Dianne Wilkerson, former super advocate for GLBT causes in the State Senate, has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for accepting $23,500 in bribes. Those are the bribes they know about. The sentencing judge "assail[ed] the state's political culture."
Here's Wilkerson marching in the 2006 Boston Pride parade with her good friend from MassEquality, Marc Solomon. Talk about the culture of corruption.
US District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock agreed with Assistant US Attorney John T. McNeil, who argued that Massachusetts politics have become so cynical that two former House speakers convicted of federal crimes — Charles F. Flaherty and Thomas M. Finneran — were “welcomed back like they were some sort of heroes’’ at State House ceremonies on Wednesday. Neither Flaherty nor Finneran was sentenced to prison.
“It’s clear the sentencing imposed for criminal conduct here and, frankly, in other industrial states, hasn’t been sufficient,’’ said Woodlock. Referring to a culture of political corruption in Massachusetts, Woodlock said, “That Gordian knot has not been cut. People go back to do it again.’’
