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CANTON – Year-long questions about Sen. Brian A. Joyce’s financial and ethical actions took a dramatic and far more serious turn Wednesday, when FBI and IRS agents spent hours searching his Canton law office.
They were still inside the off-street building until leaving after 9 p.m. with bagloads of items. A Boston FBI spokeswoman gave no details as to why the raid was ordered, only that it was “court-ordered activity” related to “an ongoing federal investigation.”
A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz also declined comment, and said the warrant for the search was sealed.
The search follows a series of reports that have kept the nine-term Milton Democrat in the spotlight on Beacon Hill and in the media – the cut-rate price he paid for expensive sunglasses for fellow senators, his use of campaign committee money for one of his children’s graduation party, and years of free dry-cleaning service he got from a Randolph businessman.
Joyce’s attorney Howard Cooper said Joyce believes he’s done “absolutely nothing wrong,” and suggested that the federal investigation was prompted by news reports. But calls for Joyce’s resignation were swift.
Massachusetts Republican Party chairwoman and Quincy councilor Kirsten Hughes assailed what she called Joyce’s “remarkable disregard for the law.” The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance also said Joyce should step down.
Weymouth mayor and former Senate Republican colleague Robert Hedlund didn’t go that far. But he did say Joyce should weigh “whether or not this is going to impact his effectiveness in representing the communities he represents.”
Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday’s raid was “troubling,” and said the federal investigation should “go wherever it goes.” In January he said the report of free dry cleaning merited an ethics investigation.
In the Senate – where Joyce had already been stripped of his posts as assistant majority leader and chairman of the Bills in the Third Reading Committee – Senate President Stanley Rosenberg said he and others will cooperate with the federal investigation.
Joyce was first elected to the Senate’s Norfolk, Bristol and Plymouth district in 1997. The district includes Milton, Braintree, Canton, Randolph and seven other towns.
Joyce was unopposed in 2012 and 2014. He’ll be up for re-election this year.
Only a month ago, Joyce declared victory when the state ethics commission and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance office cleared him of improper behavior for the sunglasses purchase and the campaign spending for the graduation party.
The ethics commission concluded that Joyce didn’t use his influence as a senator to get the $200 designer glasses for $50 each, while the campaign finance office said he was within bounds to spend $3,367 in campaign committee money along with $1,800 of his own money for the 2014 party, which several hundred attended.
But as part of his agreement with the campaign finance office, Joyce donated $3,367 to the Massachusetts Hospital School and $1,250 to other charities in his district.
Joyce didn’t report his free dry cleaning from Jerry Richman’s Woodlawn Cleaners on annual ethics forms. In January he told The Patriot Ledger that the dry cleaning was “barter” for legal work he did for Richman, who no longer owns the business. Joyce also said the value of his legal services “far exceeded” the value of the dry cleaning.