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AG’s office says it is ’involved’ in e-mail probe at City Hall

E-mail|Link|Comments () October 7, 2009 02:21 PM

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Attorney General Martha Coakley says her office is now involved in a review by the secretary of state's office that is looking to recover missing e-mails sent by a top aide to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Martha Coakley

Coakley said in a statement issued this afternoon that Secretary of State William F. Galvin's office has been working to ensure that public records are preserved and "to determine whether there have been any violations of the public records law by City officials."

"We are now involved in that review," Coakley said.

She said her office would continue to work with Galvin's office going forward in the effort to find mayoral aide Michael Kineavy's e-mails and "we remain prepared to conduct a full investigation and take all necessary steps to guarantee the preservation of evidence and full compliance with the law."

Speaking to reporters after a news conference on a different issue this afternoon, Coakley declined to elaborate further on what she meant in her statement by being "involved" in the case. "We are involved to the extent that we are working with him and we are reviewing to date what has occurred," she said.

Galvin expressed frustration Tuesday over what he described as the city's failure to fully cooperate with investigators. He told the Globe he was considering taking further action against the Menino administration. Under state law, he could turn the case over to Coakley for possible prosecution.

Also Tuesday, Kineavy, the mayor's chief of policy and planning, announced that he was taking an unpaid leave from the office because he had become a "distraction, and that isn't good for the mayor or the city."

The controversy began when the Globe in April requested copies of e-mails sent or received by Kineavy. The Globe reported in September that the city had only been able to recover 18 of the e-mails over a six-month period and that Kineavy had been double-deleting his e-mails by dragging them into the trash and then emptying the trash, raising the possibility of violations of the public records law. That law requires e-mails to be kept for two years.

The Globe reported this week that Kineavy, shortly after the Globe's first request for his e-mails, asked for and received a new computer. The old computer was found in late September in a sixth-floor office at City Hall and has been turned over to forensic experts hired by the city for examination.

Federal prosecutors are also interested in what's on Kineavy's e-mail. In late 2008 or early 2009, they issued a subpoena demanding copies of any messages Kineavy had exchanged with two targets of a corruption probe, state Senator Dianne Wilkerson and City Councilor Chuck Turner.