Parole Board halts releases
By Laurel J. Sweet and Hillary Chabot | Friday, January 7, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics
The embattled Parole Board will not release any more convicts with life sentences until a review of its notorious decision to release a triple-lifer is complete, the board said yesterday, even as a firestorm of criticism over the tragic ruling continued to erupt.
Woburn officer John “Jack” Maguire was shot to death Dec. 26 as he tried to stop parolee Dominic Cinelli from fleeing an alleged department store diamond heist.
“We certainly understand the anger and concern that many people are stressing,” said Executive Office of Public Safety Undersecretary John Grossman. “We share their concern and shock at the events of 10 days ago. We are engaged in a comprehensive review around Cinelli’s hearing and his supervision. At the end of that review, we’ll report to the governor and the governor will take the appropriate action.”
Grossman said Parole Board members can’t legally halt parole hearings, but are canceling their executive hearings, in which decisions about releases of convicts with life sentences are made. Those hearings will not resume until the review is complete.
Not good enough, cops said yesterday.
As far as the board is concerned, “they want them all gone,” Woburn police Chief Philip Mahoney said, flanked by 75 of his fellow Bay State top cops outside Woburn police headquarters, where black bunting grimly marks last month’s line-of-duty death.
“I am so upset with them,” Mahoney said of the board’s unanimous 2008 vote to set 57-year-old Cinelli free, despite a nine-page criminal record of armed robberies, the attempted murder of a security guard and two prison escapes spanning four decades. Cinelli was serving three concurrent life sentences.
“I know a life sentence in Massachusetts is not a life sentence, believe me,” Mahoney said.
However, Mahoney said he believes state officials will do a fair probe of the board’s release.
Cinelli, who Mahoney said appeared to have been in compliance with the conditions of his parole, died from Maguire’s return fire.
“He wasn’t prepared to die,” said the hero cop’s tearful big brother, Charles “Chuck” Maguire, 63. “He was one of those guys who wanted to work.”
Police also pushed yesterday for the Legislature’s swift passage of a bill to abolish parole eligibility for habitual violent offenders.
Mark K. Leahy, president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said all the red flags that Cinelli was not a good risk for parole were plain as day in his criminal history. “Any clear-thinking person realizes if it’s predictable, it’s preventable,” he said.
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