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Call him the Uncooperating Witness
By adamg on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 9:38am
Adrian Walker scores another interview with Ron Wilborn, the Roxbury businessman who allegedly fed bribes to Dianne Wilkerson and Chuck Turner and who now says he will refuse to cooperate with the feds because he feels he was used to get a pair of black pols (and that he thinks Wilkerson's a crook but that Turner was just unlucky). He tells Walker he's angry no white politicians named in the indictments (and you may recall how prominently Boston Licensing Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski figured in the Wilkerson complaint) have been charged.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney's office says it has evidence against Wilkerson it's yet to produce publicly. The claim comes in a written answer the office filed in reply to Turner's effort to quash the government's effort to keep him from publicly discussing "discovery" evidence turned over to his attorneys:
[T]he discovery material contains a substantial amount of inculpatory evidence against Ms. Wilkerson which has not been the subject of prior pleadings, the selective release of which could inhibit her right to a fair trial.
A federal district court judge will hear arguments on whether to block Turner from speaking about this evidence on Feb. 25; Turner holds a pre-hearing rally at 6:30 p.m. on the 24th at Roxbury Community College.
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Comments
Run him through the ringer
Subpoena, immunize, then find him in contempt. They don't need this race-card playing weasel to make their case against Wilkerson and it seems like he is going so far as to try and sabotage their case against Turner.
His initial motivation was that ALL city/state government was too insular and "boys club"-ish. He handed money to two black politicians. Hey, smart guy, where were these contentions of racism earlier? Have you noticed that they haven't implicated any other black politicians once they sprung the trap either?
Sometimes when you shut the trap, evidence against more people than the ones you already caught gets "lost" (but the damage is already done!). For some time to come, politics will probably play by the books for fear of feeding the reaper who has already come once. Yay for you! Too bad you have to go and ruin it by turning your back on what you started because you think they were only going after black people (why? did you give any money to any white people?).
not so fast
I wouldn't be so quick to condemn the guy. Anyone who has experienced Boston's sorry-assed record on race, especially an African American who has been around this town for some time, has reason to be suspicious of efforts to nail vocal black leaders. The dynamics here are painful and complicated: I have little doubt that the prosecutors were delighted to find a respected African American businessman ready to help them out with this.
I'm not making excuses for Wilkerson or Turner. Wilkerson let down a ton of people with her unethical behavior. She should've been booted out of office in 2006, and thank goodness she's gone. And Turner's defense "strategy" has become a side show.
But maybe Wilburn looked back at how this has been unfolding and felt played. I don't know the guy, but it sounds like he has been digging deep to figure out the events he helped to trigger. His change of heart does not mean he's a bad guy suddenly excusing corrupt officials who happen to be black.
And please read some of the nasty comments left on the Globe website and tell me that virulent racism isn't still alive and well in Greater Boston. The situation has improved significantly -- look at the elections of Patrick, Cabral, and Yoon, for example -- but there remains a deep undercurrent of haters in this town.
Globe comments vs Reality
If you look at YouTube comments, you'd probably imagine that the KKK lynches blacks in Harlem every night. Sites with anonymity and little to no censoring don't last long without becoming havens for vocal racists and 10 year olds that just learned which "n-word" is the one worse than "nipples". I don't put a lot of faith in boston.com comment sections being any sort of representation of America, let alone Boston.
As for past racism playing a factor in Wilburn's recent actions/comments, it's certainly possible. And I guess racism breeds more racism, but that doesn't make the new stuff any less racist. First, these crimes are being investigated by the Federal Government (you know, the one run by a black guy) and not state or local government. Second, it's not like the US Government isn't looking into Sal DiMasi, a white state politician, enough to make him step down just a few weeks ago. His white friend, Vitale, is up for charges on the state level. Finally, it's not like Wilburn did ANYTHING as part of his cooperation to actually indicate a white politician did anything wrong other than *maybe* the white guy running the licensing board (whose sphincter is probably the tightest one in the State House once he heard this crapstorm coming from the indictment against Wilkerson). So, who exactly does he want them to bring down and for what reason? Which white guy are they ignoring in all of this?
Wilburn clearly has a grudge against Pokaski for his rough handling of Wilburn the first time Dejavu went through the licensing board. Then Wilburn basically pays a black legislator who manhandles Pokaski (and Pokaski's salary/raise if I recall correctly) until he gives them the license they want for a bar that isn't setup correctly to even receive a license yet! So, Wilburn is told Pokaski doesn't want to see him anywhere near that hearing (imagine that!). And now we arrive at Wilburn's conclusion that they haven't put charges on Pokaski because he's white? What a bunch of nonsense. Wilburn wants to see Pokaski go down, but it's hard to say he wasn't just doing what he was supposed to do right up until the actually corrupt politican told him "do what I say or else" at which point he played ball just to stop getting bludgeoned by the politics and process. Wilburn basically started this and then yanked back his support when he didn't like that his specific -- white -- target in mind wasn't rounded up *yet* (the investigation isn't even OVER at this point!).
The worst part is that in the beginning when Wilburn was determined to be the CW, he wrapped himself up in "civic duty" and had everyone thanking him for exposing corruption, but now that he doesn't like the outcome...now, the system is racist and he's turning his back on justice being done. What a self-serving hypocrite.
self serving hypocrisy???
Again, let's not be so quick to judge and condemn. In this town, an African American businessman who helps to set up two African American legislators is not doing himself any favors. It's not as if he's going to be embraced by white power brokers. And Wilburn certainly is not the toast of Black Boston for doing what he did.
Wilburn's claim of doing his civic duty was as much a defensive posture against potential backlash from parts of the African American community as anything else. Or, to put it more bluntly, some within that group consider him a traitor to his people.
Again, I don't know him, and I'm not privy to details about his life. But I'm guessing that he has not been enjoying any of this.