The ex-chief of staff to former Lawrence mayor William Lantigua was properly convicted of soliciting a bribe when he demanded that a company with a multimillion-dollar city contract provide a garbage truck to a city in Lantigua’s native Dominican Republic, a court has ruled.
Leonard Degnan was convicted of bribery in Essex Superior Court in 2014 and was ordered to serve 18 months behind bars, a conviction and sentence he deserved, a three-judge panel of the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled Thursday.
According to the court and Globe coverage of Lantigua’s stormy tenure, Degnan met with two executives of the Allied Waste trash company in December 2009 and told them Lantigua could cancel their $6.4 million contract, but would not if they gave the city of Tenares a garbage truck.
Company executives agreed and refurbished a garbage truck and another person paid to ship it to the Dominican Republican city, where Lantigua had befriended the mayor while both he and Degnan were vacationing there, the court wrote.
Writing for the panel, Judge Amy Lynn Blake concluded that Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett’s office, which prosecuted, proved the bribery case against Degnan, who was acting on behalf of Lantigua, the mayor-elect at the time.
“The defendant made clear, through his threatening and hostile manner, the repercussions of failing to provide the requested donation,’’ Blake wrote. “From this evidence, the jury could infer that the defendant solicited the trash truck in exchange for not voiding the contract — an unlawful quid pro quo.’’
She added “even though the defendant did not spell out the quid pro quo directly, his approach was not subtle. . . . The defendant made abundantly clear that the purpose of the donation was to keep the trash contract intact.’’
On technical legal grounds the court threw out Degnan’s conviction for solicitation of a gratuity, but left intact the bribery solicitation conviction and convictions for conspiracy to solicit a bribe and using an official position with fraudulent intent.
Lantigua, who was never charged, was the state’s first Latino mayor. He lost his 2013 reelection bid to Daniel Rivera by less than 100 votes.
John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.
