As the federal trial of two Boston City Hall officials charged with extortion entered a second week of testimony, the daughter-in-law of former Boston Mayor Tom Menino took the stand as a witness for the prosecution in the case against Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan.
Prosecutors allege that in 2014, Brissette and Sullivan, both senior appointees of then-incoming Mayor Marty Walsh, used their positions and power within the Walsh administration to illegally pressure the Boston Calling music festival into hiring union labor it didn’t want or need — including by exploiting the festival executives’ fear of not receiving crucial permits in the weeks and days leading up to the festival’s fall, 2014 three-day show at City Hall Plaza.
Both men have pleaded not guilty.
On the stand, Lisa Lamberti Menino testified that in 2014 she worked for the city’s office of property management, which has oversight of events at City Hall Plaza, and was in touch with Boston Calling’s CEO, Brian Appel, about the upcoming show.
Lamberti Menino said she spoke with Appel just after an August 2014 meeting he’d had that included both defendants.
Appel, she said, told her that he “wouldn’t get his permit[s] unless he hired them,” — referring to members of Boston’s local stagehands union, IATSE Local 11.
Lamberti Menino said she told Appel, “Don’t hire them unless you need them,” and testified that the defendants did have the authority to withhold permits.
But under cross-examination, Lamberti Menino seemed to backtrack on the latter assertion, conceding that neither defendant had direct authority over the permits in question, and that authority to issue or deny such permits resided with other city officials in other city departments.
The defense has elicited evidence that Boston Calling’s trouble with permits, contrary to being evidence of extortion by the defendants, emanated from legitimate concerns by other city officials, including then Police Commissioner Bill Evans.
And the defense has suggested throughout the trial that the outcome of the permits in question were out of the hands of the defendants, who, the defense has argued, had an appropriate interest in preserving the peace on city property as unions threatened to picket.
