Federally indicted Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins is attempting to get proof tossed from his pot extortion case.
Tompkins, 67, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of extortion earlier this 12 months, has additionally pushed for his costs to get dropped as he denies any wrongdoing.
The sheriff is accused of utilizing his official place to bully executives at a Boston hashish firm relating to his pre-initial public providing funding of $50,000, based on the Massachusetts U.S. Legal professional’s workplace.
Following the IPO, his funding worth ballooned to $140,000 however then fell beneath his preliminary funding worth, based on the indictment. The feds say he used his place to demand his full preliminary funding again to “help pay for campaign and personal expenses.”
Tompkins has pleaded not responsible, and his lawyer filed a movement to dismiss. Then this week, his lawyer filed a “motion to suppress” proof.
His lawyer Martin Weinberg is asking on the court docket to “suppress all evidence seized pursuant to the search warrants for Mr. Tompkins’s Comcast and Google email accounts.”
“… The affidavits submitted in support of the search warrants fail to establish probable cause to believe that Mr. Tompkins engaged in quid pro quo bribery, i.e., a promise to exchange his official acts for payment,” Weinberg wrote.
“Rather, the alleged facts suggest that the equity interest in Company A received by Mr. Tompkins and subsequent refund of his investment were at most gratuities, beyond the scope of the federal bribery statutes,” he added.
The search warrants known as for Comcast and Google to supply all paperwork from Tompkins’ e-mail accounts with none date restrictions, based on his lawyer.
“… There is no plausible argument that the government had probable cause to obtain the full contents of Mr. Tompkins’s email accounts,” Weinberg added.
“Because the warrants issued based, in part, on recklessly omitted information, and because no reasonable officer could have believed in the validity of a warrant that purported to authorize the search and seizure of Mr. Tompkins’s entire email accounts, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply,” he wrote. “The remedy for such general warrants is total, not partial, suppression.”
The feds this week additionally responded to Tompkins’ movement to dismiss — by which he denied any wrongdoing and argued that even when the allegations have been true, they’re inadequate to assist the fees.
The U.S. Legal professional prosecutors reiterated of their opposition to his dismissal movement that Tompkins engaged in extortion schemes.
“After being initially rebuffed in his requests to buy Company A stock before the IPO, Tompkins increased his pressure on Individual A to sell him Company A stock by reminding Individual A that Tompkins should get Company A stock because Tompkins had helped Company A in its Boston licensing efforts and that Company A would continue to need Tompkins’s help for license renewals,” the feds wrote.
“After increased pressure from Tompkins on Individual A, which caused Individual A to believe and fear that Tompkins would use his official position as Sheriff to jeopardize Company A’s partnership with the SCSD, and thus imperil both (i) the dispensary license for Company A’s cannabis store in Boston, and (ii) the timing of Company A’s IPO, Individual A relented and agreed to Tompkins’s demands for a pre-IPO interest in Company A stock,” the prosecutors added.
Tompkins’ arguments for dismissal are with out advantage, and the court docket ought to deny the movement to dismiss, the feds argued.
“The defendant first argues that the Indictment should be dismissed because it fails to allege quid pro quo bribery. The defendant is wrong,” the prosecutors wrote. “The Indictment clearly and prominently alleges a quid pro quo.”
Tompkins is on a “medical leave,” his lawyer stated shortly after Gov. Maura Healey introduced the sheriff had agreed to “step away” from his put up in late August.
Tompkins earned $215,430 final 12 months, based on state Comptroller data, and has been paid $154,269 to date this 12 months.
