Threats to Sal DiMasi’s Physical and Political Life

You know you’re going to have a rough day when the Globe has so much coverage about you that they can run it under one headline. House Speaker Sal DiMasi gets the treatment this morning as the broadsheet reports on the continuing saga of Richard Vitale’s lobbying work and reveals that the Speaker was receiving death threats during the heated casino debate.

It’s hard to guess which is scarier for DiMasi. Let’s start with the threats on his physical life.

During two separate periods. . . police assigned an undercover officer to stand watch outside DiMasi’s North End condominium, because of threats contained in an anonymous letter sent to his State House office and overheard in a conversation[.]

[Sources] said one of the parties in the conversation mentioned specific details of DiMasi’s private life, including the kind of dog he has and when he walks it.

We understand that certain people had a lot riding on the outcome of the casino legislation, but there’s no reason to involve a man’s dog in a quest for vengeance. That’s just wrong.

But perhaps the most immediate threat is to DiMasi’s political well-being. The cabal of ticket resellers that DiMasi’s friend and mortgage broker Richard Vitale claims to have “strategized” for, has registered as a lobbying client of his for 2007 and 2008. If that’s true, DiMasi probably violated ethics laws when he signed up for a below-market-rate third mortgage finagled by Vitale.

Maybe those detail cops should keep DiMasi’s friends from entering his condo. They seem to be causing him nothing but trouble lately.

Photo by John Goodman