The Herald reports:
An ex-aide to Mayor Thomas M. Menino yesterday walked out of federal court in Boston a free man, spared a lengthy prison sentence for peddling painkillers and cocaine after swaying a judge that he has turned his life around and plans to help other addicts do the same.
John Forbes' second chance at life comes a couple weeks after Dianne Wilkerson, who, like Forbes pleaded guilty, got 3 1/2 years. It'll be interesting to see what Chuck Turner (granted, a completely unrepentant Chuck Turner) gets when he's sentenced next week.
Federal prosecutors had recommended a 51-month sentence for Forbes - the same term given another man charged in the case.
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Comments
Graph These
By massmarrier
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 7:24am
That is offensive, and it may be a prelude to the DiMasi trial, if he doesn't cop and plea.
So, do we have bagels, doughnuts and bialies to compare here?
At the least, the mayor's aide was due prison time. The racial undertone is loud enough, even before the DiMasi resolution.
Yeah, they're not quite apples and apples
By adamg
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 7:30am
Wilkerson spent much of her long political career breaking the law, and she didn't seem to take much away from her past convictions and punishments, while this kid was up for his first offense.
But what an offense.
It would also be interesting to compare his sentence with that handed down to black 31-year-old OxyContin dealers from Roxbury who didn't happen to have jobs with the mayor.
Never miss a chance to race
By anon
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 8:26am
Never miss a chance to race bait, do you Adam? Must make you feel better about yourself. If you were really that concerned of the disparities of race you would be even more outraged that the mostly black residents of Wilkerson's district were deprived of representation the last twenty years. Her crime is much greater than some junkie caught up in a drug investigation.
More like Boston...
By JPSouth
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 10:37am
never misses a chance to dodge a discussion of race. Heaven forfend Adam suggest racial inequity in one of the most segregated cities in the country.
I don't see the race-baiting
By Anonymous
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 7:13pm
although begging the question is sometimes inferred to be race-baiting. I think the question is a sincere one: Is this equal protection under the law?
The comments above and below do a good job of exploring why the apparent discrepancy exists.
This fellow had all the advantages
By Dan Farnkoff
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 11:11am
He had a great job, political connections, a good family, probably a good education- yet he decided that he was so cool he could sell drugs to kids in his neighborhood to supplement his already ample income. He was a drug dealer by choice, not by economic necessity. That should have made him less deserving of sympathy than the average inner city kid who resorts to that sordid career- not more.
This seems to be a somewhat outrageous outcome, though frankly I don't know what the statistics are on sentencing for first time coke and Oxy dealers. Contrast this with the judge who made an example out of Patrice Tierney for tax evasion, giving her jail time. I'd wager that that was a first time conviction as well, for what would appear to be a far less serious crime than drug dealing.
For the judge to cite letters of reference from sundry powerful people and other concerned friends and family as actually influencing his sentence is particularly galling to me. So the kid had a politically connected family- what the hell does that have to do with justice? A lot of drug dealers lack those kind of influential friends, to be sure. Does that make them somehow more deserving of jail than this kid? It seems that Stern got the whole thing backwards.
This is a particularly blatant example of a phenomenon I've always suspected to exist in Massachusetts, and the United States in general: I think we have a prejudiced criminal justice system in which final outcomes have more to do with the race and social class of the offender than with the severity of the crime or crimes committed. I think that this kind of unequal treatment is absolutely rampant, and something should be done about it. What that "something" is, I have no idea.
Captaijn Obvious, is that you?
By anon
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 11:30am
You just realized today that the criminal justice system is racially and economically biased?
The biggest advantage
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 11:43am
Representation. Not that Wilkerson didn't have good lawyers, but it does make a difference versus the hypothetical 31-year old gang banger.
Wilkerson also used her office for illegal activity, and this wasn't her first offense. The drug dealer was running drugs, not using them as bribes.
Representation
By publicdefender
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 12:06pm
It is unlikely that anyone would have gotten committed time for a first time distribution charge for small amounts, regardless of who is representing them.
So why the hell didn't the judge just say that?
By Dan Farnkoff
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 3:23pm
The Globe made Stearns sound like a moron who thought letters from Travaglini and three dozen of this dude's cousins and cousins' cousins were sufficient reason go easy on Forbes. This of course made the outcome seem characteristic of old-boy/hack-network corruption.
But if the sentence was in fact exactly what any other convicted coke dealer would face for a first offense, then that indeed is consistent with justice. Stearns could have saved himself some trouble by skipping the talk of "tipping the scales of justice".
the kid was a drug addict, no? That's a disease.
By anon
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 12:02pm
Doesn't excuse his behavior, but it certainly provides a better explanation for it than "I just wanted some money," which is apparently Wilkerson's explanation.
Aren't we all.
By Dan Farnkoff
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 4:26pm
.
No need to bring race into this one.
By mmaryy
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 7:46pm
It's unfortunate that you did. These are very very different crimes and circumstances. And go into any BMC court on any day, and you will see lots and lots of repentent people (minorities included) also getting sentenced to probation. Jail time is a rarity. Also bear in mind, this kid didn't SELL HIS OFFICE. Huge difference - to the public trust and to the functioning of democracy. DiMasi should go to jail, too.
