Celtics Tickets, Political Revenge: US Attorney Accused of Gross Misconduct

U.S. attorney for Massachusetts Rachael S. Rollins abused office to “stimulate” a political ally, flouted ethical rules to get free tickets from the Boston Celtics and lied to investigators under oath, the state’s superintendent general said the Justice Department Wednesday.

The 161-page report — one of the most extraordinary public indictments by a sitting federal prosecutor in recent memory — was released a day after Ms Rollins announced at the end of this week that she would be stepping down, admitting she had become a damaging “distraction” in a of the department’s main offices.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz opened an investigation into Ms. Rollins last year following a published report that she attended a July 2022 Democratic National Committee fundraiser headlined by Jill Biden, the first lady.

His team determined that these actions violated anti-election policies and laws. But the investigation quickly expanded to include a high-profile series of apparent misconduct, including attempts to discredit a political rival and her acceptance of flights and resort stays paid for by a sports and entertainment company, he said .

The department’s internal watchdog “received multiple additional allegations related to Rollins,” the inspector general’s staff wrote in the report. They include allegations of abuse of position, possible violations of gift rules and other department policies, the report said.

The US Office of Special Counsel, another federal watchdog agency, released its own findings about Ms. Rollins shortly after the Inspector General’s report came out, which concluded that she had violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by federal officials.

In a letter to President Biden, Henry Kerner, the special counsel, described her violations as one of “the most egregious violations” he had ever investigated.

Ms. Rollins will be replaced by Joshua S. Levy, her deputy, until the White House names her successor, according to a senior Justice Department official.

Ms. Rollins departs as her office tackles one of the most high-profile cases of recent years: the investigation into the leak of classified national security documents by Airman Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman assigned to a Cape base intelligence division. Code, in Massachusetts.

Mr Horowitz said he was deeply disturbed by evidence that Ms Rollins had secretly tipped off a Boston Herald reporter about a possible Justice Department investigation into one of the candidates succeeding her as prosecutor in Suffolk County, Kevin R. Hayden, to benefit a friend and ally, Ricardo Arroyo.

Ms. Rollins “brought her efforts to advance Arroyo’s candidacy” to her job as the top federal law enforcement officer in Boston, investigators said.

She initially tried to persuade a senior aide to send a letter suggesting that the department was investigating Mr Hayden for public corruption. When the person refused, she contacted the paper in a failed attempt to publicize her claims before the election, investigators found.

Mr. Hayden defeated Mr. Arroyo in the September primary and won the November general election. The Herald published a story about a possible investigation three days after the primary, citing an unnamed “federal law enforcement source.” He has never been charged with a crime.

Ms. Rollins appears to be motivated in part by revenge following a damaging report published in The Boston Globe about an allegation of sexual abuse against Mr. Rollins. Arroyo when he was a teenager. She believed it had been spread by Mr Hayden’s campaign – and made a promise to Mr Arroyo on election night that Mr Hayden ‘will regret it the day he did this to you’, according to the Inspector General.

She initially denied being the source in a Dec. 6 interview with Mr. Horowitz’s investigators, but admitted she was the official referred to in the story when interviewed again shortly afterwards.

In late December, Mr. Horowitz informed department prosecutors that Ms. Rollins had misled his investigators into a possible prosecution. They declined to press charges, he said.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland had no comment.

An attorney for Ms. Rollins downplayed the report. He said the violations of federal regulations and laws outlined by investigators were little more than “process errors,” and that she simply hadn’t adjusted to the different expectations that came with the role of a federal official.

“The central truth is that Ms. Rollins transitioned from an elected official with virtually no restrictions on her activities to the highly regulated environment of the US law firm,” said her attorney, Michael R. Bromwich, the Justice Department’s inspector general. from 1994 to 1999.

He suggested she could have done more to push back on Mr. Horowitz’s claims, but “believed it was better to step down and end the case before it overwhelmed her office and DOJ”

But investigators, reviewing dozens of text messages and emails from Ms. Rollins to employees, came to a different conclusion: that she had repeatedly blurred the boundaries between government duties and her grievances, private life or political objectives.

For example, in early 2022, Ms. Rollins contacted the Celtics to secure 30 free tickets for members of a local youth basketball league. ethical guidelines.

She then compounded the problem by accepting an offer from a Celtics employee for some game tickets. Those seats, in a box with a face value of $350 each, were much better than those for the kids, located in the rafters of TD Garden and valued at $80 or $85 each.

“Astonishing!” she wrote after a Celtics employee emailed her the tickets. “Thank you!!!”

Ms. Rollins also accepted more than $2,000 in travel, lodging and entertainment from a California-based sports and entertainment company that received her for a two-day summit she attended in Ojai, California, in June.

Ms. Rollins told investigators she was taking part in a panel discussion on civil rights and civic engagement, and that she believed she was under no obligation to seek ethical clearance for the trip because she had a pre-existing relationship with the organizers of the event.

But according to federal regulations, she had to get permission from the department’s headquarters in Washington before accepting the invitation, investigators said.

In January, Ms. Rollins refunded the company $2,307.66 after investigators questioned her. She is currently seeking compensation from the Justice Department and claims the trip was an official one, the report said.