Republicans working for governor are licking their chops within the wake of Gov. Maura Healey’s aide getting arrested in an enormous cocaine bust.
The GOP candidates are questioning what the Healey administration knew when the governor’s workplace employed LaMar Prepare dinner — who was the deputy director of the Western Mass. workplace till he was charged with trafficking kilos of cocaine.
State Police final week intercepted about 18 kilos of cocaine on the way in which to the Springfield State Workplace Constructing, the place Prepare dinner labored within the governor’s workplace. A trooper posed as a UPS driver to ship the cocaine to the workplace.
Within the wake of this bombshell arrest, reviews have emerged that this isn’t the primary time that Prepare dinner has been arrested. Prepare dinner, 45, was beforehand busted in reference to a taking pictures in Springfield.
Republican candidate for governor Brian Shortsleeve on Monday mentioned the previous taking pictures incident involving Prepare dinner raises questions in regards to the Healey administration’s course of for conducting background checks on workers.
“What did Healey know, and when did she know it?” Shortsleeve requested in a press release. “The people deserve to know whether this criminal activity was utterly undetected or whether serious red flags were ignored or covered up.”
Shortsleeve known as on the Healey admin to launch the total background verify for Prepare dinner when he was employed. He additionally pushed for the governor’s workplace to launch all of the personnel file, efficiency evaluations and incident logs for Prepare dinner since his hiring in 2023.
“When I’m governor, the shell games will end and accountability will begin,” Shortsleeve mentioned. “It is time for the Healey administration to stop delaying, to stop stonewalling, and to make public the relevant documentation so that Massachusetts voters can judge for themselves what was known, when it was known, and why it was ignored.”
One other GOP candidate, Mike Kennealy, known as for an unbiased investigation.
“The entire Governor’s Office must be subject to an external investigation by a private, independent investigator,” Kennealy mentioned in a press release. “Every personnel process should be reviewed, and every staff member interviewed to determine whether anyone else was complicit – who they are, what they knew, and how such a large-scale trafficking operation could possibly occur inside a government building, let alone within the Governor’s satellite office.”
The gubernatorial candidate additionally has questions in regards to the background verify and hiring course of for Prepare dinner.
“We must examine the processes that allowed this individual to get a job inside the administration and the oversight failures that allowed this individual to conduct criminal activity while employed,” Kennealy mentioned.
“I fully support the ongoing efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies,” he added. “Governor Healey must be held accountable for the culture of impunity she has fostered – one where her own employees felt emboldened to run a criminal enterprise on the taxpayers’ dime.”
Mike Minogue, additionally working within the GOP gubernatorial race, pushed for an unbiased investigation as properly.
“Any time someone inside state government is arrested for something as serious as drug trafficking, the public deserves a full accounting,” Minogue mentioned in a press release. “The Healey Administration shouldn’t be investigating itself.
“An independent investigation is the only way to make sure Massachusetts families get the truth about what happened, who knew what, and whether this is part of a deeper problem,” he added. “It is clear that accountability does not exist in the current one-party system in Massachusetts.”
The Herald reached out to the governor’s workplace on Monday. A spokesperson for Healey declined to remark “due to the ongoing criminal investigation.”
Prepare dinner final week was deemed a hazard to the group, and he was held with out bail.
Prepare dinner was charged with trafficking 200 grams or extra of cocaine, in addition to illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Along with the Springfield cocaine cargo, authorities mentioned they’d seized about 46 kilos of cocaine throughout separate shipments throughout the investigation into Prepare dinner.
The primary cargo just isn’t a part of the costs, although the Hampden DA’s workplace says it may end in extra prices. On Oct. 8, U.S. Homeland Safety Investigations alerted Massachusetts authorities to packages seized in Louisville, Kentucky, filled with about 26 kilos of cocaine.
The packages had been destined for the UMass Lodge, particularly a visitor named “Morgan Gordon,” who turned out to be fictitious.
Authorities made a managed supply of the packages to the lodge and monitored for who acquired them, however the surveillance didn’t end in catching anybody. Mass State Police be aware of their report that Prepare dinner was the director of hospitality at this lodge.
Libby O’Neill/Boston Herald
Brian Shortsleeve (left), a enterprise capitalist and a former MBTA official, and Mike Kennealy (proper), a former state cupboard secretary, are each working for governor of Massachusetts as Republicans. (Herald file pictures)
