City hired driver without license

A heavy equipment operator arrested for buying OxyContin earlier this month was hired by the city and drove city tow trucks for nearly three years without a driver's license, records show.

William E. Morin Jr. of South Boston was in uniform and driving a city vehicle when police charged him with possession with intent to distribute OxyContin within 1,000 feet of a school zone on July 20.

His driver's license was suspended from March 2000 through November 2003, according to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. But the city's Transportation Department hired him to drive tow trucks on April 29, 2000, despite having a copy of Morin's driving record that showed that his license had been suspended. City officials did not recheck his record until his arrest.

"Someone fell down on the job," Transportation Commissioner Thomas J. Tinlin said yesterday. "This person never should have been hired by this department."

Morin, 42, said yesterday he did not know about the suspension, which was for unpaid fines.

"If I had known, of course I would have gone and paid them," said Morin, who has been on unpaid administrative leave since his arrest.

The city vowed in March to check every heavy-equipment operators' driving record after a Globe investigation found the city routinely allowed workers to operate heavy vehicles even though their personal driving records included a litany of violations, from drunken driving to reckless endangerment. Numerous employees had their driver's licenses suspended more than once.

The union representing city drivers, including Morin, is concerned about officials checking members' driving records, city officials said yesterday.

That is being negotiated out of contracts, Tinlin said.

Morin's record includes three other license suspensions. The first was for a month in 1989 after he defaulted on a court appearance for a speeding ticket in Quincy, records show. The second was for five months in 1990 after he failed to show up in court on a traffic ticket he received in Weymouth. The third was for 2 1/2 years, from March 1991 to October 1993, after he again did not show up for court on a speeding ticket he received in Middleborough, records show.

Morin was threatened with license suspension twice more, in December 2003 and 2005, but he paid the fines or made the appearances necessary to avoid suspension in those cases.

When he applied for a job with the city in April 2000, Morin provided Transportation Department officials with a copy of his driving record that showed his license was suspended at the time for failing to pay fines for a speeding ticket he received in Westborough and a seat belt violation in Dedham. He did not get his license reinstated until Nov. 14, 2003.

"Whoever he gave his driving record to, I don't know if they didn't understand it or if they just didn't look at it," Tinlin said.

On July 20, police watching a suspected drug dealer's house on West 9th Street in South Boston, apprehended Morin after he left the house. They found 14 OxyContin pills in his pocket, the report shows. After Morin left the house, officers saw him engage in what they believed to be another drug transaction, the report says.

The 178 heavy equipment operators reviewed by the Globe in March had collectively amassed 834 citations on their personal driving records for causing accidents or for violations ranging from speeding and running red lights to refusing to obey police.

The report followed a January incident in which a city worker with previous drug offenses and license suspensions listed on his record ran down and seriously injured a woman in South Boston with a city snowplow and fled. Officials said they had failed to check his record.

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.