Surefire hack hall of famer
Howie Carr, Boston Herald 4/6/14
John Buonomo should be inducted immediately into the Hack Hall of Fame.
Forget the usual five-year waiting period, this is a payroll Charlie of impeccable credentials. In sports, they call particularly versatile athletes “triple threats.” In the hackerama, they’re known as “triple-dippers,” for the number of ways they’re ripping off the taxpayers.
Buonomo was that rarest of hack phenoms, a quadruple-dipper: County salary of approximately $110,000 a year. Somerville city pension beginning at age 48 that eventually got as high as $40,000 a year.
Ripping off his campaign account to the tune of $172,000.
Robbing untold thousands in his nightly raccoon-like depredations on the Xerox machines in the Registry of Deeds office downstairs from his own office in the East Cambridge courthouse.
In a career tragically cut short by state police infrared surveillance cameras, Buonomo posted Gehrig-like numbers. And consider the all-star lineup he had to break into back in the glory days of Somerville — the Piros, the McKennas, the Howes, not to mention Larry Bretta and Mike McLaughlin (better known these days by his Bureau of Prisons number 94973-038).
As Billy Bulger (of all people!) used to say of Somerville, “Why not just put up a fence around the whole city and give everybody inside 3-to-5?”
Alas, Buonomo’s snout was finally pried out of the trough this week by the Supreme Judicial Court when they severed his last link to the public dole, a $40,000 annual pension from the city of Somerville. In the ultimate rebuke, the SJC also ordered Buonomo to repay the All-American City’s retirement board $150,000.
Oh, how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is, to lose that monthly kiss in the mail.
Until I read the SJC decision, I never realized that Buonomo had been collecting the Somerville pension since 2000, when he was 48 years old. As a hack’s hack, Buonomo was always … hanging around, either at City Hall or at the courthouse in East Cambridge. That was where he worked for, among others, Mike McLaughlin, then a Middlesex county commissioner, now an inmate at the federal pen in Lewisburg until April 23, 2016.
Middlesex County — it’s just a name on the map now, but once it was a way of life. They had a county road department — but no county roads. A county employee once went out on disability after claiming he fell out of his swivel chair at the courthouse.
John Buonomo was the, ahem, executive administrator of Middlesex County. Just as McLaughlin filed for his grossly inflated pension with the city of Chelsea retirement board, Buonomo filed for his with the city of Somerville rather than the state. Payroll patriots figure it’s easier to cut a deal with the city boards than the State Retirement Board. The state treasurer now controls what were the retirement funds of Middlesex County, which as a corrupt organization and racketeering enterprise was abolished more than 20 years ago.
It’s a major decision for a hack, where he’s going to file. It’s like Roger Clemens deciding whether he wanted to be wearing a Red Sox or a Yankees cap on his bust in Cooperstown. McLaughlin and Buonomo both put up a lot of big numbers for the Middlesex Hack Sox, but on Mikey’s statue in the Hack Hall of Fame he’ll be wearing a “C,” and Buonomo’s cap says “S.”
Even in Somerville, the hack community was somewhat taken aback by who Buonomo decided to rip off. See, when Buonomo was an alderman, the mayor was Gene Brune. Buonomo was elected county register of probate, and Brune became the register of deeds. They just moved their base of operations two miles south, from Highland Ave. to East Cambridge.
And then, of all the people Buonomo could have stolen from, he picks his old hack associate from what we used to call the All-American City. Is there no honor … ?
Now his job’s gone, his pension’s gone, even his three hots and a cot at the Billerica House of Correction are gone. At the age of 62, John Buonomo may finally have to go out and get a real job. You do understand he never worked a day in his life.
As your former neighbor and constituent, John, I can tell you, you haven’t missed a thing.
(surveillance video: here )
http://www.wcvb.com/politics/christy-mihos-dodges-trial-on-domestic-assault-charges/25360832
BOSTON —Former gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos Monday avoided a trial on charges of assaulting his ex-wife, Andrea Mihos, but must undergo a series of conditions including a mental health evaluation to eventually have the charges dismissed.
Under a pre-trial probation agreement between the parties, Mihos cannot have any contact with his former wife except through electronic mail or their attorneys.
Both Mihos and Andrea Mihos appeared in court Monday for the brief hearing, but were not seen having any communications.
The disposition also orders Mihos “not abuse Ms. Andrea Mihos,” “complete a mental health evaluation and any treatment deemed necessary” and he is “prohibited from publicly commenting on the facts or resolution of this case unless Ms. Andrea Mihos and/or attorney publicly comment on the same.”
If Mihos abides by the conditions of the disposition ordered by Judge W. James O’Neill, the charges will be dropped Jan. 5, 2015.