen it.
You can't unsee it.

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Adam, put this in the story for the front page :-)

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Exhibit D? Not DD?

She's going to need extra room in there for those C-notes.

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She's just keeping abreast of her campaign finance picture.

She just didn't realize that while she was underwiring money, somebody else was wearing a wire under.

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She wasn't banking on an undercover operation.

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A Maidenform.

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From the complaint, the FBI agent comments that a cooperating witness saw Wilkerson receive a 2nd bribe in their presence because she fell behind on her mortgage and pinged the club owner for a second payment! Well, obviously, we *can't* pass Question 1 now! We're not even paying our state reps enough to live on the edge of Franklin Park!

Even worse, she started race-baiting even in pursuit of this corruption! In early July 2007, she sent a package of information to a Globe columnist complaining about the lack of liquor licenses available to minorities in the city! She was attempting to foment a political environment that would grease the wheels for her minority friend trying to open a nightclub with a full liquor license. It's not enough for her to actually try to extract favors from other politicians, but to then try to stir the public through the press in order to influence her corrupt path is just sickening.

Then, after one of the bribe payments (even though she was falling behind on her mortgage only months before), she went to Foxwoods with the money!

Also, Wilkerson still uses AOL. LOL.

Also, her nickname is evidently "DeeWee" based on one of the e-mail addresses she gave them for correspondence. Also LOL.

The litany of evidence against her is truly damning. I hope she goes away for a very, very long time. She is an absolute blight on our state politics and anyone who has backed her (I'm looking at you, you crazy rat bastard, Chuck Turner) had better be quick to make distance from her. If they don't then I hope she's a political anchor that sinks them to the bottom just as fast.

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Wilkerson aside, when will the Globe finally realize that the street is Melnea Cass not Melena Cass?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melnea_Cass_Boulevard

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Sadly, that one took me years.

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The good news is they fix stuff like this quickly if you e-mail them about it. The bad news is that I've noticed them messing up things like lose/loose more often too.

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Until I read this right now, I always thought that as well.

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'cept she thought it was Melanin Cash Boulevard.

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I've always just called it Mama Cass Boulevard.

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Every person in my office is currently crowded in front of a computer shrieking at the money-into-bra action.

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

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I'm getting a Lane Bryant bra ad next to this thread.

--Kelly

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can borrow mine. - http://despair.com/sanity.html

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The one I got next to her photo says "Relax. We'll handle it." (from AT&T)

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Is she going to claim that it was because of a death threat again, one that happened after the crime?

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it should be noted that WHDH broke the story first. The boston globe didn't update their website to reflect the breaking news (and did not have a story up when they did, only said "WHDH reported") until 35-40 minutes after WHDH interrupted the Today show to announce that she had been arrested by the FBI on corruption charges. See my blog for details/timeline riforever.blogspot.com

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You'd think with all those different bribes she'd at least know the proper way to put money into her bra - yikes. (Lots of little old ladies could show her the discrete way to do it but I guess discretion isn't something she's familiar with.)

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That would be David at Blue Mass. Group, who was moved by a talk Wilkerson gave at the Democratic convention in Denver about her rise from poverty and her "burning desire to represent the poor and underserved." Now, he says:

... [I]f the allegations are proven, she was on the take the whole time. If this is true, she profoundly betrayed her colleagues and her constituents.

I'm astounded by the hubris and the hypocrisy. But I guess I'm hopelessly naïve when it comes to this kind of thing.

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Michael Jonas tries to sum up Wilkerson's career:

... With today's developments, Wilkerson, whose public career has long resembled a car careening wildly out of control, appears to have finally crashed into the wall. A full decade ago, in a Globe story following Wilkerson's 1998 halfway house confinement related to her tax conviction, Janis Pryor, a political consultant who worked on Wilkerson's first state Senate campaign in 1992, spoke for many when she expressed bafflement at what had already become of her once promising career. "This woman was the bright, shining hope. You can't imagine how many of us have sat around and said, 'What the hell happened?' "

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Mike Ball, who's been chronicling Wilkerson's baggage for awhile now, hears of her indictment and thinks of the future:

... Wilkerson's wipe-out is surely a bitter disappointment to many. It need not impede the overdue development of other legislators of color. It may even be reasonable for each state lawmaker to groom one or two candidates for office. That's a long process and some will drop out before running, but students and young professionals should know that making laws and representing their constituents is an option, one that it is both desirable and possible.

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Or did she have to hit the panty fund for that?

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Two sentences from the article you linked to stand out to me:

Some supporters suggested the senator, who has a long history of campaign finance violations and personal legal problems, was being targeted by law enforcement officials.

Yes, good point, that's usually how they catch criminals/repeat offenders...by targeting them.

Asked about those concerns, one of Wilkerson's two sons who attended the hearing, Cornell Mills, said afterward, "What can you say? We'll just have to wait and see how it works out."

Wow, her son totally thinks she's guilty.

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Was the quote from the US Attorney about how he didn't think any other elected officials took bribes; just that they were engaging in normal horsetrading.

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Nobody else could fit a horse in her bra.

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My friends spent like 10 minutes last night cracking up after seeing the photo that you chose.

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