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Boston hires specialist to track down Menino aide's emails

E-mail|Link|Comments () September 15, 2009 06:17 PM

By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff

The city of Boston has hired Boston-based computer specialists StoneTurn Group to conduct a forensic review of Menino's top policy aide's computer.

Michael Kineavy's e-mails have stirred up controversy

City officials seized the city computer used by the aide, Michael Kineavy, this morning in response to an order from Secretary of State William F. Galvin.

The city also has hired attorney Robert Kerwin for additional legal assistance with handling email retention issues. He is the past president of the state's City Solicitors and Town Counsel Association.

In an interview with the Globe about an hour before the city announced the hiring of StoneTurn Group, the manager of the company’s computer forensic lab in Boston said that experts could probably retrieve the deleted e-mails.

"Yes, it's likely, but until those images are preserved in a forensic manner and analyzed in a laboratory," said Sean Tuttle, it is impossible to say for sure. "There are lots of sources -- the sender, recipients -- that will give us a couple of options to investigate."

Galvin on Monday ordered the city to immediately seize the computer and software used by Kineavy. The head of Galvin's public records division wrote a letter to the city saying the demand was based on a "credible belief" that the city violated state public records law by allowing Kineavy to routinely delete e-mails in such a way that copies were not preserved by city servers.

Questions were raised after a public records request by the Globe unearthed only 18 e-mails to or from Kineavy between Oct. 1. 2008 and March 31 of this year.

The missing e-mails have become a central issues in the mayor's race, the Globe reports today.

Jonathan Saltzman of the Globe staff contributed to this report.