Attorney general chooses to go out with a bang

Every major Boston news outlet flocked to Thomas F. Reilly's 20th-floor office yesterday to cover the next major development in the Big Dig crisis -- and, possibly, the last major event of Reilly's public career. When the attorney general entered the room and saw the huge throng of news cameras and reporters gathered to hear him speak, he drew in a breath.

"Wow," he said.

It had seemed Reilly's career in public service would end quietly. Since the night of his crushing loss in the Sept. 19 Democratic gubernatorial primary, he has stayed out of the public eye. That changed yesterday, when Reilly announced his office would file a lawsuit against Big Dig contractors to hold them financially responsible for the July 10 ceiling panel collapse that killed a woman and cost the state millions of dollars.

At the time of the accident, Reilly was in a heated three-man race for the Democratic nomination. He immediately pledged to hold the contractors responsible financially and criminally, if the evidence supported charges. As his investigation continued, though, his two primary opponents, Deval L. Patrick and Christopher F. Gabrieli, stepped up criticism that he had failed to oversee the Big Dig and its cost overruns.

Had he filed a lawsuit during the campaign, Reilly might have blunted that criticis m. But yesterday, in characteristically sober tones, Reilly dismissed a question about the political ramifications of having waited so long.

"This has nothing to do with my race for governor," he said. "A woman lost her life here. There's a lot more important things than elections."

Reilly will leave office in January after eight years in office, and some observers speculated yesterday that he may have wanted to announce the civil lawsuit before he left office, partly in order to restore his image. Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant, noted that the public's last image of Reilly was his pained concession speech on primary night, when he finished a distant third.

"If this is his last appearance, far better to be seen keeping a campaign promise as attorney general," she said. ". . . No one wants to be remembered for their lowest moment."

But friends and political allies of the attorney general said his decision to forge ahead on a major case was typical of Reilly, who they said was doggedly focused on doing his job as well as he could until the last moment.

"It's his commitment to his office," said former US attorney Wayne Budd, a close friend of Reilly's. "He isn't doing this for some political motive or to establish a legacy. He's the attorney general, and he sees it as his job, and that's what he's going to do."

At the news conference, Reilly said he could have filed a lawsuit right after the accident, but he was determined that the case proceed on two tracks, civil and criminal.

Reilly said that a special grand jury, which was convened in October to hear evidence, was ongoing. But to protect the state's legal interests, he said, he wanted to file the civil case by tomorrow, the sixth anniversary of the completion of one portion of the tunnel. (Six years is the normal deadline under Massachusetts law for filing suits over faulty construction.) He said his staff worked through the weekend on the case and was putting the final touches on it yesterday.

Reilly described his personal observations of the evidence during the nearly two weeks he spent in the tunnel where the accident occurred .

"I saw the condition of the car; it was crushed," he said. "I saw the condition of the concrete -- about 20,000 pounds of concrete came down on the car. I saw the epoxy bolts first-hand . . . I saw the discoloration of the epoxy as well . . . We took that ceiling down panel by panel."

Robert H. Quinn, former House speaker and attorney general, said he voted for Reilly in the primary despite his frustrations with the attorney general's political skills.

"He's a far better lawyer than he is a politician," he said. "And at this stage, if he says it's ready to go, it must be ready to go."