Applegreen, an Irish company at the center of a now-defunct deal to redevelop travel plazas along state highways, shelled out tens of thousands of dollars between 2024 and 2025 to a powerful Beacon Hill lobbying shop, according to a state database last updated June 30.
Companies looking to do business in Massachusetts regularly employ local lobbyists to help facilitate connections with state officials. But text messages between a consultant working for Applegreen’s registered lobbyist and a Massachusetts Department of Transportation official key to the travel plaza contract have drawn scrutiny from a losing bidder.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, Waltham-based Global Partners said the contract’s procurement process that MassDOT kicked off in September 2024 “was fatally compromised” by improper communications and “undisclosed conflicts of interest.”
“At nearly every critical stage of the procurement process, when addenda were issued, when proposers were making their final submissions, when clarifications were sought on financial assumptions, and when committees and the MassDOT board were preparing to deliberate, (Scott) Bosworth, the chair of the Selection Committee, was in private contact with Applegreen’s owner and lobbyists and Suffolk (Construction) executives, including communications directly related to the solicitation process, evaluation, and result,” the lawsuit said.
Applegreen previously said the lawsuit from Global Partners “repeats a number of misrepresentations and inaccuracies that Global has issued, all of which have previously been debunked by both third parties and the Commonwealth.”
Companies looking to bid on the contract were barred during the procurement period from talking about the process with any MassDOT staff, advisors, contractors, or consultants, and were instead required to discuss the deal with a designated official, according to the lawsuit.
Bosworth, MassDOT’s chief of transit-oriented development and innovative delivery, exchanged text messages this past year with a variety of stakeholders connected to Applegreen, including Carlo Basile, a former state lawmaker who works as a consultant for Smith, Costello & Crawford, according to copies of the messages included in Global Partners’ lawsuit.
Applegreen paid $25,000 to Smith, Costello & Crawford between Jan. 1 and June 30 for “advocacy on business development, project design and operations, permitting, and communication services relative to transportation-related projects in the Commonwealth,” according to state records.
State lobbying records are updated twice a year, and any other potential payments between Applegreen and the lobbying shop made in 2025 will not appear in the public database until 2026, a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin said.
The Ireland-based company also paid Smith, Costello & Crawford another $8,000 in 2024 for the same work, according to the lobbying database.
A spokesperson for Applegreen did not address the messages between Bosworth and Basile in response to a Herald inquiry, but said the company “looked to Smith, Costello & Crawford as a consultant to provide guidance on the commonwealth’s priorities related to economic development, electric vehicle infrastructure, and the environment.”
A spokesperson for MassDOT also did not address the text messages included in Global Partners’ lawsuit, but said Bosworth was one of seven members of a selection committee who helped manage the procurement process for the travel plaza contract.
“He supported logistics, coordination, and operations connected to the committee,” the spokesperson said in a statement
Basile did not respond to multiple Herald inquiries sent to an email address listed for him on Smith, Costello & Crawford’s website.
The communications between Bosworth and those connected to Applegreen, and the use of lobbyists, also drew fire from Sen. Mark Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat who chairs the Senate’s Post Audit and Oversight Committee, a legislative body with subpoena power.
In a letter to Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt this week sent after officials at MassDOT and Applegreen refused to testify at an oversight hearing on the contract, Montigny said the messages “reveal a concerning relationship that the public has a right to examine.”
“Similarly, Applegreen had no problem appearing in person when seeking the long-term deal, but now seem to feel that they can deploy well-connected Beacon Hill lobbyists and Washington D.C. lawyers to do their bidding without public accountability,” Montigny wrote.
Global Partners — which unsuccessfully tried to secure the deal to run and redevelop 18 travel plazas and then engaged in a media and government relations campaign to reverse the decision — also spent thousands on lobbyists in 2024 and 2025.
The Waltham-based company has so far paid out $15,000 to two lobbying firms this year, $3,000 to O’Neill and Partners and $12,000 to Robert F White Consulting, according to state records.
Global Partners employed O’Neill and Partners from June to August for work on “transportation, energy and other issues with legislators, executive branch personnel, Mass. Department of Transportation, and other state agencies as necessary,” state records said.
Robert F White Consulting was paid to work on “legislative and executive matters relative to energy, fuel taxes, climate change issues,” according to state data. Global Partners also paid the firm $24,000 in 2024, data shows.
Reid Lamberty, a spokesperson for Global Partners, said the company briefly enlisted O’Neill and Associates after MassDOT held a June 11 meeting to discuss advancing Applegreen as the recommended contract winner to the agency’s full board of directors.
“Our intent was straightforward: to understand how MassDOT reached its conclusion and to seek more transparency around the procurement process. That relationship ended weeks ago,” Lamberty said in a statement to the Herald.
Conversations between Basile of Smith, Costello & Crawford and Bosworth of MassDOT are featured in a lawsuit filed by Global Partners that asked a judge to order the Healey administration to give them the travel plaza contract or require MassDOT to rebid the entire contract.
State officials handed the deal to Applegreen over the summer, but the Irish company backed out of the agreement this past week after it said it could not hash out the final details with MassDOT.
In its lawsuit, Global Partners accused Bosworth of maintaining “personal and social relationships with Applegreen’s lobbying team.”
The texts between Bosworth and Basile that are included in the lawsuit date back to Jan. 16, when Bosworth asked Basile about a property sale in East Boston. They continued into March, when Basile texted Bosworth to offer condolences.
Days later, Bosworth asked Basile, “are you guys going out tonight?”
“Call me if you are,” Bosworth said to Basile, according to the messages included in the lawsuit.
In a June 11 exchange, Bosworth texted Basile a thumbs-up emoji the same day MassDOT notified Global Partners that it had not received the bid to run the travel service plazas.
Basile responded by asking if Bosworth was “free.”
“Not at the moment. 5-10 minutes,” Bosworth texted back, to which Basile said, “Ok call me at your convenience.”
In another exchange on June 25 that appeared to reference Gov. Maura Healey, Bosworth texted Basile that a “meeting was abruptly cancelled.”
“I should have mentioned we and the Gov are getting hammered by legislators. We will need to jointly plan and administer legislative strategy,” Bosworth said, according to copies of the texts included in court records.
Basile responded that there would be a 1 p.m. communications and legislative call “with Applegreen tomorrow.”
Bosworth reacted with a thumbs-up emoji.
“Also, they still have not received the DocuSign stuff from MassDOT,” Basile said.
Bosworth said a “lawyer is MIA.”
A spokesperson for Healey declined to comment on the text messages.