Political Scene: From Senate to prison, now he wants his seat back representing Johnston
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JOHNSTON — Senate candidate Christopher Maselli doesn't sound much different than every other "fed up" challenger out there, Republican or Democrat.
"As a Johnston homeowner, taxpayer, and father of three children, I am fed up by the rising cost of living," he tells potential voters in a mailing in which he pledges "to lower the price of gas, cut taxes, and put more money in your pocket during these difficult times."
But Democrat Maselli, 50, is unlike any other candidate seeking a $17,626.63 seat in the Rhode Island legislature this year.
He had a Senate seat. He resigned it in November 2010 on his way to U.S. District Court to plead guilty to falsifying bank statements and tax filings in an elaborate scheme to obtain $1.7 million in loans. He went to prison.
Now he wants his old Senate seat back.
Maselli is running for the Senate District 25 seat held since he left by Frank Lombardo, a heating and air conditioning contractor whose daughter is marrying Senate President Dominick Ruggerio's nephew.
The race — and the whisper campaign around the two men and their families — has gotten weird, even by Johnston standards.
A few decades back, a convicted Johnston town councilman, Joseph Voccola, refused to resign so he could continue to serve — from prison. Current Rep. Edward Cardillo and his challenger-nephew are at each other's throats.
And now Johnston voters have: Maselli v. Lombardo.
"When we talk about a convicted felon running in Johnston, the conventional wisdom is...'That's Johnston for you'," Lombardo told The Journal.
"That's not acceptable to me," Lombardo said. "Our town should not be a laughing stock, an embarrassment."
But Maselli – who regained his license to practice law in 2016 and currently works for the Law Office of Thomas Badway, who also owns Dean Auto Collision Center — makes this case for his reinstatement to the Senate in a letter to potential voters:
"I know you may have questions about some of the choices I regretfully made as a younger man regarding my personal financial life."
"I have always assumed complete responsibility for my actions, and I am truly sorry to the residents of Johnston for allowing my previous personal failures to affect my ability to represent our district."
"As the novelist Nicholas Sparks said, 'Life always offers you a second chance … it’s called tomorrow'."
'A calculated scheme'
The darts go both ways.
Lombardo accuses Maselli of downplaying his conviction as the mistake of an "impressionable young man."
"This was a calculated scheme by a prominent real estate attorney to try to build a fortune in investment property," he said.
"He betrayed the trust of every Johnston resident while he was a sitting senator and now he is asking for their forgiveness," Lombardo said.
For his part, Maselli has unleashed a swarm of allegations against Lombardo. Among them that:
Lombardo voted against the suspension of the gas tax while he "drives a town vehicle where our tax dollars fill his tank" ... Made $6,000 from a one-day state contract ... [and] was "fined $16,420 for stealing from his company's employees."
Lombardi acknowledges there is an iota of truth in some – but only some – of what Maselli alleges.
For example: he voted against suspending the gas tax during the Senate budget debate — after introducing a gas tax relief bill earlier in the 2022 session. He says he voted nay after Senate leaders made clear the move had no chance in the House and, they believed, the elimination of the car tax would have more impact.
He also acknowledges driving a town car, since getting an $81,000-a-year town job early this year as a compliance officer and mechanical inspector at the Amazon construction site in Johnston.
Maselli alleges the town job was the "quid pro quo" for Lombardo not running for mayor, clearing the Democratic lane for current Mayor Joseph Polisena's son.
"You can say whatever you want about me ... but nothing I did in the past had anything to do with my public service," Maselli says.
"I did not steal one penny from the taxpayers. However ... when you take a town job in agreement for not running for mayor, now you are costing the taxpayers money."
"Absolutely not," said Lombardo when asked if there was any connection between his job and his decision not to run for mayor, which he acknowledges he "mulled" but says he decided against based on his wife's advice.
"He's just trying to deflect," Lombardo said of Maselli.
Polisena also adamantly denies Maselli's allegation, telling The Journal last week: "I never heard he [Lombardo] was going to run for mayor. It's political silly season."
He said the town needed a new inspector for the massive Amazon project. Lombardo has four licenses that made him a good pick. "I really think the town got the good end of the deal."
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Lombardo also denies making $6,000 on a "one-day state contract."
For starters: he says the job – which entailed moving the mammoth air-conditioning system in the House Finance Committee room to the State House sub-basement during a renovation – took more than one-day.
And he denies having a state contract which he, as a legislator, would be forbidden from seeking. He says his company was hired as a subcontractor.
On the alleged $16,240 fine, U.S. Department of Labor spokesman James Lally told The Journal: Lombardo's company was not fined.
The dispute centered on the payment rates for apprentices and journeymen. Lombardo told The Journal he paid two workers who failed to renew their apprenticeship cards at the lower of the two rates, for his company was working at the DMV as a subcontractor.
According to Lally: "The Wage and Hour Division found the employer owed $16,411.36 in back wages due to two employees for violations for failure to pay the prevailing wage rates due and $8.76 in unpaid overtime."
"The employer agreed to resolve the issue by paying the wages owed to the employees."
