BOSTON (WHDH) - Mayor Martin J. Walsh expressed his thoughts Thursday after two of his aides were convicted of conspiring to extort the organizers of a music festival by pressuring them to hire union labor.
At a National Night Out event in Boston’s South End, Walsh said he is “saddened and disappointed by [the verdict].” He went on to say he is in shock over the findings but that he commends the jury for doing their jobs.
Kenneth Brissette, the city’s director of tourism, and Timothy Sullivan, chief of intergovernmental affairs, were convicted in federal court in Boston of Hobbs Act conspiracy.
Brissette was also found guilty of Hobbs Act extortion while Sullivan was acquitted of that charge.
The men bullied the organizers of the 2014 Boston Calling festival into hiring members of a stagehands union to please Walsh, a former union leader with close ties to organized labor, prosecutors said during the jury trial.
“I am surprised and disappointed,” Walsh said in a statement on Wednesday. “I have made clear from the beginning that there is only one way to do things in my administration and that is the right way. I have always believed that their hearts were in the right place.”
Sullivan and Brissette face a maximum of 20 years in prison on each conviction. A sentencing date has not been scheduled.
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