In the end, after the parade of witnesses, legal arguments and volumes of paperwork, a federal jury took a few hours short of a full afternoon last week to acquit longtime Suffolk County Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins of all charges. The case, mounted by U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley, had taken prominent aim at a Black elected official who has battled President Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement going back to 2019, when the sheriff canceled an ICE contract to use Suffolk County facilities to detain suspects.
Tompkins stood accused by the feds of extorting $50,000 from a cannabis company his office had partnered with to obtain a dispensary license — an application-boosting “social justice” agreement for the company to hire people recently released from jail. The sheriff’s defense team accused Trump’s Justice Department of overreach, arguing there was nothing illegal about his obtaining interest in Ascend and then later selling back his shares for no profit. Former Sheriff Andrea Cabral, who once served as an Ascend executive, testified that even had Tompkins withdrawn the agreement, there was no risk to the company’s license application.
The prosecution argued that the company worried that Tompkins’ withdrawal from the deal would compromise the bid but provided no evidence that the sheriff ever conditioned his support around the stock purchase. In a courtroom where federal prosecutors win over 90% of their cases, the jury rejected the government’s case and acquitted Tompkins on two counts of extortion.
To paraphrase U.S. Labor Secretary Ray Donovan after his 1987 acquittal on fraud charges, Tompkins might well ask, “Where do I get my reputation back?” The answer begins with the fact that a failed case with political overtones will never erase the many accomplishments of his tenure.
Tompkins, first appointed sheriff by Gov. Deval Patrick in 2013 to replace Cabral as she departed to become the public safety secretary in Patrick’s cabinet, has a long record of innovative policies to reduce recidivism and ease reentry to society for prisoners. As the steward of the Nashua Street Jail and the Suffolk County House of Corrections, inmates and pretrial detainees benefited from programs like the “Common Ground Institute,” which teaches marketable skills and offers on-site training on public lands and facilities in Suffolk County.
Elected on his own to six-year full terms in 2016 and 2022, Tompkins established durable partnerships with city agencies, youth groups and civic organizations to deter crime and improve reentry initiatives.
After his indictment last year, Tompkins sensibly took a leave of absence from his job and designated a “special sheriff ” to head up the office’s 1,000 employees and oversee some 2,200 inmates and detainees. While he awaited trial, an inmate died after an altercation with corrections officers. The chief medical officer labeled the death a homicide. No such incident ever occurred under Tompkins’ direct watch.
Tompkins’ return to the job couldn’t come too soon. As he resumes his proven leadership, we hope that past political allies of the sheriff like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Gov. Maura Healey will welcome his return.
We know that President Trump won’t be sending Tompkins a welcome-back-to-work card. His far-right minions on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, recently sent letters to Tompkins, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox and Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden accusing them of adopting sanctuary city policies that endanger the communities they serve. If past is prologue, Trump’s team will relentlessly seek out other ways to oust Tompkins.
Black elected officials like New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis were targeted by federal investigations after they pursued Trump in court. As part of his war on “wokeness,” the president has also gone after Black military leaders like former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Charles Q. Brown, dismissing the decorated four-star Air Force general with no explanation; ousted Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress; and this week forced out distinguished Black historian Lonnie Bunch III as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
Where dismissal or prosecution is not available, Trump resorts to disparagement, using racially coded remarks about intelligence and morality to denigrate leaders like our own U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and other Black members of Congress. This is a president who said at a memorial service for the murdered Republican campus influencer Charlie Kirk, “I hate my opponents.” According to Pressley, quoted by the Capital B news site, Trump “is attacking Black leaders like myself for speaking truth to power, supporting our Black community and being everything he is not.”
As Sheriff Tompkins returns to the job to which the voters of Suffolk County thrice elected him, we hope he continues to find compassionate and effective ways to ease the transition of prisoners to society; to house inmates and detainees safely and securely; and to stand up to President Trump and his policies that unfairly target immigrants and communities of color.
Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner
