MASSACHUSETTS
Republican
By Shira Schoenberg | sschoenberg@repub.com
on October 02, 2014
BOSTON — A new ad attacking Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley’s work on child welfare goes to the heart of Coakley’s career as a prosecutor.
The ad focuses on alleged mismanagement at the Department of Children and Families, an agency for which Coakley, the attorney general, has advocated reform even as she defended the department against a lawsuit. But the ad is particularly significant because Coakley’s experience with child welfare goes back decades, and has earned her both praise and criticism.
Coakley is opposed by Republican Charlie Baker and independents Evan Falchuk, Scott Lively and Jeff McCormick.
In 1991, Coakley was appointed head of a child abuse division in the Middlesex District Attorney’s office, which dealt with 900 cases a year of physical and sexual abuse. At a press conference Thursday, called for Coakley to respond to the ad, Coakley showed how personal the issue was for her, choking up briefly when she recalled an abuse victim who thanked her years later. “I’ve seen those kids and I’ve worked with them,” Coakley said. …
The Boston Globe in 2009 also reported on a case in which Coakley negotiated a 1995 probation deal, in secret, for a priest accused of inappropriately touching three boys. Coakley would years later win praise for successfully prosecuting the same priest for inappropriately touching another boy. Coakley said she did not have enough evidence in the earlier case to prosecute the priest for indecent assault. The only crime she could identify was a misdemeanor of making harassing phone calls. Child protection advocates faulted her for not prosecuting the case publicly.
Coakley said she has fought many “tough cases.” She has pointed to her work protecting children, and working with doctors and with victims, in numerous other instances.
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