It’s no secret that here at the Smoke Break, politicians must do a great deal to earn our trust. And that because it has become a given that the definition of sleazebag has a picture of a Democrat next to it, they have an even deeper hole from which they must dig themselves. A story posted in today’s Boston Globe is a perfect example.
In October 2005, a Somerville police officer living in Melrose raped his 23-month-old niece with a hot object, most likely a curling iron.
Keith Winfield, then 31, told police he was alone with the toddler that day and made additional statements that would ultimately be used to convict him.
But in the aftermath of the crime, a Middlesex County grand jury overseen by Martha Coakley, then the district attorney, investigated without taking action.
It was only after the toddler’s mother filed applications for criminal complaints that Coakley won grand jury indictments charging rape and assault and battery.
Even then, nearly 10 months after the crime, Coakley’s office recommended that Winfield be released on personal recognizance, with no cash bail. He remained free until December 2007, when Coakley’s successor as district attorney won a conviction and two life terms.
The story goes on to say that:
Coakley’s prosecutors made the recommendation that Winfield be released with no cash bail, even though an investigator with the Department of Children and Families, working in the weeks immediately following the rape, found that Winfield had been suspended from his job with the Somerville police for disciplinary reasons and had lied about it.
In addition, the investigator found that Winfield had concealed the fact that he had been evaluated at Melrose-Wakefield Hospital for stress less than two weeks before the rape.
Indeed, before Winfield’s trial, prosecutors sought to admit evidence that Winfield, in the days leading up to the rape, was treated for a substance abuse problem and had threatened to kill himself by holding a gun to his head, “evincing great emotional stress and the strong possibility that [he] would harm himself or others.’’
And that baby?
The toddler ultimately spent a month at Shriners Hospital for Children in Boston recovering from burns.
Now Martha Coakley wants to be a United States Senator representing the state of Massachusetts. With this kind of horrific irresponsibility in her track record, it’s clear she has long surpassed her level of incompetance. If the people of Massachusetts have a lick of sense, they will give her the boot.
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