Candidate Profile: James O'Shea For Essex County D.A. (Sponsored)

This Patch article is sponsored by James O'Shea for Essex County District Attorney. The views expressed in this post are the author's own, and the information presented has not been verified by Patch.

James O’Shea Has Practiced Criminal Law for 24 Years And Paul Tucker Has Never Done So. With The Score 24 to 0, Why Is This Even A Race?

Answer: Politics. Questions: Why is Paul Tucker the only candidate running for District Attorney in all of Massachusetts who has no experience practicing law? Why does he hold himself out as “an attorney for 22 years” in his campaign ads, and not tell the public the only thing he did with his law license was use it to increase his police pay, pension, and rank, if experience practicing law is unimportant. In his most recent political advertisement, Tucker said he has been an “attorney for 22 years” and James O’Shea has been “an attorney for 24 years”, suggesting just a two-year difference in experience as an attorney. Yet, Attorney O’Shea has practiced criminal law throughout Essex County for all of his 24 years as an attorney providing him with a level of understanding and ability to identify the flaws in the system Tucker can only imagine. Tucker was a police witness in criminal cases over a decade ago, and now claims that made him a “part of the prosecution team in over 1,000 cases”. A crude claim when he was supposed to be an unbiased percipient witness. Do you think he ever said that to a jury while on the stand?

Why is Tucker citing his background as Chief of Police to support his candidacy when he retired from that position 8 years ago? Understandably, people may have forgotten about Tucker’s history as Police Chief since that was 8 years ago and can hardly be cited as recent or relevant. But in just 5 short years as Chief, Tucker managed to lead the department into a major scandal involving double dipping by his next-in-command and close friend Captains due to his own failure to institute proper record-keeping policies and procedures, his failure to upgrade a grossly outdated IT system (a problem that exists in the Essex DA’s office currently), and perhaps more concerning, his penchant for looking the other way while his friends were stealing tax payer money (“double dipping”). Google “Paul Tucker Missteps” or “Paul Tucker Pomeroy Report” for all you need to know about how he mismanaged the Salem Police Department.

Per the Pomeroy report, “The two Captains involved abused their positions of rank, privilege and trust to engage in self-dealing regarding the working details” while Tucker either looked the other way or created an environment where his friends expected to get away with it. Tucker was close friends with one of the captains. The investigation revealed that the mayor’s hands were tied when she sought to further discipline the two captains because Tucker’s attempt to sweep the matter under the rug with a slap-on-the-wrist-type discipline violated a Salem ordinance that required him to report the matter to the mayor for prior approval. Why didn’t he follow procedure? What was clear from the publicity of that scandal is that this did not happen overnight. Tucker’s administrative skills, managerial skills, and judgment were chronically and systemically bad. How can that help the District Attorney’s office?

One might also ask, “Why is Tucker even running for District Attorney at the twilight of his career for what would be his second retirement job?” In an interview with Lawyers Weekly, he compared himself to the captain of the ship and Assistant District Attorneys as workers in the engine room fixing a leak, suggesting it is not important that he does not know how to do their job. If elected, he likely will be the most expensive and least qualified District Attorney in the history of the Commonwealth. He will continue to collect his $120,000 per year public pension, plus the District Attorney’s salary of approximately $190,000 for at least the next four years for a total of $1,240,000. He will ride the DA’s office on the coattails of his staff, rather than run it. This is dangerous for the rest of us. An attorney’s computer and case file are their lifeblood in a courtroom, and Tucker has proven to be incapable of managing those administrative responsibilities even as a Captain of a ship he should have been qualified to run as Police Chief.

Go to www.OSheaforda.com for information on the right choice for Essex County District Attorney.