BREAKING: GoLocal MINDSETTER™ Tim Cahill Releases a Statement Regarding Indictment
Monday, April 02, 2012
Tim Cahill, former state treasurer and GoLocal MINDSETTER™
I am surprised to hear about an indictment. I have seen no evidence of criminal conduct by anybody, which does not surprise me because the truth is that nobody did anything wrong.
Permission ads were run by the Lottery in response to RGA ads attacking the integrity of the Lottery. The RGA attack ads had undermined public confidence in the Lottery and hurt sales measured year over year.
Running the ads was the right thing for the Lottery to do. Not running the ads because the RGA or an overzealous Attorney General might later question whether the ads might have benefitted the Treasurer politically would have been the wrong thing to do. Treasurer Cahill had an obligation to maximize Lottery revenues. He and the Lottery made the right choice to run the ads.
We are confident that a jury will agree and in the end, the Attorney General will have wasted an enormous amount of time, energy and scarce resources to bring criminal charges that never should have been brought.
Attorney General Martha Coakley holds news conference
A Suffolk County Grand Jury has returned several indictments against former Massachusetts Treasurer Timothy Cahill. Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office investigated the matter and spoke at a news conference this afternoon about the indictments. Coakley said, “He starts with violating state ethics law by using his official position to obtain an unwarranted advantage. Cahill gained an unwarranted and unlawful privilege by using his ability to launch a television ad campaign on behalf of the Massachusetts State Lottery that was carefully coordinated to promote his own campaign for governor instead of promoting the lottery and taxpayers and cities and towns that benefit from funds from the lottery.”
She said Cahill faces charges of violating state ethics laws, violating state procurement laws, and conspiracy charges in connection with both those alleged crimes.
In fiscal 2010, beginning on July 1, Treasurer Cahill oversaw a 2 million dollar advertising budget for the state lottery allocated specifically for advertising by the state legislature. By August of that year treasurer Cahill was also approaching the final month of his campaign as an independent candidate for governor.
Coakley claims Cahill used taxpayer money inappropriately to benefit his campaign
Coakley said, “While that lottery advertising budget was designed to help promote the lottery, which in turn supports the substantial and crucial financial aid that goes to cities and towns as a result of lottery sales, we alleged that treasurer Cahill made a decision with others to abuse his position of trust and put his own political ambition before the best interest of the taxpayers by essentially allocating 1.5 million dollars of the 2 million dollar budget to be used for television and radio broadcast ads during an 8 week period between September and November, which was concurrent with and would benefit his own political campaign."
Also indicted today by the grand jury was Cahill’s former campaign manager Scott Campbell on charges of conspiracy to violate state ethics law, procurement fraud, and conspiracy to commit procurement fraud. Indictments were also returned today against lottery chief of staff Al Grazioso on two counts of obstruction of justice for his alleged interference with this investigation.
In September 2009, treasurer Cahill announced he would run as an independent candidate for governor for the November 2010 election. Coakley said the state lottery had launched a television ad campaign using 75% of its budget to run during an 8 week period during September to November that promoted the Massachusetts lottery as the most successful lottery in the nation and was both consistently well run. Cahill did not appear in the ad nor was his name mentioned.
In late September 2010, Adam Meldrum who was the then the campaign manager for the Cahill campaign abruptly resigned. Coakley said Cahill sued him on October 7th with the purpose of the Cahill campaign seeking to enjoin him from releasing campaign secrets. In response Meldrum, replied that he was the whistleblower and that he had evidence to provide to the Attorney General’s office and to others that the Cahill campaign had improperly influenced this lottery ad campaign. At that time the Republican party also filed complaints alleging similar facts with the state ethics commission. On October 13th through a court ruling in that civil suit, Coakley said Meldrum released a series of texts that appeared to show a strong coordination between the Cahill campaign and the lottery advertising.
At that time Coakley’s office took action in asking the lottery to take down those ads, they did that pending a whole investigation by their office. And as a result, members of the Attorney General’s office began an extensive investigation reviewing thousands of emails, phone records, and other documents, interviewing dozens of witnesses from the Cahill campaign, the state treasury, and the state lottery, and others.
We then presented extensive evidence to a Grand Jury that Coakley said demonstrated an orchestrated effort by treasurer Cahill to coordinate the message and the timing to unlawfully assist his own campaign for governor.
Coakley said, “We allege that when the Cahill campaign conducted focus groups on July 26 and July 27 in 2010 they wanted to identify the message that would resonate with voters for the Cahill for Governor campaign. The significant takeaway from those focus groups at that time was that the treasurer’s leadership of a successful and well-managed lottery was the major selling point for him as a candidate for Governor.”
Coakley said those focus groups started the entire scheme because within one day the treasurer and his campaign began the process to begin the lottery ads funded by taxpayers to promote his own campaign message of effective leadership of the lottery.
Tracking text messages
Coakley said, “For example, on July 27th, the campaign manager met Cahill and then relayed a series of texts to another campaign staffer saying, ‘I just got the go ahead on everything we discussed. Yes on the lottery ads and he has plenty of money. Cahill thinks most of the 2 million is there. We just filed a million for extra publicity. But Cahill can’t be in the ad. But we run ads about the lottery being well run and putting money back into communities. I’m going to speak with an ad company about copy Cahill agreed.’ We also found evidence that the treasurer contacted the lottery advertising firm on July 28.”
The procurement and ethics law violations each carry possible sentences of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
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