Trial witness puts DiMasi at center of corrupt scheme

“He said he made it up,’’ said Christopher Quinter, a former salesman with Cognos and the first person to testify in DiMasi’s public corruption trial. “He said Speaker DiMasi would provide the funding for it.’’

DiMasi delivered, according to federal prosecutors. The Burlington company came away with the largest contract it had ever won, more than twice what it had recently received for a far more complex project in Ohio. It was the second contract the company had secured with Massachusetts.

Quinter’s appearance in federal court yesterday, under the protection of immunity, marked the start of testimony in the trial of DiMasi and two associates, who have been charged with using the power of the speaker’s office to steer two performance-management software contracts totaling $17.5 million to Cognos in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret payments.

Leaning forward in the witness stand, Quinter provided the first account from the Cognos perspective of the alleged secret dealings among Lally, DiMasi, lobbyist Richard McDonough, and consultant Richard Vitale.

DiMasi and longtime associates Vitale and McDonough have been charged with conspiracy, honest services fraud, and mail and wire fraud. In addition, DiMasi is charged with extortion for seeking the payments.

Lally “was always talking about Speaker DiMasi,’’ Quinter said, recounting e-mails between himself and Lally that referred to reports of a golf outing involving the former speaker and a Cognos executive and Lally’s meetings with other state officials.

Lally “was going to work with Sal to get funding lined up . . . for the legislation,’’ Quinter said.

As the scheme unfolded, Quinter said he questioned why a DiMasi associate was getting paid $5,000 a month by Cognos for work he did not perform and whether it was legal. Lally told him not to worry, he said.

“What they do with their money is none of my business,’’ Lally said of DiMasi and the associate’s arrangement, according to Quinter.

Prosecutors allege the associate, Steven Topazio, was funneling much of the $5,000 he received back to DiMasi. He has not been accused of wrongdoing and is expected to testify Monday.

Lally was a codefendant in the case who agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with authorities in exchange for a sharply reduced jail sentence. But defense lawyers have painted him as a desperate, “degenerate gambler’’ who lied and dropped names for his benefit and who has agreed to be “purchased’’ by prosecutors and support their allegations so he can save himself.

Under cross-examination by Martin Weinberg, an attorney for Vitale, Quinter said he never met DiMasi and encountered Vitale only once, in Vitale’s accounting office. At that meeting, they discussed their families and nothing about Cognos, Quinter said.

Quinter acknowledged that he often doubted Lally’s stories and the connections he said he had.

“Do you have an opinion as to whether Joseph Lally was a truthful person?’’ Weinberg asked.

“As someone who knew him for six years, I can’t say he would be a truthful person,’’ Quinter said. “His reputation was that he was a liar.’’

Quinter also testified that Cognos had pushed hard for the state contracts.

The company had hired McDonough, one of the top lobbyists in the state and a longtime associate of DiMasi, at a rate of $25,000 a month to help secure a contract with the state Department of Education, the first of the two contracts. When former Education Commissioner David Driscoll attempted to remove an earmark of $4.5 million for the type of software Cognos produced in 2006, DiMasi interceded, according to Quinter, citing e-mails and other accounts from Lally. Referring to a scheduled meeting between DiMasi and Driscoll, Lally allegedly wrote in June 2006, “We will be having a coming to Jesus meeting Monday with the commissioner.’’

Another e-mail showed that a DiMasi aide and McDonough had discussed legislation submitted by state Representative Robert Coughlin to preserve the $4.5 million earmark for the software. The bill was allegedly written at DiMasi’s direction.

The earmark was eventually saved, and Cognos received a $4.5 million contract. Coughlin, no longer in the Legislature, is expected to testify in the trial.

Lally soon started promising his company that he could sell an enterprise license to the state worth an additional $15 million, a figure he invented. Cognos executives had asked Quinter, “Is this for real,’’ he testified yesterday. The company had signed a contract around that time for similar software with Ohio for less than $6 million.

Lally referred to the enterprise license, a blanket license that would give the state complete access to the software, as the “next dragon to slay,’’ according to Quinter.

Lally’s efforts to sell the enterprise license were unsuccessful in 2006, near the end of the Romney administration, but he continued to push for the contracts when Governor Deval Patrick took office the following year.

All along, according to Quinter, Cognos officials were drawing up legislation that would require the state to buy the type of software Cognos produced, in an attempt to eliminate other vendors. A draft of the proposed legislation was allegedly delivered directly to DiMasi, Quinter said. It was passed in spring 2007.

When Cognos executives asked Lally about the status of the contract, he reported “the administration was holding our deal hostage, and they wanted concessions from the Legislature,’’ according to Quinter.

Lally told Cognos officials that he would discuss the signing of the contract with Doug Rubin, the governor’s former chief of staff, and other administration officials, Quinter said. The state eventually signed a $13 million contract for the software, after Cognos deducted $2 million in what it called a discount.

The Cognos transaction and the speaker’s alleged role in it would become the subject of a Globe investigative series and a state and federal probe. The software was never delivered.