It's The Man
By RJ
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 11:09am
It's just The Man keeping honest sistahs and bruthas down; just one step away from a lynch mob, really.
Sure Adam, you keep telling yourself that. And while you're telling yoruself that, perhaps you can tell you readers what elected office that scumbag Forbes held (hint: it's none) vs. the elective offices scumbags Aunt Esther Wilkerson and Grady Turner serially abused over the decades.
Tool.
MassMarrier made a good point.
By Pete Nice
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 12:47pm
I don't think I've ever seen a drug dealer do time for a first offense no matter what his/her race is. 9/10 times in Massachusetts you have to be charged with 10-30 serious crimes before you see any jail time. And although I'm not all that familiar with federal sentencing guidelines, public officials that get charged with fraud/bribery/larceny type crimes usually do end up seeing a harsher penalty regardless if it is a first offense or not.
You're exaggerating, right, Pete?
By Dan Farnkoff
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 1:34pm
About the 10-30 "serious crimes"? But I do wonder whether Taylor had a much longer rap sheet- at 61, he certainly had time to accumulate one.
But what about mandatory minimums and all that, especially for the coke?
And just out of curiosity, was Forbes' attorney also his mother-in-law or something? According to the Globe, Forbes's wife Leah's maiden name was also Scapicchio.
I'm dead serious.
By Pete Nice
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 2:02pm
Especially with drug crimes. Violent robberies and firearm crimes are taken more seriously, but crimes that involve drugs, breaking into houses during the daytime, shoplifting, motor vehicle crimes etc are usually taken less seriously and do not result in jail time unless it is the 20th offense.
You would be amazed with how many people are on the streets who have had 75 or more arraignments for various crimes. Many of them get dismissed of course, but in general certain crimes are not taken as seriously in MA as other crimes. Drugs is one of those.
Pete is correct. The state
By anon
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 5:06pm
Pete is correct. The state uses "levels" and the feds use "points", both based upon prior violent acts. Drug dealers very rarely go to jail for even a second or third offense.
Wow...
By JPSouth
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 1:34pm
did you have to take the white robe and pointy hat off before making that post, or did one of your fellow Aryan Nation inmates sell you his online time for a carton of Camels?
This isn't about race
By Roslindalian
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 2:14pm
This is an odd post. These were two separate cases before (as far as I know) two separate judges. They were totally different offenses (one drugs, the other public corruption). The federal sentencing guidelines formed the basis for the judges' decisions on sentencing, as did the nature of the crimes. The judges weren't asking, "should this white drug dealer be sentenced to X in light of what that black politician was sentenced to?" Each judge, based on the case before them, was asking "is this drug dealer (or corrupt politician) required to serve prison time under the guidelines and were there any circumstances that would warrant devision from the guidelines?" Nothing about this suggests racial bias. The only thing these two cases had in common was a connection to politics (they weren't even both politicians!) As someone else commented, it would be relevant to look at how other first time drug offenders or corrupt politicians were sentenced in terms of race, but this is just silly.
Right, it's about money
By Marc
Thu, 01/20/2011 - 11:51am
I've given Adam the benefit of the doubt for a long time on his injection of racially-charged words and ideas into stories where they often don't belong. I'm starting to suspect that he frames so many stories in these ways, not just out of natural inclination, but as a conscious revenue generation strategy.
It's not pretty, but this is how the media game works. Hits and page views increase ad revenue. But just as important, the "stickiness" of a site as measured by how long a user stays on the site, and how frequently they return, are the determiners of how much he can charge for ads and ad networks.
Prior articles demonstrate that the race-baiting tone enhances the above metrics. It attracts non-regular posters, if for no other reason then to complain about the obvious mendacity and offensiveness of the framing. This debate in itself makes the blog more valuable.
Note: I do support Adam's right to generate revenue in this way. I look forward to many more unnecessarily divisive framings of essentially racially neutral articles. In time, they won't generate any attention, and then they will go away. ;)
Nah, racially framed stories don't make me extra money
By adamg
Thu, 01/20/2011 - 12:02pm
If I were going strictly for page views, I'd just keep running posts about bicyclists vs. motorists, the T (well, even more than I already run) and snow. I suppose I'd crash the server if I did something about bicyclists vs. T drivers in the snow.
This post is sixth this week in terms of page views - behind posts about the women who stood in the middle of Hyde Park Ave. to stop a bus during the storm the other day, Whole Foods/Hi-Lo, that East Boston kid who keeps running away, unshoveled bus stops and the French Toast Alert.
And if I were really out to make money hand over fist, I'd turn back on that annoying ad some people saw that started out as a talking ad for soy milk then turned into a paean to the Virgin Islands. Of course, I'd have to balance the extra money I'd be making (it came with an amazingly high CPM) with the page views I'd lose from people abandoning the site in disgust.
I guess I'm just the anti-Stephen Colbert: I do see race.