The bribery scandal widens

THE FBI complaint against former state senator Dianne Wilkerson, who was arrested last month on federal bribery charges, cites unnamed "small-timers" who might also require greasing by business owners or developers. One such name surfaced yesterday when federal agents arrested Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner for allegedly taking a $1,000 bribe and lying to FBI agents.

The FBI has blanketed City Hall with subpoenas as part of its investigation into the alleged Wilkerson/Turner extortion scheme to obtain a liquor license for a proposed nightclub in Roxbury. That investigation could expand to two unnamed state representatives cited in the October bribery complaint against Wilkerson, concerning efforts to develop a state-owned parcel in Roxbury. The US attorney is tight-lipped. It is reasonable to expect investigators to be looking not only at developers who used Turner and Wilkerson to run interference but also at the "community partners" in local nonprofit groups who are often used to lend neighborhood support to development projects.

The halls of political power in Boston are awash in sewage. Right now, the stench is drifting over Roxbury, a neighborhood represented by both Turner and Wilkerson. The shame of it all goes deeper than the photographic evidence of alleged bribe-taking. No district needs the honest services of elected officials more than the largely minority area represented by Wilkerson and Turner. Rampant crime, high home-foreclosure rates, and unemployment mar the area. But instead of working single-mindedly to fix these problems, two key leaders now stand accused of lining their own pockets.

Turner, a fifth-term councilor, has given voters many chances to take his measure. In 2004, he unveiled grotesque photographs at a press conference, which showed, he suggested, the rape of Iraqi women by US soldiers. The photos turned out to be posed, matching those on a pornographic website. A few months earlier he accused a fellow councilor of "institutional racism" for trying to steer the council away from resolutions on the Iraq war and toward pressing local business. A year earlier, he even suggested, without an iota of credible evidence, that a police officer might have shot a 3-year-old boy. Yet voters kept returning him to office.

Tolerance for recklessness on the part of public officials runs too high in the district, which long overlooked Wilkerson's history of campaign finance violations and failure to file tax returns. But this fall, voters finally jettisoned the eight-term state senator. Turner is entitled to his day in court. But with the photos of him accepting cash, he lost any credibility he had as a public servant.