For the first time in two decades, Hampden County has a new top prosecutor, with the inauguration of District Attorney Mark Mastroianni earlier this month.
A few days before Mastroianni’s inauguration, the Springfield Republican marked the end of the 20-year tenure of his predecessor, Bill Bennett, with a rather flattering article headlined: “Hampden District Attorney Bill Bennett, who leaves office after 20 years, sought justice in unjust world.” The article, by Buffy Spencer, included words of praise for Bennett from attorneys and state police, with nary a word of criticism.
Veteran Springfield observer Tom Devine, meanwhile, offered a more mixed review of Bennett’s time in office in an entry on his blog, “Tommy Devine’s Cosmos Report.” Devine’s headline: “Blind Justice.”
Devine’s critique (which started with a reminder of Bennett’s famously broken promise, upon his election in 1990, that he would serve only two terms) offered limited praise for the departing DA: “Bennett deserves credit for professionalizing the office, which was run like a personal fiefdom by his scandal-plagued predecessor Matty Ryan,” Devine wrote. (Among those scandals: the revelation that Ryan regularly played handball with now-deceased mob boss Al Bruno.) “Frankly, it wasn’t hard for Bennett to look good following that act,” Devine added dryly.
Devine also gave Bennett credit for doing “a competent job prosecuting the murderers, bank robbers and other crimes committed primarily by the region’s underclass.”
But he faulted the DA for turning a blind eye to the public corruption that plagued Springfield in recent years, charging that Bennett allowed “high-level political crooks [to operate] with impunity during his tenure, until the FBI finally came in to clean things up.
“Bennett’s defenders say that it wasn’t his jurisdiction to pursue public corruption cases, that such prosecutions are the responsibility of the Feds,” Devine continued. “While that may be technically correct, that is a lame cop-out. The D.A. is supposed to be the primary crime fighter in the Valley, sworn to pursue wrongdoing wherever it may be found.”
As Mastroianni moved into the DA’s office, Bennett moved on to the private Springfield law firm of Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury and Murphy—the same place his predecessor, the now-deceased Ryan, landed after leaving office. Bennett has, however, continued to work for the DA’s office as a special prosecutor in the ongoing trial of Edward Fleury, the former Pelham police chief charged with manslaughter for his role in the 2008 death of an 8-year-old at a gun show he’d organized. (On Friday, a jury found the defendant in that case, Edward Fleury, not guilty on all charges.)