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Conservative voting records
Lombardo and Maselli are competing in the Sept. 13 primary for the Democratic nod to run for a seat that represents roughly 20,338 registered voters in Johnston, a town that went 53.9% to 44.8% for Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
First elected to the Senate in November 2006, Maselli was a rising star on the Democratic leadership team that ran the Senate a little more than a decade ago.
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules, Maselli backed a proposal to let the Senate adopt and enforce its own rules on conflict of interest in lieu of reinstating the stripped jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission.
Amid heated criticism, the proposal died.
As the secretary of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Maselli backed legislation to allow many more convicted criminals to have their records sealed.
Maselli sponsored an "Illegal Immigration Relief Act'' to prohibit companies from employing or harboring undocumented immigrants, and deny them driver's licenses.
As he explained at the time, the legislation was "about protecting the citizens and residents of Rhode Island – from financial woes, to other people taking their jobs, to making sure employment’s available.
"It’s time to start taking care of the people who rightfully belong here."
Lombardo has amassed his own conservative and not wholly inconsistent voting record.
In 2019, he voted against the law enshrining the right to an abortion in Rhode Island law.
Lombardo was in the minority voting "no" this year on legislation to provide driving privileges to people who are "unable to establish legal presence in the United States."
Democrat Lombardo was on the losing side, again, on the 25-11 vote this year to ban high-capacity firearm magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
He argued: more needs to be done to divert plastic bags, Styrofoam cups and the like from the Central Landfill, in Johnston, which is nearing capacity. He described the high-heat process called pyrolysis that breaks plastic garbage into oils, tar and gases that can be burned or repurposed into other consumer products with one answer.
“Unless we address these various issues prudently and seriously, we are surely headed for an environmental disaster.”
The legislation made it through the Senate on an unusually tight 19-14 vote. But then, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and House Majority Leader Christopher Blazejewski put a kibosh on it.
“We have had the best year ever regarding environmental legislation and we do not want to take a step backward by passing this bill," they wrote in a joint statement.
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An appeal to the voters
Maselli makes this case for his return to the Senate in a letter to potential voters:
"I have always assumed complete responsibility for my actions, and I am truly sorry to the residents of Johnston for allowing my previous personal failures to affect my ability to represent our district.
"Since I last held public office my experiences have given me a greater insight into who I am and what second chances are all about.
"I’ve remarried, become a published author, and am a practicing attorney. I live with my wife and children on Brown Avenue, proudly support various sports leagues in town and attend Our Lady of Grace Parish, where I also volunteer.
"Five years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and I feel grateful for this second chance, as well — I have been cancer free for the last four years."
27 months in prison
The 2010 indictment accused Maselli of inflating his annual income and of submitting phony and altered bank statements and IRS tax returns to secure mortgages to purchase properties in Johnston and North Providence — and a loan to buy a 2005 Lexus SUV.
The scheme began in late 2007, about a year after Maselli was elected to the Senate.
Property records showed that he upgraded his family's home, moved his wife and two children from a three-bedroom house in Johnston into a house double in size, with six bedrooms and a tennis court.
Two of the loan applications that Maselli submitted for financing named his then-wife's elderly grandmother as sole applicant for the loan.
He served 27 months in prison.
On the day of his sentencing, Maselli made a brief statement, apologizing to his family, friends and anyone affected by his offenses.
Some of Maselli's friends sat nearby, including the Rev. Bernard Healey and then-Johnston Democratic Rep. Stephen Ucci.
In a memorandum asking for leniency filed with the court, his allies detailed Maselli's upbringing in a broken home, where his mother worked two jobs and money was so scarce he would sometimes awaken in a house without electricity or heat.
"This is not a situation where the defendant was in desperate straits," the sentencing judge, Mary Lisi, said.
"This was a situation where he wanted to live beyond his means."
The way Maselli sees it today:
"The judge decided to probably make an example of me which probably was good for the rest of the folks up at the State House to say, 'Wow. This is what is going to happen ... if you don't follow the law'."
Swift reaction
The R.I. Supreme Court The state Supreme Court agreed to reinstate Maselli's law license in June 2016.
In that capacity, Maselli conducted arraignments for several local police departments and the Rhode Island State Police when the courts were closed, with the authority to set bail, serve restraining orders and sign arrest warrants.
The "discovery" of his criminal record brought a swift reaction. Johnston and the state police dropped Maselli from their bail commissioner rotation lists immediately.
“The perception is just awful,” said Johnston Mayor Polisena, who was succeeded by Maselli in the Senate when he, Polisena, left to run for mayor in 2006.
'Passion for public service'
Asked last week why he decided to make a political move that would dredge up his history, Maselli said: "I still have this passion for public service.
"It's been with me since I was in La Salle Academy, on the student council. I worked on campaigns ... I've probably knocked on over 2,000 doors easily so far in this campaign.
"I have a desire to help people and be a public servant. When you have that in you, that doesn't go away just because you have made some mistakes."
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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Political Scene: After prison, former RI senator wants his seat back
