Report blasts "pervasive fraud" in hiring at Probation Department - The Boston Globe

Report blasts "pervasive fraud" in hiring at Probation Department - The Boston Globe: "The state's highest court, armed with a special counsel's report that details widespread 'abuse and systemic corruption'' in the state's Probation Department, said today the senior court officials will move to fire Probation Commissioner John J. O'Brien, suspend several of his top deputies and forward the report to prosecutors for potential criminal investigation.
The Supreme Judicial Court's stunning announcement came as the court unsealed a devastating report from an independent counsel that concluded that O'Brien and other probation leaders 'committed pervasive fraud against the Commonwealth' for years, creating a phony hiring process to hide the systematic funneling of hundreds of jobs to politically-connected candidates.
The independent counsel, Paul F. Ware Jr., called for the immediate dismissal of O'Brien and some deputy commissioners for 'abuse and systemic corruption,' and said that the group are 'potential targets' for prosecution."