Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins has requested to have his extortion expenses dismissed, denying any wrongdoing and arguing that even when the allegations have been true, they’re inadequate to assist the fees.
Tompkins, 67, of Boston, was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of extortion underneath shade of official proper. He was arrested in early August in Florida, the place he made an preliminary look in federal court docket earlier than returning to Massachusetts. He has pleaded not responsible.
Federal prosecutors say that he used his official place to bully executives at a Boston hashish firm concerning his pre-initial public providing funding of $50,000. Following the IPO, his indictment states, his funding worth ballooned to $140,000 however then fell beneath his preliminary funding worth. Prosecutors say he used his place to demand his full preliminary funding again to “help pay for campaign and personal expenses.”
In a movement to dismiss filed in federal court docket in Boston Friday, Tompkins’ attorneys stated his expenses are “predicated upon a number of factual infirmities, which Mr. Tompkins categorically denies.”
The movement later provides that even when the allegations have been true, “they are legally insufficient to support a quid pro quo agreement to exchange Mr. Tompkins’s official acts for payment. … Instead, Mr. Tompkins made an investment as did many others, paid full value for it, and received no financial benefit not conferred to other buyers.”
The movement argues that Tompkins “did not ‘engage in schemes to extort’ the cannabis executive’ … , did not agree to an ‘exchange’ of any equity interest in the cannabis company … for any ‘favorable action or inaction as the (sheriff)’ … , (and) did not ‘cause[] Individual A to believe and fear that [Mr. Tomkins] would use his official position as Sheriff to jeopardize Company A’s partnership with the (Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department).’”
The movement says {that a} letter Tompkins despatched to the corporate suggesting the corporate rent graduates of the SCSD’s Frequent Floor Institute to work at its retain retailers was despatched in September 2019, “many months before the Indictment alleges that any benefit to the defendant was requested or even contemplated” and greater than a 12 months earlier than Tompkins secured fairness curiosity within the firm.
“There is no allegation that the letter was part of an agreement in which Mr. Tompkins would receive subsequent benefits a year-plus later, an essential element of any quid pro quo bribery scheme,” the doc argues. It provides that “mere allegations of ‘fear,’ ‘pressure,’ and ‘demands’ are not sufficient to establish extortion under color of official right.”
This can be a creating story.
