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State Senator Galluccio resigns

E-mail|Link|Comments () January 5, 2010 07:14 PM

Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff

Galluccio at a recent court hearing.

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

State Senator Anthony D. Galluccio resigned tonight from his Senate seat, a day after the Cambridge Democrat was sent to jail for one year for violating the terms of his house arrest by consuming alcohol.

"My decision today is not out of hopelessness but rather one of hope and opportunity," Galluccio wrote in a one-page letter addressed to Senate President Therese Murray. "In the end, I make this decision out of admiration and respect for each and every one of my Senate colleagues."

Murray said in a statement tonight that she had received the letter from Galluccio, who is currently behind bars at the Middlesex House of Correction in Billerica.

"Senator Galluccio has made the right decision today for himself, his family, the Senate and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," Murray said in her statement. "With his resignation, he can begin to face difficult personal challenges, and I hope he receives the services he needs to help him along the way."

Murray's statement continued: "With the support of his friends and family, and through his own will and determination, it is my sincere wish that he finds solace and future success. His resignation today is an indication that he is ready to begin that journey."

Galluccio had been under mounting pressure from his colleagues to resign and his decision spares him the potentially more humiliating possibility of facing expulsion proceedings in the Senate.

Senators said they had been planning tomorrow to order the Senate Ethics Committee to begin investigating Galluccio’s conduct and then make a recommendation to the full Senate that he be censured, suspended or expelled.

Several senators said they hoped such an order would compel Galluccio to step down, rather than face removal.

The last time the Senate expelled a member was 1977, when Joseph J.C. DiCarlo, a Revere Democrat and Senate majority leader, refused to resign following his conviction on charges of extorting a payoff from a New York consulting firm in what became known as the MBM scandal. The firm had been supervising construction of the new University of Massachusetts-Boston campus.

Galluccio, a 42-year-old former mayor of Cambridge, now becomes the third state senator to resign in disgrace in the last two years.

Dianne Wilkerson, a Roxbury Democrat, resigned in November 2008 after she was photographed by federal authorities allegedly stuffing cash bribes under her shirt. J. James Marzilli Jr., an Arlington Democrat, also resigned that month after he was charged with accosting four women in Lowell.