UMass Funds Disgraced: ex-student's lawyers -- Brad's analysis

Written by Brad DeFlumeri

Wednesday, 18 February 2009 03:23

The "Justice for Jason" saga has gripped both the campus and the extended local community in recent months. Palpably present in the battle for "justice" has been an onslaught of allegations from the left-leaning and well-funded J4J; charges of racism against both the UMass Police Department and Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel have been a drumbeat as steady as the usual leftist cries of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Noticeably absent from the chorus of leftist-initiated epithets has been any mention of these facts: Jason Vassell indiscriminately stabbed two unarmed men nine times. Yes, his victims, Jason Bowes and John Bosse, used egregious and inexcusable racial slurs in the course of the altercation. And we won't apologize for that; in fact, we hold them in contempt for such disgusting misbehavior. But words do not necessarily justify an act of "self-defense", as Vassell and his hysterical cronies claim, and so I begin my analysis of the defense's main activist group with the following in mind: leftists on campus have perverted both the facts and the perspectives in this matter and rearranged the "reality" of the situation to fit their own pretentious political agenda. The following is an effort to restore some order to and provide a counterbalance to the leftist propaganda thus far successfully contaminating the debate.

First, questions must be raised regarding the behavior of the SGA, its leaders, and CJJV amidst Jason Vassell's ongoing criminal litigation. This paper will do so.

Financial records reveal that the UMass Student Government Association (SGA) has used university money to help finance the legal defense of accused stabber and ex-UMass student, Jason Vassell.

Management of Silver Screen Design in Greenfield, Mass., revealed to The Minuteman that at least one university purchase order by the Student Government in Spring 2008 went toward the purchase of "Justice for Jason" t-shirts -- the same shirts being sold by the Committee for Justice for Jason Vassell (CJJV) to raise money for Vassell's defense fund. Boasting about and pleading for more revenues, the t-shirts have been plainly available for sale on the CJJV website in recent months.

The CJJV -- an organization lobbying for the immediate dismissal of Vassell's legal charges and leveling unfounded allegations of racism against both Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel and UMass Police Lt. Robert Thrasher -- has no affiliation with UMass and is not a 501(c)(3) non-profit group, according to school officials briefed on the situation. This would make any donations the CJJV has received from the SGA -- t-shirt or otherwise -- highly unethical and patently illegal according to state financial regulations.

Furthermore, the SGA's use of university money to financially bolster Vassell's legal defense outside of the appropriate channels is simultaneously a major ethics violation, a breach of university policy, and yet another instance of SGA-CJJV financial impropriety.

The t-shirts are being sold for $10 each by the CJJV and from the proceeds generated, "everything goes to legal fees," said committee member Dan Keefe (pictured at left) at a CJJV meeting at UMass-Boston on Jan. 30.

According to University policy and sources within the administration, legal representation funded by Student Activities Trust Fund (SATF) money can only assist UMass students and must be obtained through the Student Legal Services Office (SLSO), led by Attorney Chuck Dimare. Vassell, who is no longer a student at the university, is being represented by private defense attorneys David P. Hoose and Luke Ryan.

Additionally, according to school officials and University policy, any University property – which the t-shirts became after the SGA purchased them – must be properly inventoried and cannot simply be given away to a non-University entity without the approval of school officials. Did the SGA navigate the cumbersome UMass approval bureaucracy before giving the Vassell to shirts to J4J for illegal resale? I answer they did not..

Any entity petitioning to sell an item for profit on campus must first register with the appropriate University authority governing the area on which the vendor intends to sell items for profit. According to sources within the administration, CJJV made no such arrangements and has no business relationship whatsoever with Umass – raising additional questions about the "supplies" admittedly donated to CJJV by the SGA for the last two semesters in order to support CJJV's efforts to produce propaganda and literature. University policy is clear in this area: University property shall not be transferred to a non-University entity without the approval of school officials.

Moving on, many students question the motives behind SGA's aggressive support of the CJJV -- a radical leftist group lobbying for the immediate dismissal of Vassell's legal charges through the threat of violence and disruption of the DA's phone system. The committee is composed of high-ranking SGA members, including President Malcolm Chu and Student Trustee Lin McCluskey and makes us wonder why the SGA's leadership is so obsessively concerned with the rights of one former student at the expense -- time and resource-wise -- of other campus undergraduates.

And regardless of the questions about due process raised by CJJV, this paper nevertheless believes that both the SGA and CJJV have questions to answer of their own, namely: were the Vassell t-shirts purchased with Student Activities Trust Fund (SATF) money -- funded by the mandatory fee that all undergraduates are charged? And, if so, what were they possibly thinking when they took student fee money and used it to help fund the already-prosperous legal defense of a disgraced former student?

