Copyright The Boston Herald
In the unending torrent of police corruption in Massachusetts, here’s a bit of good news. The original poster boy for Massachusetts State Police corruption, as described by the feds, has finally been thrown into prison, where he will remain until July 2028. No, I’m not talking about Michael Proctor, the current poster boy for corruption in the State Police, with his most recent scandal being what the DA’s office admits is a cell phone full of “intimate body parts of people not participating in the text chain.” Wait, whatever happened to Proctor’s earlier statement: “No nudes so far.” I guess that statement about his leering searches of Karen Read’s cell phone is no longer operative. But now that we find out he does a phone full of XXX-rated photos, what is going to happen to all the as-yet-unfired troopers on this text chain who were getting nude photos from overweight, low-IQ Proctor. But before there was a Michael Proctor, the feds dubbed another sleazy Statie as the “poster boy” of MSP corruption. Imagine the frenzied competition in the crooked-cop sweepstakes to win such a coveted honor! C’mon down, Daniel J. Griffin, age 62, Bureau of Prisons (BOP) number 21758-509. How corrupt is Griffin? Well, the feds’ sentencing memo on his criminal career ran 132 pages. This was their opening sentence, in boldface: “Daniel Joseph Griffin is a criminal.” His m.o., the feds elaborated, “was taking advantage of his badge to lie, cheat and steal.” The G-men first identified him as a crime boss back in 2015 – a decade ago! He was one of the hacks running the embezzlement grift out on the Turnpike. As the G-men closed in, he ordered his minions to destroy the evidence. Naturally, a typically thorough State Police investigation in 2019 “completely exonerated” him, in the feds’ words. Of course it did. It’s just staties being staties. Professional courtesy. “Despite multiple Troopers being arrested, pleading guilty and being sentenced for overtime fraud from 2018 to 2019, the State Police absolved Griffin, its most prolific offender to date, in a matter of four months.” It’s almost enough to make you think Griffin maybe had something on somebody else. But nah, that’s not how the State Police operate, wink wink nudge nudge. Griffin was indicted in 2020, the same year he went out on “disability.” He started grabbing $10,913 a month while in such excruciating knee pain that he was able to visit Europe for what the sentencing memo describes as a “walking Odyssey.” I never thought they’d lock Griffin up. He just got away with so much. He ran a “security company” and didn’t report $700,000 in income to the IRS. He sent his sons to la-de-dah Belmont Hill School and fraudulently shook those pampered pukes down for $170,000 in student aid, claiming poverty as he bought a mansion on the Cape and joined a private golf club. Like recently-sentenced Gary Cederquist, the head of the CDL crew in Canton, Griffin ran his own personal “gang of thieves,” as the feds put it, “a criminal cabal.” That’s the way it is in organized crime, which is what the State Police are. In the Mob, you have various crews running assorted rackets, and they all kick up, whether it’s in looking the other way (think Sandra Birchmore) or framing innocent people on behalf of the connected (think Karen Read, or Fred Weichel). So Griffin was the street boss of his stealing crew. His number two was Sgt. William W. Robertson, age 63. Robertson oddly didn’t file for a “disability,” as they almost always do. So after he fled ahead of the posse he had to subsist on a mere $8,024 a month for four years. Both Griffin and Robertson were finally convicted in Worcester in 2023, but the monthly kisses in the mail continued, until last September. That was a big enough shock – crooked troopers are hardly ever stripped of their ill-gotten gains. But then I heard the even more unbelievable news that they’d both been finally locked up for their unspeakably base criminal careers. Will wonders never cease? Griffin is now incarcerated in a posh Club Fed, in Ashland, KY. He used to be a K-9 officer, as did former drug-dealer and mob moll Leigha Genduso. So now he brags that his only roommate is the dog he’s training. In other words, he’s getting yet another soft ride. Meanwhile, his crooked sidekick, Robertson, BOP # 21731-509, is locked up in another good-time penitentiary in Beckley, WV. He’s scheduled to get out next June. Obviously, these are the rare exceptions that prove the iron rule that when you’re in the State Police, crime does indeed pay. And pays very, very well indeed. Behind which comes the pension. I mean, for every Griffin, Cederquist or Robertson, there are maybe a dozen or even a score of crooked troopers, retired, living large in Florida on their six-figure pensions with full health plans. Of course Michael Proctor will never make it to the Sunshine State, at least not with that bloated kiss in the mail like all the rest of them are pocketing. As he wastes away in Canton, unemployed and unemployable, he must be asking himself, did I do anything worse than, say, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox? I mean, a lie is a lie is a lie, no matter who you tell it to, no matter what it involves. At least, though, Michael Proctor has one thing to take solace in – his cherished “images of intimate bodily parts of people not participating in the text chain.” No nudes so far? Never mind! Michael Proctor finally got lucky. (Order Howie’s new book, “Mass Corruption: Vol. 1, The Cops” at howiecarrshow.com/store.)
