The defense witness list is nearly three times as long as the prosecution’s, but the lists include substantial overlap.
05.27.2011 | BOSTON - Former Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi arrives last week at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse accompanied by his wife, Deborah DiMasi. By Kyle Cheney | STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BOSTON - A former spokesman to House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, who prosecutors suggest will testify that DiMasi lied to him as scandal enveloped the speaker’s office in 2008, is expected to help close out prosecutors’ three-week argument Wednesday, with all the evidence against DiMasi and his two codefendants laid bare for the 16-member jury.
Along with the former spokesman, David Guarino, Wednesday’s witness lineup is expected to include Andrea Roller – a witness from the U.S. attorney’s office expected to describe various pieces of evidence – and Richard Caturano, the longtime accounting partner of DiMasi codefendant Richard Vitale.
Mary Feeley, another aide to the U.S. attorney’s office who helped compile records of phone conversations among the defendants, will also conclude her testimony.
If prosecutors call all of the remaining witnesses they indicated they would, the government will have called 24 of the 43 witnesses on its list, from Gov. Deval Patrick and his former top aides Leslie Kirwan, David Morales and David Simas, to former lawmakers Robert Coughlin and Lida Harkins.
Prosecutors also called a bevy of former officials from Cognos Corp., the Canadian software company for which DiMasi stands accused of using his office to rig two state contracts in exchange for kickbacks.
Among them: Joseph Lally, a former Cognos salesman who pled guilty in March to conspiring with DiMasi, Vitale and lobbyist Richard McDonough in the alleged scheme. Lally was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case, putting DiMasi in the middle of the purported scheme and providing seamy anecdotes about the speaker’s thirst for more income and the paranoia the men suffered when questions about the Cognos deals made it into the Boston Globe.
Gov. Patrick, while not the all-encompassing witness Lally was, offered evidence that DiMasi pressed him and his aides to approve a pending software contract – which the administration later awarded to Cognos – and that he asked his budget chief, Kirwan, to do so “within the rules.”
Although most of the 18 witnesses prosecutors opted against calling were record-keepers for various entities – phone companies, banks, the Massachusetts Legislature, IBM, etc. – some of the more notable names who haven’t taken the stand as prosecutors finish up include: Doug Rubin, Gov. Deval Patrick’s former chief of staff; David Driscoll, the former state education commissioner; Louis Gutierrez, the Romney administration chief information officer; and Robert Ross, a top policy aide to Senate President Therese Murray.
All four of those men also appear on the defense witness list and could be called as they mount their argument over the next two to three weeks.
The defense witness list is nearly three times as long as the prosecution’s – there are 117 names on it – but the lists include substantial overlap.
Among the names on the defense list that have yet to be called: House Speaker Robert DeLeo; Senate President Therese Murray; Maryann Calia, former chief of staff to DiMasi; Jason Aluia, former deputy chief of staff to DiMasi; software lobbyist and former Patrick fundraiser Sean Curran; former Rep. Daniel Bosley (D-North Adams); House Speaker Pro Tempore Patricia Haddad (D-Somerset); education officials: commissioner Mitchell Chester, Secretary Paul Reville and deputy commissioner Jeffrey Nellhaus; former legislative IT chief Richard Arscott; former Patrick administration finance official Henry Dormitzer; celebrity chef Todd English; administration and finance official Matt Gorzkowicz; former state Sens. Robert Havern (D-Arlington) and Joan Menard (D-Fall River); lobbyists Arlene Isaacson, Matt Irish and Judy Meredith; House Clerk Steve James; former House counsel Lou Rizoli; state CIO Anne Margulies; former DiMasi and Patrick spokesman Kyle Sullivan; former legal counsel to DiMasi, Daniel Toscano; outgoing UMass chief Jack Wilson; and former administration and finance secretary Thomas Trimarco.
Through weeks of witnesses brought to the stand by prosecutors, DiMasi and his codefendants have consistently displayed confidence and ease in the courtroom, smiling and joking with family members during breaks in the proceedings. DiMasi, whose wife Deborah is on hand each day, typically embraces her in front of the courtroom at the end of each day’s testimony.