Title XII Chapter 75 Section 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws explicitly states that any money raised by a UMass Student organization shall be deposited back into a University account. Therefore, if the SGA sold the t-shirts themselves the proceeds would legally have to then go not to Vassell's lawyers, as they admittedly did, but back into one of the SGA's financial accounts.

The CJJV contends that Vassell was acting in self-defense after being punched and assailed with racial slurs. They also allege, as read above, that the UMass Police Department and Northampton District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel are prosecuting Vassell in a racist manner.

But we contend that CJJV is putting itself into a highly precarious situation by not registering with the Commonwealth's Secretary of State as a charity while simultaneously gluttonously accepting as much University money as it can for the legal defense of the now-disgraced and expelled Vassell.

Other questions abound: did current and former SGA leaders violate state ethics law in their efforts to procure and sell tee-shirts specifically aimed at producing Vassell's legal absolution?

Title I chapter 268A Section 23 states that "No current officer or employee of a state, county or municipal agency shall knowingly, or with reason to know use or attempt to use his official position to secure for himself or others unwarranted privileges or exemptions which are of substantial value and which are not properly available to similarly situated individuals."

So, did current SGA leaders, paid state employees by any measure, violate this state provision in their efforts on behalf of Vassell? – efforts intended to produce for him privileges wholly unavailable to other students at the University.

The CJJV website boasts that they have already collected $6,000 and are still "working tirelessly to raise money to help Jason and his family pay for a legal struggle whose price tag now exceeds $20,000." Just how much of this money has improperly passed through University channels and into the malfeasant coffers of CJJV remains unclear.

What is clear, however, is that once again the Student Government Association and its self-empowered leftist proxies are running amok over University policy and engaging in wildly unscrupulous financial dealings. Just what will be done about this fiasco remains to be seen; recent history suggests that when questions arise about SGA financial unseemliness, the University cannot look the other way fast enough. Will this time be any different? Will students resoundingly reject the CJJV-connected ALANA caucus and SGA leadership by voting them out of office in the March student government elections? Will CJJV continue to be a vacuous cesspool of pestilence into which valuable student resources are indiscriminately dropped with impunity? Rest assured that the staff of this paper will be front and center with the latest developments of this story as they become available.

As you, the reader, walks away from this analysis I want to make clear that my commentary thus far is not meant to be construed in any way as a personal attack. Indeed, many of the students so passionately supporting Vassell's cause have done so legally and with a selfless vigor that is not only commendable but badly needed in other areas of campus politics, especially in our corruption-accustomed student government. However, as the questions I've raised only begin to suggest, there is little wonder that the movement's leaders -- the SGA's leaders themselves -- have once again abused their power and, in the view of this paper, committed multiple financial indiscretions in their self-aggrandizing quest for justice. This, the students of this campus do not deserve, should not tolerate, and The Minuteman will not let go unchallenged.

The leaders of the SGA have criticized multiple respected authority figures for alleged professional misconduct. Yet I argue that a good, hard look in the mirror -- and perhaps a once-over of school and state regulations -- might not be the most pleasant experience for the SGA and CJJV right now. And, rest assured, we will be here now and in the future to document every detail of their meticulous efforts to make a mockery of school and state guidelines, reporting everything: right down to the latest morsel of leftist-generated delinquency.

And now a word more generally on the Minuteman:

Just as the renowned National Review beginning in the 1950's prided itself on "Standing athwart history, yelling stop," as cultural leftists attempted to degrade our sense of right and wrong, so too will this paper stand firmly in front of our scandalous SGA demanding answers and accountability as it dishonestly purports to represent the interests and objectives of all students while tirelessly, arrogantly, and criminally working on its own destructive agenda.

And Buckley fans will find this ending quite familiar, too:

Dare I say, at this juncture, we appear to be the only venue around with the balls to tell the truth and offer a competing perspective on this story and so many others; the only paper on campus that will bring you news, opinion, analysis, and, yes, humor unaffected -- indeed uninfected -- by the misery-inducing, truth-avoiding, leftist parasitic bureaucracy that runs our campus; the only entity in the Valley armed with a gigantic bazooka full of bravado, wit, and passion so unattenuated by leftist threats (which have already come) and fully devoted to voicing the concerns of that magical minority voice at UMass -- conservatism -- that the Campus Left is already up in flailing arms over our first publication and promises, to our delight, to be more hell-bent on our demise with each succeeding one; but fear not, friends, we are indeed, to utter leftist dismay, here to stay, sharpening our claws and rattling our right-wing sabers ahead of a long fight; and all of THAT, ladies and gentleman, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town.

Brad can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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