It isn’t racism but some believe it’s a slam dunk
By Josh Resnek
What exactly US Attorney Racheal Rollins has ordered her Assistant US Attorneys and the FBI to do regarding the Everett probe she has initiated is information only they share between themselves.
They do not talk with journalists, lobbyists or powerful attorneys about investigations and probes.
Anyone who says they do is lying.
When the mayor tells his followers “nothing is going to happen, that the probe will turn into nothing,” he, too, is being a bit too optimistic.
We know this, the city was supposed to have turned over all the information Rollins was seeking from the mayor and the city by this time in July. Rollins apparently detailed the records she sought in a four page annotated letter to the city about four weeks ago.
Like most prosecutors who know what they are doing, Rollins likely asked for documents, recordings and videos she wants to see. She might have asked for e-mails and texts. What she will especially note are those items not produced or labelled “missing” that she is expecting.
The US Attorney’s office sets it own speed limit and determines how fast it wants to go, and when to slow down, and when to move ahead boldly.
That being said, there are those who claim to know what the US Attorney is up to with Everett, and the cast of racist characters who traded memes and racially charged e-mails and texts with one another in 2021 – much of which has been written about or reproduced in the Leader Herald.
Racism isn’t the only crying wrong she is going to unearth doing a probe here.
Rollins very likely has in her possession in a file on her desk or with an electronic file she can access on her computer, the FBI notes and recordings taken during a three hour meeting at FBI headquarters when City Clerk Sergio Cornelio, with his criminal attorney Joe Machera by his side, apparently shared secrets about the mayor’s longevity payments as well as a host of other matters.
If Rollins does not take up the longevity payment giveaway, she will be missing an opportunity. She will miss out on what many believe is the one issue that has the power to take down the mayor on its legal merits.
Former Councilor and Attorney Fred Capone has said on numerous occasions in the public forum that the mayor’s $40,000 yearly longevity payments were not just a “fraud” but a “theft.”
Will Rollins call in Capone for a talk about this?
Only she knows.
“She does not consider the longevity payments to the mayor a slam dunk,” said a source who claims to be close to some aspects of the probe.
“She considers it a layup,” he added.
Whether or not this is true is impossible to know unless Rollins admits this in public.
That just isn’t going to happen.
What is known about the US Attorney is that she is unrelenting when confronted with situations like that she has found in Everett.
Rollins, who is Black, will likely examine enough evidence of racism, discrimination and retaliation to take action against the mayor and the administration.
For Rollins, Everett is a potential fertile feeding ground for a major law enforcement agent looking to right a wrong.
When it comes to the mayor enriching himself with an alleged scheme that gave him $40,000 a year instead of $2500 the ordinance ordered it might even take her breath away.
City Solicitor Colleen Mejia, CFO Eric Demas and the mayor have said the hidden longevity payment’s efficacy was a “matter of interpreta- tion.”
How will Rollins interpret it if she actually takes a close look?
What might her interpretation and that of her Assistant US Attorney’s be?
Will Rollins understand why the mayor chose not to take the payment this year – which would have increased to $50,000?
Was the mayor being charitable or was he told by his attorneys he better not take the payment?
Does he owe the $180,000 he took, as demanded to be paid back by Capone?
What will Rollins do if she rejects the notion that the hidden longevity payments to the mayor were a matter of interpretation?
What if she interprets the payments as Capone has – as “fraud” and “theft”?
What then? What then does Mejia answer? What then is the answer of the CFO?
And what of the mayor’s answer: “I had nothing to do with it?”
Will Rollins believe that?
We must wait and see, or as our source advised us: “Be patient.”