Jan. 7, 2015
It’s his last day as Governor of Massachusetts and Deval Patrick is making his ceremonial exit from The State House for the last time.
He may not have noticed, but if he had looked up from his cheering supporters on his way out the door he might have recognized Lawrence’s favorite convicted felon Lenny Degnan watching his grand exit from the balcony.
As Lawrence Mayor Willie Lantigua’s Chief of Staff, Degnan worked with Patrick on many issues and even testified for Governor Patrick’s bill to let Lantigua borrow $35M in order to prevent police and fire layoffs in the city. After the legislature passed Patrick’s loan order, Lantigua took the $35M, blew the $35M and then laid off 24 cops and 25 firefighters anyway.
Degnan was convicted last April of solicitation of a bribe with corrupt intent, conspiracy, knowing solicitation of a bribe, and unlawful use of official position to gain an unwarranted privilege. The bribe he solicited was from Allied Waste, the company that contracts with the City of Lawrence for trash removal.
Degnan was sentenced to serve 18 months at the Essex County House of Corrections, prohibited from ever running for office again, and mandated to serve 100 hours of community service upon release.
But, Degnan was not out on work release after serving his 18 month sentence, he was out on prisoner work detail at The State House, nine months into his sentence.
By all right Degnan was supposed to be in prison on the last day of Deval Patrick’s reign of power, or at the very least performing community service as an inmate at the Lawrence “Farm”.
Degnan once served as the city’s acting mayor of Lawrence back in 2000.
It only seemed fitting that the likes of convicted felon Lenny Degnan would be out of jail 9 month early, enjoying the pomp and circumstances of Deval’s last day. After all, Deval Patrick not only looked the other way for 4 years as Degnan and Lantigua ruled the City of Lawrence like Mafia dons, Patrick also appointed a parole board in Massachusetts that routinely let violent criminal offenders back out on to the streets despite being violent in jail and serving multiple life sentences.
(See Parolee Dominic Cinelli).
I can only imagine how hard WCAP Talk Radio host Howie Carr was laughing when he found out that yet another of Deval’s buddies was out early on work release, but somehow managed to get a work detail … at The State House … on Deval’s last day, … so that he could say goodbye.