Detectives interview DeLeo's lawyer

They ask about ticket resale bill

A WIDENING INVESTIGATION State Police are asking the House Ways and Means Committee lawyer about a bill pushed by Richard Vitale (left).

The investigation of Richard Vitale, House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi's close friend and personal accountant, has led State Police to the House Ways and Means Committee, where they interviewed a lawyer for its chairman, Representative Robert A. DeLeo, about efforts by Massachusetts ticket brokers to gut the state's antiscalping laws.

Last Friday, troopers working with Attorney General Martha Coakley's office visited the home of James Kennedy, the committee's general counsel, said a state official who has been briefed on details of the visit. They asked him about legislation approved by the House last year that benefited the Massachusetts Association of Ticket Brokers, which paid Vitale $60,000 in 2007 to help with its legislative agenda, the official said.

It is the first time the Ways and Means Committee has been the focus of questions about Vitale's work on behalf of the ticket brokers, which is the subject of a state grand jury investigation. It also highlights the role of DeLeo, who is seeking to succeed DiMasi as speaker, in working behind the scenes on ticket resale legislation that is now the subject of the investigation.

As chief lawyer for DeLeo's committee, Kennedy reviewed the bill, which underwent a few key changes before the full House passed it without debate on Oct. 2, 2007. Kennedy was also in a position to know who was involved in the behind-the-scenes discussions about the bill, which essentially would have deregulated the ticket resale industry by allowing licensed brokers to charge any price, regardless of a ticket's face value.

Kennedy did not return phone calls seeking comment. Kennedy, 33, joined DeLeo's staff in 2007, after having worked for several years as a policy staff member for Representative Daniel E. Bosley, chairman of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies.

In an e-mailed statement, DeLeo said: "During the five days we had [the] bill in committee, we worked as hard as we could to make it the best bill possible, as we always do."

The bill passed the House nearly unanimously and was sent to the Senate, where it languished before dying at the end of the legislation session. Current law, which is rarely enforced, allows ticket brokers to charge only $2 more than face value, plus a service charge.

Coakley convened a grand jury after Vitale refused demands by Secretary of State William F. Galvin that he report the ticket brokers payments as lobbying fees. Vitale has insisted he did not lobby and has told regulators that he was paid to provide strategic help.

DiMasi has said he didn't know that Vitale was working for the group and had no involvement in the bill's drafting or passage. Vitale has refused all requests for comment. If he registered as a lobbyist, he would have to disclose that information.

The Globe reported in April that Vitale gave DiMasi a $250,000, below-market-rate third mortgage on his North End condo in 2006. The state's conflict-of-interest law makes it illegal for a lobbyist to give anything of value to a public official. DiMasi repaid the loan in May, after the Globe report, which also detailed Vitale's association with the ticket brokers' group.

The bill had its beginnings in 2007, when consumer advocates were pressing for controls on ticket prices, which the advocates said were spiraling out of control.

But by late September, legislation sought by the advocates to control prices was dead in the House. In its place, a broker-friendly bill lifting all price restrictions emerged from the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure chaired in the House by Representative Michael J. Rodrigues, Democrat of Westport. The bill allowed any ticket broker who was licensed and bonded to charge whatever the market would bear.

After an Oct. 1 meeting in the speaker's office, with DiMasi present, the ticket brokers' bill was rewritten before emerging the next day from DeLeo's Ways and Means Committee, the state official said.

Under the new bill, there were changes that benefited online ticket sellers like eBay and StubHub. Internet sites were excluded from the requirement that sellers be licensed by the state. The final bill also removed a cap on transaction fees the ticket broker websites could charge consumers of 25 percent of the transaction's value.

Also gone were provisions that would have made it illegal for brokers to secure tickets by bribing employees of venues like sports stadiums or arenas and another that would bar employees of ticket brokers from "intimidating or obstructing" people waiting to buy tickets.

It was unclear yesterday at whose request the changes were made. DiMasi said in an interview last spring that he never met with Vitale about the legislation or pushed it with House members. He said he was concerned about consumer price gouging.

Yesterday, DiMasi spokesman David Guarino said that a meeting like the Oct. 1 session in DiMasi's office was commonplace. "It is not at all unusual for him to be discussing legislation on the eve of floor debate," said Guarino.

Investigators from Coakley's office have also interviewed the two chairmen of the legislative committee that handled ticket resale legislation, Rodrigues and Senator Michael W. Morrissey, Democrat of Quincy.

Rodrigues said he told the investigators that he had never spoken to Vitale or had even heard of him until the first Globe report appeared last April. He told them that he had met with DiMasi on the legislation and that it was he, not DiMasi, who was the driving force behind the bill.

Morrissey said he met with lawyers last week and agreed to provide documents showing the history of ticket broker legislation. He had filed a bill more stringent than the one passed by the House, limiting the amount brokers could charge to twice the face value of the ticket.

"I am cooperating with the attorney general's office in their investigation," Morrissey said, adding that he had never spoken to Vitale about any legislation.

Globe correspondent Stephen Kurkjian contributed to this report.