NAGE Member Vindicated in Ethics Investigation
May 06, 2009
The state ethics commission has cleared a NAGE member of any wrongdoing in an investigation into allegations he accepted Red Sox tickets from a contractor looking for favorable treatment in permitting on the Big Dig.
“It’s just so nice to go to bed and not wake up wondering, ‘Do I have a job? Will they take my pension? Will they take my licenses?’” said Roth, a member of Unit 6 Local 207, after learning of the decision. “I feel tremendous.”
“Everyone who worked on Mr. Roth’s case was adamant that he should be cleared of all charges,” said David J. Holway, NAGE national president. “We were with him at every step on the way and we’re happy to be with him now that he’s been vindicated.”
Theresa McGoldrick, president of NAGE Local 207, said, “Mr. Roth did the right thing and then found himself accused of wrongdoing. We’re so pleased that the outcome was justice and restoration of his good name.”
“Taylor Roth asserted his innocence of the charges from the inception of the case,” said Joseph Monahan III, Roth’s attorney. “It is unfortunate that he and his family had to endure the stress of losing his job and benefits to establish his innocence. He never wavered in his denials that he received the tickets that formed the basis of the charges against him. The decision of the Ethics Commission is a complete vindication of that position.”
Taylor Roth, a senior inspector with the Board of Examiners of Plumbers and Gasfitters, inspected various plumbing projects on the Big Dig. His job was to ensure the work was up to code or stop that portion of the work if it was not. Between 2004 and spring of 2006, Roth conducted about 20 inspections of Riley & Co.’s work at seven sites in eastern Massachusetts. He also signed 15 of their 18 work permits, but did not always give their work a permit to continue.
In March 2006, Roth inspected a company work project where there was an engineering defect caused by another contractor. He stopped work on the project until the original defect could be repaired, which meant that Riley & Company would have to undo, then redo, its own work on that segment of the Big Dig. Not long after Roth stopped work on the site, he received in the mail a pair of Red Sox tickets from Riley & Company—tickets he had never requested or agreed to receive. He turned them into the legal counsel at work. The contractor complained to the state ethics commission about Roth receiving the tickets.
Two of the principals at Riley & Company told the state ethics commission that they had given tickets to Roth in 2004 and 2005, alleging that his receipt of such tickets was a violation of state ethics regulations. The two had been grouped with Roth at a plumbing industry golf tournament in June 2004.
However, Roth said he never received such tickets in those years—and when he did in March 2006, he turned them over immediately to his superiors, as he should have.
The commission found Roth’s testimony credible and the testimony of the two contractors not credible. It turned out that Riley & Company normally sent out its Red Sox tickets to friends and colleagues in February or March of each year. Since the contractors barely knew Roth, had no corroborating evidence that they had sent him tickets, and Roth handled his only known contact with tickets according to regulation, the commission found in his favor.