For Wilkerson, new scrutiny and new resolve

State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, facing trouble again, was offering an explanation. Over lunch at the Parker House last week, Wilkerson said she believes that a new state probe of her campaign spending was driven by the extreme and unfair scrutiny she receives -- and other politicians escape.

''I don't think there ever will be a time of complete freedom from this kind of scrutiny," Wilkerson added later. ''As long as I stay in the business, I'm not in total control to make it go away."

The problems that Wilkerson faces today have echoes in her past: a federal income-tax probe that ended in 1997 with her pleading guilty to four misdemeanors, and foreclosure proceedings on her condominium in 2000. Her explanations back then also blamed external events. Some of the money for her taxes, she said, went to a home-security system after she received death threats. And the mortgage payment fell behind her dresser.

After 12 years in public office, Wilkerson is confronting what could become a crisis. The head of the state Democratic Party has called for her ''to explain herself fully." The attorney general's office calls the campaign-finance allegations, which involve more than $70,000 in questionable donations and expenses, ''extremely rare" and the problems in her campaign accounting ''pervasive."

But step into Wilkerson's world, and the view is different. She accepts responsibility for her transgressions, but then wonders why she, in particular, has been investigated. Some of her supporters minimize the campaign spending allegations by likening them to balancing a checkbook.

Talk to those constituents, and her work is heroic, the product of 19-hour days of selfless dedication to the needs of poor, voiceless residents. She has no competition so far for this fall's election, and when she works a room, stylish and emphatic, her spellbound audience greets her with loud, sustained applause.

''I think that they just targeted her and tried to make an example of her," Aisha Johnson said after listening to Wilkerson speak last week in Roxbury about youth violence.

Still, despite the blanket of acceptance that envelops her, a few residents offer measured criticism. In Wilkerson's defenses over the years, some see denial of responsibility. ''I think we all have to pay our taxes," said Thelma Barros, 58, of the South End. ''As a leader in the community, you have to demonstrate that leadership."

The litany of Wilkerson's problems is long, including the convictions for failing to file federal income taxes; the resulting confinement to a halfway house; two state campaign-finance complaints; the foreclosure proceedings, which she halted; and failing to pay dozens of parking tickets.

Wilkerson, 50, declined to respond specifically to the latest allegations in the interview with the Globe. But when other lawmakers are cited for tax or financial violations, she said, they rarely seem to gain a permanent stigma. ''It's hard not to see my treatment as different, or subjected to a different or double standard, precisely because there have been other public figures" who have faced similar accusations in Massachusetts.

Wilkerson would not name those lawmakers, but she said ''they have escaped the kind of ongoing scrutiny and punishment I have been subjected to. I wouldn't wish what happened to me on anyone, foe or friend. But I can't ignore that reality."

Wilkerson drew attention from the start of her career, in part because of her eloquence and passion, in part because of her personal story. Raised poor in Springfield after her family moved from Arkansas, she graduated from American International College while raising two small children. She attended Boston College Law School, practiced law at a private firm, and then helped the NAACP take on the Boston Housing Authority in a landmark effort that, in 1990, desegregated projects in South Boston and Charlestown.

In 1992, she challenged Senator Bill Owens in the Democratic primary and scored a stunning victory. Wilkerson won the general election and has never been seriously challenged since then.

Melvin B. Miller, editor and publisher of The Boston-Bay State Banner, a black-run weekly newspaper, downplayed the importance of Wilkerson's legal woes.

''I understand that she has problems with financial records and that sort of thing. A lot of people do," Miller said. ''When's the last time you checked your bank balances when your statement came in?"

Wilkerson's star power is evident whether she is speaking in her district or enjoying a power lunch near the State House. At the Roxbury YMCA last week, during a community workshop on violence prevention, Wilkerson quieted more than 200 people with a rousing speech in which she called for parental responsibility and scolded Mayor Thomas M. Menino, members of the black clergy, and the Boston Police Department for being ineffective.

''We must focus on personal, family, and community responsibility," Wilkerson said at the meeting. ''As a start, let's put all the folks in the room at the same time for the no-holds-barred conversation that is oh-so-long overdue. No cameras and no press conference!"

The next day, over lunch at the Parker House, Wilkerson was a center of attention as lawyers, lobbyists, and state officials stopped by her table to shake her hand and exchange pleasantries. None of them mentioned the campaign-finance lawsuit.

Indeed, in an interview with the Globe, one of Wilkerson's colleagues in the Senate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the political situation, said that even on the day the lawsuit was announced, no one spoke of it during a closed-door caucus.

Wilkerson's spiritual adviser, the Rev. John M. Borders III of Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan, said that the broad support she enjoys from the black community is not surprising. ''It's a family affair," Borders said. ''No matter what happens, family is still family. We fight for our own."

Borders does not believe Wilkerson has been targeted because of race. Rather, he said, Wilkerson's willingness to challenge the city's political and institutional establishment has caused friction. ''She has presented herself as one who didn't care what powerful people thought of her," Borders said.

In the latest example of her battles with authority, Wilkerson lambasted the Boston police last week in an op-ed article in the Globe. In the piece, she incorrectly listed the number of police districts and erroneously wrote that the police do not have any black district commanders, setting off an angry and detailed rebuttal from the department. Asked about the mistakes during the interview, Wilkerson brushed them aside.

There is little dispute that Wilkerson has an impressive State House record -- from legislation to prevent redlining by insurance companies, overhaul of public-construction law, studies of ethnic disparities in healthcare, and fighting to end racial profiling.

Robert Tommasino, the general counsel for Massachusetts FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort for homeowners and small businesses, met with Wilkerson in the mid-1990s to discuss ways to encourage insurance companies to do more business in minority neighborhoods.

''She was well prepared, smart, very competent," Tommasino said. ''I always felt that what she said was what you could trust."

Still, despite her accomplishments, some of those who know her best express a tinge of disappointment at her latest legal challenge.

Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, has known Wilkerson since they attended American International College in Springfield, where he baby-sat her two children when she attended classes.

''Clearly, she's one of the hardest-working senators in the State House. However, she's had some personal obstacles that have prevented her from being a great state senator," Williams said. ''After 12 years, the tolerance bar is a little lower. Your stuff should be air-tight, period."

Officials at the attorney general's office have said that Wilkerson had three years to explain the questionable donations and expenses from 2000 and 2001, some of which she allegedly paid herself and her two sons. Wilkerson called the assertion that she avoided investigators ''an unadulterated, flat-out lie."

Wilkerson said she expects to be the target of more investigations in the future -- ''Who knows what it will be?" -- but that she will prepare for the next storm by continuing to work hard for her district.

''The only reason I am still here, and in some measure stronger than I was in my community 10 years ago, is that my constituents from Chinatown to JP to the South End have been able to see through this and judge me by my work."