Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Kennealy is pledging to launch all paperwork and knowledge associated to LaMar Prepare dinner – the embattled former aide to Gov. Maura Healey charged with drug trafficking and weapons violations – if he’s elected.
Kennealy stated the discharge would come with all emails, textual content messages, personnel recordsdata, and inner communications associated to Prepare dinner, who was the Healey administration’s Western Massachusetts deputy director when he was arrested final month in a significant drug trafficking bust in Springfield.
Prepare dinner was charged with trafficking 200 grams or extra of cocaine, in addition to illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. He had labored within the Healey administration since 2023, and there have been rising calls for from the general public for the governor to offer data on the hiring practices that led to Prepare dinner’s employment.
“It is abhorrent that Governor Healey refuses to release documentation about how LaMar Cook was hired. Cook was hand-picked by Healey, despite having 2001 gun charges on his record, and he was later arrested for trafficking massive amounts of cocaine through her Western Massachusetts office,” Kennealy informed the Herald. “If I was Governor, my first question is simple: What went wrong? And my first action would be to show the public every step we’re taking to fix it.”
Kennealy stated the aim of releasing the knowledge can be to element precisely what Healey and her employees knew about Prepare dinner’s previous and the vetting course of that led to his appointment.
A Herald request for data on Prepare dinner’s background test was denied by the Healey administration earlier this month. The Herald is interesting the denial with the Secretary of State.
In rejecting the Herald’s request, the administration stated state regulation “exempts from public disclosure ‘personnel and medical files or information; also any other materials or data relating to a specifically named individual, the disclosure of which may constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.’”
“Right now, we’re getting stonewalling instead of answers” stated Kennealy. “The people of Massachusetts deserve the truth — not secrecy, not political spin, and not a Governor who hides critical information from the public. We must get to the bottom of what Governor Healey is concealing. And I pledge this: When I’m Governor, every document will be released and the citizens of this Commonwealth will finally get the truth.”
The gubernatorial candidate additionally emphasised his respect for public information legal guidelines and clear authorities as important instruments to rebuilding belief.
Kennealy stated Healey’s refusal to adjust to public information requests on Prepare dinner “raises serious questions about judgment, accountability, and leadership at the highest level of state government.”
Fellow Republican gubernatorial candidates Brian Shortsleeve and Mike Minogue additionally criticized the governor following Prepare dinner’s arrest and have referred to as on her to launch all data associated to how he was employed.
“What did Healey know, and when did she know it?” Shortsleeve requested in an announcement. “The people deserve to know whether this criminal activity was utterly undetected or whether serious red flags were ignored or covered up.”
Fellow Republican candidate Mike Minogue echoed Shortsleeve’s feedback, calling for an impartial investigation into how Prepare dinner was employed by the Administration.
“Any time someone inside state government is arrested for something as serious as drug trafficking, the public deserves a full accounting,” Minogue stated in an announcement. “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.”
State Police say the investigation into Prepare dinner stems from two earlier drug seizures, the place wherein police intercepted about 13 kilograms of suspected cocaine in two packages despatched to Resort UMass in Amherst – the place Prepare dinner was the Director earlier than becoming a member of the Healey administration.
Police additionally stated Prepare dinner’s trafficking fees relate to about eight kilograms of suspected cocaine that they seized in a “controlled delivery operation” on the Springfield State Workplace constructing the place he labored.
The administration fired Prepare dinner instantly following his arrest, calling it “a major breach of public trust” and “unacceptable.”
Prepare dinner had been paid $96,564 this yr, in response to state payroll information. His annual wage was $115,968.
The Herald has reached out to Gov. Healey’s workplace for remark.
