A federal grand jury has indicted Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins for allegedly trying to extort $500,000 from a cannabis company executive.
“Elected officials, particularly those in law enforcement, are expected to be ethical, honest and law abiding – not self-serving,” said U.S. Attorney Leah Foley. “His alleged actions are an affront to the voters and taxpayers who elected him to his position, and the many dedicated and honest public servants at the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department.”
Tompkins became sheriff in 2013 through appointment, elected in 2014 in a special election, and won a six-year term in 2016.
According to the indictment, Tompkins faces accusations of forcing the executive to sell him a “pre-IPO equity interest” in the company for “$50,000 in exchange for Tompkins’s favorable action or inaction” as sheriff toward the company in 2019.
Between 2021 and 2022, Tompkins faced re-election. He allegedly told the executive to refund his $50,000 so he could pay for his campaign and personal expenses.
The executive did not have this agreement with Tompkins. Still, he claimed he feared “Tompkins could use his official authority as Sheriff to terminate the SCSD’s ongoing partnership” with the company and jeopardize its dispensary license renewals.
Overall, Tompkins took $152,437, $161,911, and $172,783 from 2020 to 2022.
Tompkins faces 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.
Get this. In March 2023, Tompkins paid a $12,300 civil penalty due to violating the conflict of interest law. He created “a paid position in the Sheriff’s Department for his niece and by repeatedly asking his subordinates to do personal errands for him.”
Suffolk County is not a sanctuary county, but many cities within it are sanctuary cities.
Yes, the county has Boston, and we all know how well that is going!
In October 2019, Tompkins announced the county police department ended its contract with ICE. He claimed it had nothing to do with immigration, but because the prisons needed “room for the provision of rehabilitation services to women.”
Tompkins then joined 20 Massachusetts law enforcement leaders in support of a law “that would allow all qualified Bay State residents to apply for a standard state driver’s license, regardless of their immigration status.”
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Comments
I am absolutely fiberglasted that a law enforcement official would be participating in extortion!
Tell me it isn’t so!
It isn’t so. It was just reparations. Blacks can never do any wrong in this country. It’s raycism obviously.
Crime is the new black entitlement.
New?!?
I saw “sanctuary” in the headline and figured that in Leftist Massachusetts there was no way for a conviction. They I saw that it was a Federal indictment for extortion in connection with drug dealing. Despite the Sheriff being black, there is a small chance of a conviction. However the penalty will be minimal if any at all.
Subotai Bahadur
Yes, the Sheriff understands what you have described. The deck is stacked in his favor. I don’t think he has much to worry about.
1 down. Probably about 150000 more to go in MA.
Hey, Stevie is one of our finest public servants. Since the day our voters legalized pot, half the pols in the Commonwealth have been snorting up to the trough. It’s gotten so bad that pot stores have been built and gone out of business before they even opened.
Welcome to Wakanda, your last stop on the Freedom Trail.
thank gosh
equity has been met
Together with the disgusting corruption demonstrated at the re-trial of Karen Read, is there an honest cop left in Massachusetts? Another sheriff was arrested on DWI charges recently after smashing up his cruiser. Where are you, Maura Healy? Too busy worrying about the Republican takeover of congressional seats?
that karen read story was something else
seems like everyone was lying
The best cops, when cornered and having to cover their own asses, close ranks and lie said asses off. I worked with such cops for nearly nine years. Great cops. Until the light is shined on them. Then they enter full cover-up mode. Very tribal.
There are no congressional republican seats in MA. Non-dramacrats have zero representation. Gerrymandering MA would essential be an act of masturbation. Healy just feels left out,
We have nine districts, and each contains at least one large democratic city whose population exceeds the rest of the district. To be a republican district, it would have to exclude islands of cities inside a district. Could be done if there was a will, but I can assure you that among the powerful, there is not. In addition to being the fifth vice-president of the US, Elbridge Gerry (he pronounced it with a hard “G”) was the ninth governor of Mass.
No, Maura is too busy spending BILLIONS on illegal aliens, intentionally.
It being Boston MA. I say he won’t see any kind of punishment. He will still be Sheriff and he will still carry on with his criminal activity. Being black he has certain inalienable rights, he is above (and beyond) the law, and being prosecuted would be a miscarriage of justice. Carry on Sheriff Tomkins! You are a primal example of your kind.
First time in like forever the headline didn’t mistakenly read blackmail rather than extortion. I wonder why.
Easy. People see a case that hinges on “pay me or I’ll tattle,” they immediately think blackmail. But here the victim had nothing shameful to conceal for a price. It was “pay me or I’ll crush you.”
Yes, it should be that easy, but these stupid reporters call BOTH of your examples blackmail 99 percent of the time. But here the extortionist is black.
He is a Person of Preferred Pigmentation, and therefore absolved of all responsibility for his criminal actions.
You want racism? This is exactly how you get racism.
FFS….has no one, NO ONE, read and/or understood “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?” Its a CHILDREN”S book FFS, its moral is simple…never, NEVER, negotiate with a terrorist.
I never read that book, but on your recommendation it was simple to find a copy on the web and read it. I think you’d have to be afflicted with a heavy bias to view the mouse as a terrorist.
(stupid phone posted prematurely.)
The mouse is clearly my shiftless brother-in-law.