Rachael Rollins wasn’t sending out text messages into the void. City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo was answering.
Two scathing reports on Rollins’s conduct as US attorney showed that she crossed all sorts of lines in leaking non-public Department of Justice information to reporters and exchanging hundreds of texts with Arroyo as she tried to boost his candidacy by burying his opponent in last year’s race for Suffolk County district attorney.
Rollins has taken a fast fall, with her resignation effective today. But what about Arroyo’s role in the sordid tale that exploded this week?
While trying to secure the job of top prosecutor in the state’s largest county he exchanged hundreds of texts and encrypted chats with the state’s top federal prosecutor, who was aiding his campaign in clear violation of rules governing her office.
Arroyo’s actions are ethically complicated, says Emil Ali, who sits on the board of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and teaches legal ethics at Lewis & Clark Law School. A rule of professional conduct known as “the rat rule” imposes an obligation on lawyers to report other lawyers’ unethical behavior.
“I wouldn’t say it’s certain, but there’s a strong argument that Arroyo has a duty to report the conduct of Rollins, in light of the OIG report,” Ali said. “And, you know, questions remain about what Arroyo’s involvement was, and if Arroyo counseled or encouraged Rollins to violate the rules of professional conduct or commit conduct that could implicate the rules of professional conduct.”
Just two weeks out from last September’s Democratic primary, texts reported in the federal investigations show, Arroyo started to push Rollins on the act that would ultimately lead to her resignation.
“Are y’all announcing an investigation into [the police misconduct case] situation with Hayden?” he asked her. “Would be the best thing I can have happen at this moment.”
Arroyo texted that he was “literally fighting a punch meant to end my career,” referring to Boston Globe reports that Arroyo was twice investigated but not charged for possible sexual assault as a teenager.
“Understood,” Rollins responded. “Keep fighting and campaigning. I’m working on something.” Rollins would later leak a DOJ document to the Boston Herald meant to suggest that there would be an investigation into interim DA Kevin Hayden, then lied under oath to investigators about being the source of the leak.
That Arroyo was seeking the role of district attorney – a “minister of justice,” as Ali puts it – raises a more general conflict at least, he said.
If a prosecutor came into office through the improper means of another, “I think you have a moral dilemma,” said Ali. “You were brought into power by improper means, and a prosecutor, unfortunately, has a lot of power in our society.”
The Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers declined to comment on any possible discipline for Arroyo or Rollins.
The jaw-dropping Rollins saga, in which Arroyo figures prominently, is reviving some of the bitter acrimony on the city council that surfaced during his DA run.
After the Globe’s sexual assault reporting last summer, council President Ed Flynn stripped Arroyo of his committee chairmanships. Blowback was fierce from the leftward council faction, with City Councilor Kendra Lara at the time saying the removal was “another embodiment of unfair and unequal treatment of councilors of color.” (Arroyo is Latino.) Flynn restored the chairmanships a few weeks later.
“Recent reports and troubling information has once again cast a shadow over the Boston City Council, causing a major distraction during both the budget and redistricting process,” Flynn said in a statement Thursday. “This is hurting our city at a critical time, and the residents of Boston deserve better.”
Flynn told CommonWealth he is not considering steps like removing Arroyo from chairmanship posts in response to the Rollins investigations.
Arroyo, who did not respond to several emailed questions about his conduct, released a general statement committing himself to serving his council district and saying “neither of these reports allege any wrongdoing on my part.”
The conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance disagrees. “The evidence being released by federal authorities seems to say otherwise,” spokesman Paul Craney said in a statement. “Arroyo should immediately step down from his position on the Boston City Council.”
Arroyo’s council colleague Erin Murphy also says Arroyo should consider resigning. The two are frequently on opposite sides of meaningful policy disagreements like the current imbroglio over redistricting, with Arroyo aligned with the council’s progressive bloc and Murphy the more conservative faction.
“I am beyond disappointed to read that my colleague, Ricardo Arroyo, apparently eagerly welcomed Rollins’s election tampering in order to advance his campaign for DA,” she said in a statement, adding “he must face swift and appropriate consequences.”
JENNIFER SMITH
FROM COMMONWEALTH
Pushing majority rule: House leaders appear to be pushing majority rule in most of the Legislature’s joint committees, but the effort has had little impact so far except in the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee. That committee has literally split in two.
– Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro said most senators have received a standard rules proposal from their House co-chair. Instead of requiring the agreement of House and Senate chairs on decisions about bill hearings and executive sessions – a standard embodied in the joint rules approved in January – the template calls for committee votes, which would favor the House since House members outnumber senators on most panels by a 2-1 margin. Cyr said he and his House co-chair put the issue aside for now and moved ahead with bill hearings.
– Senate President Karen Spilka addressed the issue for the first time on Thursday, saying power parity between the branches in committees is a tradition on Beacon Hill that is enshrined in the existing rules.
– Rep. Jeffrey Roy, the House chair of the joint Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee, said after a hearing attended only by House members that the current system allows his Senate co-chair to unilaterally block action by the whole committee. “If [senators] are concerned that the Democratic process will not favor their ideas, then maybe they should come up with other ideas,” Roy said. “We have a democratic process, majority should rule.” Read more.
Red flags: A series of red flags in the MBTA’s proposed budget has the T Advisory Board worried that a fare increase might be needed if ridership fails to pick up. Read more.
OPINION
Super PAC: Paul D. Craney of the right-leaning Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance explains why stopping the super PAC ballot question was important – more voices is better. Read more.
FROM AROUND THE WEB
BEACON HILL
Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll issue a governor’s citation to Taylor Alison Swift for her enchanted performances at Gillette Stadium.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The son of Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini is on administrative leave from his job as a teacher of foreign languages at Haverhill High School. (Eagle-Tribune)
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
The Rachael Rollins scandal is blowing back on the state’s US senators, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, who pushed for her nomination as US attorney. (Boston Globe)
ECONOMY
A bump in the national unemployment claims was the result of a spike in fraudulent claims in Massachusetts. (Boston Globe)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
Howie Carr has his say on Rachael Rollins’s swift fall from grace. (Boston Herald)
Berkshire County District Attorney Timothy Shugrue says Kelsey Cote persuaded her grandmother to make her the beneficiary of her $1 million estate and then killed her to finance her drug habit. (Berkshire Eagle)
MEDIA
Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy defends reporters at the Globe and Herald who had then-US Attorney Rachael Rollins confidentially dish dirt to them on Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden, who was locked in a nasty primary battle with Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo. “Sources have all kinds of motives, sometimes less than pure,” he writes. “Reporters want to get the story, and they generally don’t worry much about whether their sources are doing the right thing.” DigBoston’s Chris Farone is less enamored with the unholy alliance, saying the papers were “involved in even sleazier shit-tossing than most members of the public even think goes on behind the scenes.”
Northeastern University law professor Daniel Medwed has been suspended as an on-air legal analyst, pending an internal review from GBH News, after he was referenced in a Department of Justice report on Rollins.