Witnesses: ‘GAG, Inc.’ joke referred to bribers, Revere DPW supervisor

REVERE – State investigators say he solicited nearly $4,000 in bribes from subordinates, but a succession of municipal colleagues characterized Joseph Maglione Wednesday as a competent supervisor fed up with insubordinate underlings.Maglione, a city Public Works general foreman, is at the center of three days worth of state Ethics Commissions hearings on conflict of interest law violations.He has been on paid administrative leave since last December and, as early as May, could be exonerated or fined thousands of dollars for the violations.Commission investigators say Maglione demanded $3,000 to $4,000 in bribes from two former Public Works employees who did private drain laying work without city permission.Maglione’s attorney William Spallina denied those charges Wednesday.”Mr. Maglione has disobeyed no law, committed no crime. I don’t think the evidence will support the accusations,” Spallina said.Ethics investigators say Maglione approached Randy Adamson and Anthony Giannino in 2002 and for the next four years asked and received at least a $200 payoff every time the pair installed a drain line between a home or business and a city pipe.The two city sewer workers were not licensed drain layers authorized to do the connections, according to the commission.The pair’s drain work was well known to other city workers who referred to it as “GAG, Inc.” Under questioning by Spallina, Public Works administrative assistant Paula Martin, DPW General Foreman Paul Argenzio and DPW Payroll Supervisor Robert Mahoney said the acronym referred to Giannino, Adamson and DPW Superintendent Donald Goodwin.”It was a running joke. They were all in on it together,” Mahoney said.By contrast, Argenzio said, “Joe did not feel he had complete control of the men under him.”Commission Deputy Chief Karen Beth Gray closely questioned the Public Works employees who acknowledged there was no paperwork, signs or other information to indicate GAG, Inc. was an actual business relationship between the three.Several times over the course of Wednesday’s testimony, Gray repulsed Spallina’s efforts to connect Adamson and Giannino to Goodwin and, through testimony, to cast Maglione as a concerned supervisor.”He expressed to me he was not getting the support of his superiors,” said city retirement administrator Carolyn Russo in testifying about Maglione’s complaints regarding Adamson and Giannino.But Russo admitted to Gray that Maglione aired his concerns about the drain laying jobs as one close friend talking to another.”When he brought up these issues, you could have contacted the mayor or put something in writing. Did you report it right away,” Gray asked Russo.”No, I didn’t,” she said.