A Springfield decide has modified the detention standing of Lamar Prepare dinner, setting money bail for Gov. Maura Healey’s aide, arrested and charged with cocaine trafficking, at $75,000.
Hampden Superior Court docket Choose William J. Ritter has additionally ordered Prepare dinner, 45, of Springfield, to forfeit his passport.
This comes after Prepare dinner was initially held with out the suitable to bail after pleading responsible late final month to a cost of trafficking cocaine — roughly 18 kilos of it, price greater than $110,000 — and firearms violations.
Ritter dominated that whereas Prepare dinner stays a hazard, new situations for his launch may very well be imposed to make sure the group’s security, in keeping with the Hampden District Legal professional’s Workplace.
In a written choice, Ritter famous there was “strong evidence of sophisticated drug operations; defendant alleged to have prior drug pickups; amount of drugs show danger but defendant has no record and conditions will assure appearance and safety.”
Prepare dinner’s money bail in reference to the firearm case has additionally been lowered from $25,000 to $10,000.
Prepare dinner served since 2023 because the deputy director of Healey’s western Massachusetts workplace till his arrest.
Authorities grew suspicious of Prepare dinner after an earlier bundle containing suspected cocaine was seized by authorities in Kentucky earlier than being delivered to the Lodge UMass in Amherst, the place Prepare dinner as soon as served as hospitality director, however the cops by no means noticed it picked up.
Police determined to ship an undercover trooper to ship the subsequent bundle containing suspected cocaine, this one destined on to Healey’s workplace on the State Workplace Constructing in Springfield. Prepare dinner himself acquired the parcel, and the police moved in to arrest him, in keeping with the police report.
The Massachusetts State Police has denied a Herald request for data on the background verify carried out earlier than Healey employed Prepare dinner. The Herald is interesting the denial by the Secretary of State.
State legislation “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,’” a authorized consultant for the State Police cited as justification for not fulfilling the request.
