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Joe DeNucci, stop crying over spilt hacks
By Howie Carr | Thursday, May 12, 2011 |
http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists

Hey, Joe DeNucci, stop squawking. You and your crew had a good run, 24 years. Head to Florida and enjoy the kiss in the mail.

But now, about 60 of Joe’s nearest and dearest coat-holders at the auditor’s office have been shown the door, and he’s squealing like a stuck pig. Joe, maybe when you endorsed Suzanne Bump, you should have handed her a list of names of your favorite hacks who you wanted kept on. Did you do that? No, I didn’t think so.

Joe DeNucci is a good guy, but cripes, the people he took care of over the years. I remember one woman, her husband was — well, let me put it this way, if you come by one of my book signings, I’ll gladly point out his mugshot to my poster of the feds’ 1975 Winter Hill Gang organizational chart.

That’s the way it worked with DeNucci. Speaker Thompson, the Iron Duke, gave him a job when he was a washed-up pug. He returned the favor.

So can we take a look at some of the people who got two in the hat?

Bump whacked U.S. Rep. Richie Neal’s wife, Maureen. Also hit was a member of the Democratic state committee from Holliston, Bob Cassidy. Also office flack Glenn Briere, of the old Springfield Union, and his assistant, Frank Dyer, an old Herald hand. Good guys, Glenn and Frank. They must have wanted to stay on, because after the primary, they both duked money to Bump.

Looks to me like Bump’s people at least gave it some thought before they squeezed the trigger. Consider the two daughters of Joe “the Horse” Salvati, the North End errand boy who was framed by Joe Barboza and the FBI for a murder he did not commit. The Horse’s daughters were obviously victims of a terrible injustice. DeNucci took care of them. But when Bump got in, and started checking out the staff, she found one of the daughters was apparently much more highly regarded than the other one.

So one of Salvati’s daughters got the boot, and the other one didn’t. And by the way, wasn’t Joe recently awarded about $27 million by Judge Nancy Gertner for his wrongful imprisonment? I don’t think money’s a problem anymore for the Salvatis.

One other thing: Can we stop pretending that Joe DeNucci endorsed Suzanne Bump because he liked her? He endorsed her because he loathed her primary opponent, then-Worcester County sheriff Guy Glodis. DeNucci hated him even worse than Mumbles Menino did, and for the same reason — Glodis made sport of him. He was trying to push DeNucci out.

But now Glodis is the one who’s out, and so is DeNucci. And Joe seems to have forgotten one of the oldest axioms of the State House: When you’re out, you’re out.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1337369