NORTHAMPTON — Although an appellate court on Monday overturned a racketeering conspiracy conviction brought against a former state deputy probation commissioner from Hatfield, the damage to the defendant’s reputation may be beyond repair, his attorney said.
Former deputy probation commissioner William H. Burke III was convicted in 2014 in federal court in Boston of a racketeering conspiracy charge, along with two other probation supervisors facing similar charges.
During the three-month trial, prosecutors argued the group, also consisting of former probation commissioner John J. O’Brien and former deputy commissioner Elizabeth V. Tavares, carried out a decade-long political patronage hiring scheme that elicited preferential treatment for the department from the Legislature in exchange for jobs for their friends and relatives between 2000 and 2010.
O’Brien and Tavares were both convicted of racketeering conspiracy and mail fraud. O’Brien was sentenced to 18 months with a $25,000 fine and a year of supervised release, and Tavares received a 90-day sentence and $10,000 fine also with a year of supervised release.
Meanwhile, Burke avoided prison time, but was given with a year-long probation term and fined $10,000.
While Burke could not be reached for comment Monday or Tuesday, his attorney, John A. Amabile, said vindication for his client was welcomed, but overdue.
“I think (the reputation damage) really is irreparable,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday. “That’s why the exercise of prosecutory power has to be done in a very judicious manner … this was a man in his 70s who was a lifelong public servant.”
The trial, the attorney said, was a “tremendous debacle in terms of wasted resources.” Twice, in vain, Amabile filed a motion for a mandatory finding of not guilty — once right after the prosecution rested its case and again after the verdict came down.
“What has happened now is what we have said all along from the very first day that (Burke) was charged … Bill Burke committed no criminal offense whatsoever,” Amabile said. “That’s been our position from the very beginning, and that position has been vindicated.”
Rep. Peter V. Kocot, D-Northampton, said he wants constituents to rest assured that there are strict guidelines in place to help prevent the kinds of crimes of which the former probation commissioners were initially accused. These are guidelines that were not in place, at least as they exist now, when the three state probation officials were indicted in 2012.
For example, the House Committee on Ethics, of which Kocot is a member, issued an advisory in 2013 on public employees making and receiving job recommendations.
And while this set of guidelines exists in order to help determine whether the conflict of interest law was breached, no one situation is the same, Kocot said.
“Every fact pattern is so different … there was a very slow evolution of trying to include more fact patterns,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Since that whole clarification of state law and regulation has come through, I think the taxpayers are in a much better place … I think legislators are in a much better place.”
Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.