Worth a Gamble

A little leniency for this criminal could go a long way.

Dear John O'Brien:

As the state's probation commissioner, you have a pretty full plate there, I realize. For all I know, you make a half-dozen calls on various miscreants every half-hour, and if any of the calls goes wrong, somebody running for president will gladly toss you under the bus. But I think the case of this Timothy Elliott guy is an easy one - a win-win, as it were. Elliott, as you know, is the paroled bank robber down in Hyannis who won a million bucks in a lottery scratch game back in November. Now, Elliott is not even the most vicious hoodlum to wind up with his mitts around some lottery boodle. That title goes to the still-at-large Whitey Bulger, who somehow ended up with a share of a Mass Millions jackpot. Elliott at least won his money fair and square. Of course, as a condition of his probation, Elliott was ordered not to gamble. At all. He was not allowed to buy lottery tickets or even eat in a restaurant where people were playing keno. Considering the omnipresence of keno boards these days - I believe there's one below decks on Old Ironsides - this was a considerable hardship.

So he scratched a ticket? That just makes him another guy at the counter who forces us to wait 45 minutes to buy a banana. But now that he's won, you should wield your influence creatively. After all, if a guy knows he's got $1 million coming in at $35,000 after taxes every year, he'd have real motivation not to rob banks as often as he used to. This could be a new approach to the problem of criminal recidivism. Give all the crooks free money. Just don't let the Legislature hear about it. You know how they are.

Charles P. Pierce
pierce@globe.com