Ex-Boston reentry program boss loses bid to escape anti-sex extortion law

A former assistant director of a Boston reentry plan for women has failed yet again to convince judges that a law barring soliciting sexual favors from an inmate in exchange for helping them get parole shouldn t apply to him Anthony Williams was the assistant director of McGrath House in the -block of Massachusetts Avenue in Boston s South End for only seven months when on Sept he allegedly had an inmate perform oral sex on him in exchange for hiding her failed drug test Group Guidance for Justice or CJR a Boston-based nonprofit which operates residential reentry programs including the McGrath House somehow located out about the circumstance and fired him a month later CJR has run reentry programs in partnership with the Suffolk County Sheriff s Department since Jan according to documents associated with the occurrence A Suffolk County grand jury indicted Williams in February under a state law that makes it a felony for a n officer or other person who is employed by or contracts with any penal or correctional institution in the C ommonwealth to engage in sexual relations with an inmate who is under the direct custodial supervision and control of such officer or other person Williams and his attorneys have argued ever since such a law shouldn t apply to him Mr Williams moved to dismiss the charge on the grounds that the statute is inapplicable to him as a matter of law because he is neither an officer or other person who is employed by a penal or correctional institution nor an officer or other person who contracts with such an institution Williams attorneys Randy Gioia Patrick Gioia and Benjamin Keehn wrote in a January argument contesting the then-most up-to-date failure of the argument The argument first failed before Superior Court Judge Catherine H Ham who indeed located Williams to be a third party contractor with the Suffolk County Sheriff s Department Ham revealed the argument that the law shouldn t apply to Williams because he wasn t personally contracted to the department but only employed by an agency who is to be absurd She commented the law is clearly intended to protect vulnerable inmates from the sexual abuse of those that have power and control over them during their incarceration Williams attorney argued that since it didn t explicitly say that then his affair should be dismissed by the rule of lenity which means an interpretation of a law greater part favorable to the defendant So they took the issue to the single justice session of the Supreme Judicial Court Justice Frank M Gaziano declined to hear the argument saying that Williams could instead seek relief by appealing any trial decision Williams attorneys wrote that Gaziano s decision was an error because Williams claim was that he shouldn t be tried under the law at all because it shouldn t apply to him The right not to be put to trial for an offense that the Legislature did not enact cannot be remedied after that trial has taken place his attorneys wrote likening the argument to that of a Double Jeopardy claim The SJC reviewed his appeal and on Thursday affirmed Gaziano s original decision The single justice properly denies relief the SJC ruling states The defendant characterizes the issue of whether he falls within the scope of the statute as presenting a question of law that should be settled by an appellate court the decision later continues And as the defendant himself concedes he will have an opportunity to present this argument to an appellate court on direct appeal in the event that he is tried and convicted