… it helps to keep us honest, and is still in short supply in Rhode Island. Providence Mayor David Cicilline recently attended a fundraiser for his disgraced brother, attorney John M. Cicilline, who will be sentenced in September after pleading guilty to charges that he conspired to shake down clients and manipulate the criminal justice system. This man’s guilt is no longer in question, he has admitted to the crimes. But judging from yesterday’s ProJo article, he has yet to learn a thing from his experience. Let’s start with his concern that his daughters should be allowed to continue in their private school education,

With his profitable law practice taking a hit following his indictment last year, and the prospect of losing his license to practice law and going away to federal prison for 18 months, Cicilline said in an interview yesterday that the money will help him pay the tuition for his two daughters at La Salle Academy and a third at the University of Rhode Island.

“I don’t have any money in the bank,” he said. “I’ve got to pay their tuitions and their insurance so they can drive. The goal is to disrupt their lives as little as possible.”

Why should this now be a goal for his friends? It clearly has not been a priority for him these past few years and he’s their father. (John, you disrupted their lives. Disruption isn’t some disembodied, random force of the universe — you did it.)

Not suprisingly, his friends seem to have character and judgment issues as well. Friend and fellow attorney Peter Rizzo had this to say,

(more…)

On my way to work each morning, I walk past the Attorney General’s office on South Main Street, and I never tire of giggling at the building’s inscription:

With great power comes great responsibility. — Stan Lee

Yesterday, it seems, this motto received more than mere lip service when special assistant AG Molly K. Cote managed to prove two ACI guards—Former Capt. Gualter Botas and former Lt. Kenneth Viveiros—guilty on charges of assaulting four inmates.

The ProJo reports:

Yesterday’s verdicts, which culminated an 18-day trial before Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini, came after jurors had deliberated for less than four hours over the course of two days.

Afterward, state corrections Director A.T. Wall issued a statement that began with a quote from former President Theodore Roosevelt: “No man is above the law and no man is beneath it.”

“These two former correctional officers have now been held accountable in a court of law for their abuse of inmates entrusted to their custody,” Wall said. “They do not represent the staff of this department. In fact, through their actions, they have dishonored the 1,500 men and women who perform their jobs with pride, professionalism and integrity every day. These men and women do a very difficult job, and they do it without breaking the law.”

Their charges are misdemeanors, carrying a maximum sentence of up to one year in prison. Can you imagine the fate of an inmate convicted of beating inmates? Botas and Viveiros have yet to be sentenced, but each, rightly, has been fired by the Department of Corrections.

Itinerant reader Nathaniel tips us off to this smokin’ hot video of a Bush lobbyist shaking down representatives of Kyrgyzstan’s exiled ex-president for “a couple hundred thousand dollars” in Bush library contributions in exchange for a visit with Dubya.

And that’s legal?? The UK Times says this is a real “row,” which I assume means one more in a series of soul-numbing lessons on the direct relationship between power and corruption. Thanks Lord Acton!

Or perhaps it’s just that Presidential libraries are the ultimate shakedown.