Call it the Revenge of the Menino. The late Mayor Thomas M. Menino died in 2014, but his spirit lives on — in Courtroom 13 at the Moakley federal courthouse …

Boston’s federal courthouse
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive file photo

– News from elsewhere covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added

Menino’s revenge plays out in Boston Mayor Marty Walsh aides’ federal extortion trial.

In a wicked twist that probably could only happen in Boston politics, the late longtime Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s daughter-in-law has emerged as a star witness for the prosecution in the extortion trial of two top aides to current Boston Mayor Martin Walsh.

Lisa Lamberti Menino, the events manager in the City of Boston’s property management department, testified that a “very agitated” organizer for the Boston Calling music festival told her the two aides forced him to hire union stage hands for the event in 2014.

Hire union labor, capiche …
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“I couldn’t believe what he was telling me,” Menino testified, “If he didn’t hire them he wouldn’t get his entertainment license.”

Menino said that under the administration of her now-late father-in-law, the music festival went off smoothly in 2012 and 2013 without any demands to use union labor – a fact that prosecutors were eager to emphasize during the trial on Monday.

“There was no policy” to force the use of union labor, Mrs. Menino testified.

Rendering of proposed new Boston City Hall plaza
A file photo

It wasn’t until the first year of Walsh’s tenure in 2014 she became aware that the two Walsh aides now undergoing a federal criminal trial for extortion were threatening to withhold an entertainment license unless Boston Calling hired union stage hands.

Mayor Marty Walsh, a former union official, could himself become a witness later this week in the trial of his aides.

The beat down goes on
A file photo

There is no love lost between Walsh and Menino forces, who felt slighted when the new mayor took over in 2014. 

As such, ponder the irony that the Walsh aides are now facing potentially damaging testimony from Menino’s daughter-in-law.

And in a local angle, the other Tom Kiley, Esq – and whose law firm has made in excess of a million dollars as legal council to Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s still financially underwater plans for “A New Quincy Center” – is part of the defense team for Mayor Walsh’s aides.

Source: ‘The Revenge of the Menino’ plays out in Walsh aides’ federal extortion trial

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