New: State Police union lawyer who tried to intimidate Boston First Responders United has close connections to AG Maura Healey

Same attorney who spent five years working under Healey is now seeking to silence critics for sharing a "campaign video attacking gubernatorial candidate and Attorney General Maura Healey" regarding her alleged unethical behavior

Oct. 24, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Evan Lips, communications director

617-523-5005 ext. 245

WOBURN -- The attorney who issued an intimidating cease-and-desist demand to a Boston-based first responders organization for sharing a video calling on attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Maura Healey to address questions about alleged unethical romantic affairs with various female Massachusetts state troopers himself worked in the AG's office under Healey for roughly half a decade, records show.

Patrick Hanley, a lawyer now representing the State Police Association of Massachusetts, issued his demand immediately after the Massachusetts Republican Party drew attention to the existence of the video on Friday.

MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons later discovered that Hanley, who no longer works for Healey, spent 11 years working in the attorney general's office, both when Healey was assistant attorney general and later when she was elected AG.

The video in question, meanwhile, posted to the group's Twitter account, asks whether Healey "used her power" to initiate the alleged unethical affairs or if they were "just coincidences."

Hanley's ties to Healey's office also include legal work spent defending one of three assistant district attorneys involved in the state drug lab scandal that an assistant counsel for the Massachusetts Board Bar of Overseers described as "one of the most severe cases of conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that this Commonwealth has ever seen."

MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons said the intimidation and attempts at censorship are reminiscent of the same strategy Democrats employed in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

"In the fall of 2020 we saw the Democrats direct federal agencies to actively suppress any reports that could negatively affect the campaign of their presidential candidate, Joe Biden," Lyons said. "Two years later, we are watching the Democrats and Maura Healey employ this same strategy of intimidation and censorship, and no fair-minded voters should stand for any of this.

"Voters are entitled to know the truth, and anyone who values the fairness of our electoral system should be alarmed by this blatant abuse of power."

Link to press release

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