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Dianne Wilkerson to plead guilty tomorrow

The Globe reports. Her plea hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. in Courtroom 1 at the Moakley Federal Courthouse before Judge Douglas Woodlock.

No word on the nature of her plea deal with federal prosecutors, who had her arrested in October, 2008 after her indictment on various charges related to alleged bribery and extortion involving Boston liquor licenses. She later had additional charges piled in, including allegedly conspiring with City Councilor Chuck Turner, who faces his own federal corruption trial.

The nature and number of the charges against Wilkerson would be enough to send her away for life if she were to go for trial and be convicted on all of them.

Turner's trial is scheduled for Oct. 12.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Her charges "would be enough to send her away for life if she were to go for trial and be convicted on all of them"?

True only if you add the text "and were given the maximum sentence on each count and all the counts were to be served consecutively rather than concurrently."

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Yeah - literally true, but never happens. I'd bet dollars to donuts it would be closer to 2 years than life, even after a trial. Sentences are virtually always served oncurrently, there's no victim in a wheelchair, etc. Garden variety petty corruption - she gets five, serves two.

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can we have Turner's trial when this is done?

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Geez--I can remember the good old days when a Diane Wilkerson thread would have attracted more than three people. It's great that it doesn't anymore. She is forgotten and it is greatly deserved.

Whit

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From Boston.com: Wilkerson pled guilty to eight counts attempted extortion and took four years in prison, three years of supervision.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/201...

I don't know if she's forgotten, so much as folks were just waiting to hear the deal. Personally, I'm glad she pled out (particularly if she's actually guilty, of course) -- a trial would have been painful for her district, and a plea is likely to have less collateral damage than a trial (although we don't know what, if anything, Wilkerson had to give). Anyway, it was the right thing for her to do.

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She is guilty. I would have loved a trial. It is a real shame for her district that there was not one.

Whit

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For the record, I wasn't doubting her guilt -- I believe she is guilty. I just meant that pleading guilty because you are is generally a good thing, in my opinion. And that insisting on a trial when you are guilty is generally a lousy thing to do. In other words, her guilt alone is enough for me to be glad that she took a plea. But I also don't think her district -- my district -- would have benefited from a trial (entertainment value aside), and I would worry about innocent people getting unfairly implicated or sullied in her effort to defend herself.

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Your assumption that only innocent people would somehow be "sullied" by a trial is interesting. And a trial would be "painful for the district"-- what? How could a trial be more painful than the fact than the pain incurred by her lining her pockets when she was supposed to be representing the district? I think a stronger argument could be made that the long-term health of the district might be better served by bringing things out into the light. And before you start defending your viewpoint, consider the blatant race-baiting that was faced by Sonia Chang-Diaz when she ran against Wilkerson. That, kid, was painful and disgusting-- the pain of a trial, by comparison, would be a paper cut.

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I didn't make the assumption that "only" innocent people could get hurt -- only raised the possibility that some innocent people could.

Also, it's BECAUSE of the blatant race-baiting that Sonia Chang-Diaz faced that I say that a trial would be painful for the district, in that it would open those wounds up again, and start those arguments over again about whether Wilkerson was unfairly targeted, or received unfair scrutiny because of her race, or whether an African American legislator needs to resort to bribery in order to get things done, and all that -- which, I agree, was painful and disgusting. Would a trial be MORE painful? Not sure, and I didn't say it would be, but, in my opinion, it would be more than a paper cut. And a trial would necessarilty entail Wilkerson's claiming she's not guilty (if not downright innocent), and I know that many people feel she has a history of not taking full responsibility for her, um, shortcomings, and that has been one of the very things that has inflamed passions in the district. Personally, I don't think it would be cathartic.

I'm also not sure that a trial would necessarily "bring things out into the light" either -- maybe I watch too much TV, but my impression is that trials function more to test the strength of a prosecution's case more than to get everything out on the table, whatever the stated intent might be. When somebody pleads guilty to something, they have to openly admit, sometimes over and over again, what they did that was wrong. I haven't seen a transcript or video of the hearing yesterday, so I don't know how detailed it was, but she doesn't get to remain silent. I'm also assuming, perhaps naively or incorrectly, that in order to reach an agreement about the charges and sentencing recommendation, she likely had to give information to prosecutors.

Feel free to disagree with me, but, anon, I did want to clarify my perspective because I do think we're both responding to how divisive and ugly things got in 2008 -- but just reaching a different conclusion about what's in our best interests now.

FF

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By all means let's bury this and move on. Best way to recover from the ugliness of 2008 is to not talk about it. That way the racism and corruption will end and everything'll get better, all on its own.

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I don't know how you got that from what I said. Let's absolutely talk about racism and corruption (I frequently do) and, no, they won't go away on their own. This incidence of political corruption isn't getting buried -- Wilkerson was caught, charged, and is going to jail. Personally, I prefer a guilty person admit it, than to claim innocence -- that's just me. We can disagree about the effect of a trial on the district, but please don't put words in my mouth.

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Because what you're saying is, "Let's not have a trial, because that would be bad, because it might hurt innocent people, and it would bring up the dreaded race thing, and that's better than actually talking about it." That, in so many words, is what you said-- that a trial, in your opinion, would be a bad thing, because you're some kind of genius who can predict what might come out in that trial. Ever occur to you that if it went to trial, something good might happen? That, say, the clear racism that's alive and well in this city might get exposed? As I recall, the famous cooperating witness had hoped to see people other than Wilkerson and Turner-- and was disgusted when tghe investigation stopped dead right there. Not that this would necessarily happen if Wilkeron stood trial, or that I fault for pleading guilty rather than take that kind of chance, but who knows, maybe it would have worked.

As for your "frequently" talking about race and corruption-- oh, please, you make my eyes roll all the way to the back of my head. I'm sure the diverse people of your district love to hear your take on that, based on what you learned at some leafy college or wherever. If your deep knowledge of this leads you to conclude, ahead of time, that a public corruption trial is necessarily a bad thing, then you truly know nothing.

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