December 08, 2017 10:29 AM UTC

At Least He's Not Your State Senator

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• by: Colorado Pols

It’s time again for one of our longest-running features on Colorado Pols: “At Least They’re Not Your Legislator!”

Today we take you to Boston, where former Democratic state Sen. Brian A. Joyce just might have the most absurd story of corruption we’ve seen all year. As the Boston Globe reports:

Former state senator Brian A. Joyce was charged in a federal indictment Friday with using his Senate office as a front to collect about $1 million in bribes and kickbacks that were laundered through his law firm, along with getting hundreds of pounds of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee for free…

…Joyce is also accused of collecting hundreds of pounds of coffee – along with $125,089 in “purported legal fees” – from a Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee. On one occasion in 2015, he collected 504 pounds of coffee, worth an estimated $4,278, for free, authorities allege.

What could you possibly do with 504 pounds of coffee? Perhaps Joyce really needed to stay awake so that he could break so many laws:

Joyce faces more than 100 charges, an extraordinary amount outpacing the number of charges brought against other politicians in recent years, including former House Speaker Sal DiMasi and former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson, who was charged with one count of bribery.

The last time this many charges were brought against a federal defendant in Boston was in 2014, when Barry Cadden, the former head of New England Compounding Center, was charged with racketeering in connection with a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak that killed dozens of people.

Upon further consideration, maybe we should just title this, “At Least You Don’t Live in Boston.”