Who is Jerry Flynn?
In a sworn deposition taken last year, Jerry Flynn had trouble remembering how much he took home as executive director of NEBPA. “It varies monthly,’’ he said.
Actually, it’s wasn’t such a mystery. Flynn raked in $107,142.75 from NEPBA last year, according to government records. Not a bad paycheck by anybody’s standards. So why was it so hard for Jerry to remember?
Maybe it’s because this startup union is merely the latest operation in a long list of curious ventures that Jerry has pursued.
Flynn has been associated with at least five companies, most of which have left little trace of their operations. He operated a bar in the 1980s, and then moved on to become treasurer of something called “Innovative Laser Technology.’’ Did he do pioneering work in Lasik surgery? Did he remove tattoos? Only Jerry can say.
Then there was the broadly titled “National Association,’’ for which he was listed as a chief contact, and even more recently, “Lighthouse & Palm, LLC,’’ a “real estate sales rental and management’’ business which lists Jerry as its director and one David Levy as its “Soc Signatory.’’
Levy is an interesting character – an accountant who settled a lawsuit accusing him of malpractice and fraud brought by a physician whose books he was supposed be keeping. The physician brought suit when the IRS levied his accounts for penalties and interest for unpaid taxes that Levy should have resolved. And if things weren’t cozy enough, Levy is the guy who filed the papers to get NEPBA up and running.
So many ventures, so little time. You might ask how Jerry has managed to devote himself to NEPBA.
But of course, Jerry is NEPBA.
….And speaking of NEPBA’s finances.
The union took in $826,156 in dues money last year and spent $803,000, mostly on salaries to NEPBA employees and “office and administrative expenses.’’
Jerry is by far the highest paid member of the union’s executive committee, according to its most recent state filings. But Jerry’s six-figure salary was nothing compared to what the union paid out to a single law firm in Lowell, Mass., last year.
Nolan, Perroni, LLP, pulled in an astonishing $235,711.93 from NEPBA in 2007
That’s a lot of billable hours.
Funny coincidence: Gary Nolan is one of Jerry’s boyhood pals. And his firm represented Jerry in his losing defense against a $2 million civil suit in which a female officer accused Jerry and his police union cohorts of sexual harassment.
NEPBA’s lawyer is Jerry’s lawyer, and Jerry is NEPBA.
Is Jerry Flynn really the kind of man we want to lead a union that represents men and women who wear the badge?
The Lowell police department decided to suspend Jerry for 30 days following an infamous case in which a group of drunken cops sexually harassed a fellow officer.
The suspension was overturned by the Civil Service Commission. But when a federal jury heard about how one officer exposed himself while the others hurled explicit taunts and insults at their female colleague, Jerry and his police union cohorts found themselves on the losing side of a $2 million judgment!
When the Lowell police dismissed officers who had committed acts of domestic violence, he lobbied to give them back their badges.
And in a sworn deposition, Flynn stated that he paid a settlement to a prostitute who had accused him of sexual misconduct while she was employed in a barroom that he owned.
Maybe NEPBA should think about whether it has the right leader in place to represent ALL of us.
But then again, Jerry Flynn is NEPBA.
Your mother probably told you that you’re known by the company you keep. Well, the officers who know Jerry Flynn best decided they weren’t interested in his company.
Just last year, the officers of Flynn’s own department in Lowell thumbed their noses at NEPBA and asked a local law firm to represent them instead.
The officers were put off by Flynn’s “aggressive’’ recruiting pitch, according to a local news report.
In New Hampshire, state prison workers say that NEPBA representatives tricked them into signing union cards by telling them they were just collecting names for informational mailings.
And NEPBA doesn’t seem to have filed as a nonprofit with the IRS. Why not? You would have to ask Jerry.
Maybe NEPBA needs to rethink whether its actions reflect the integrity of the men and women who dedicate themselves to law enforcement.
But then again, NEPBA is Jerry Flynn.
NEPBA officials like to tout their lobbying prowess. But they couldn’t even get themselves a seat on a state labor board.
According to lobbying records on file with the secretary of state in Massachusetts, NEPBA representatives sought a spot on the state’s Joint Labor and Management Committee Lawmakers complied. But Gov. Deval Patrick vetoed their request in May 2008.
The governor sent concerned senators a polite note saying the board had enough members already. But it doesn’t take a great imagination to wonder if he thought Flynn might not be state board material, what with his part in the infamous sexual harassment suit, the succession of suits for campaign finance violations filed against him by the state after his one bid for public office, and the series of tax liens the state was forced to file against him in the 1990’s.
Maybe Gov. Patrick was a little queasy about getting too close to NEPBA.
Maybe the governor has already figured out that NEPBA is Jerry Flynn.
Don’t be shocked if NEPBA gives Jerry a big raise this year.
He needs to grow that six-figure salary if he’s going to deal with the hefty mortgages he’s taken on in the last three years for that nice house with the swimming pool and a diving board in a suburb north of Boston.
That would be about $500,000 in mortgages on a house worth about $568,000, according to a recent estimate. The way things are going in real estate, Jerry could soon have more mortgage than house. And then he has to keep up appearances with his chums at IUPA, the national union that Jerry and NEPBA have joined – the one that moved its headquarters from Washington DC to Sarasota, Fla., right up the road from its president’s vacation home.
Have you checked out the greens fees around Sarasota? IUPA officials have figured out how to deal with the skyrocketing price of golf: They organize “conferences” for themselves at some of Florida’s best hotels and make sure that the agenda leaves plenty of time for birdies and bogeys.
At its recent convention in Orlando, a handful of officers concerned about IUPA’s sketchy fund-raising practices pushed through a resolution calling on union leaders to cut all ties to a telemarketer that the federal government has accused of fraud. We’re still waiting for IUPA’s bosses to respect the wishes of their members. But they must be worried about how they can replace the revenue they have been generating through telemarketing.
NEPBA kicked up nearly $14,000 to IUPA last year. That number will probably grow, too. How could NEPBA resist giving Jerry a raise or helping out his pals at IUPA?
NEPBA is Jerry Flynn.