Embattled ex-Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey aide LaMar Cook released on $25,000 bail
Published in News & Features
BOSTON — The embattled former aide to Gov. Maura Healey in her Western Massachusetts office, LaMar Cook, has been released from custody after being kept in jail since October as he faces drug and gun charges.
A docket report provided to the Herald by the Hampden County Superior Court shows Cook posted $25,000 bail on Tuesday through a surety payment provided by Kamai Norman.
Cook’s attorney argued to have his original $75,000 bail reduced by $50,000 during a dangerousness hearing Friday, using letters attesting to Cook’s character and community service in the region. Prosecutors unsuccessfully argued to increase his bail to $100,000.
“It appears that he was running a double life. He was conning all these good people. He was conning his community, he was conning the governor’s office,” prosecutor Kelly Beattie said during Friday’s bail arguments at Hampden County Superior Court.
“He was introducing this poison into this community,” she continued, that has “wreaked havoc and destroyed lives, and it all starts somewhere, and it started with Mr. Cook and his associates.”
The docket report provided to the Herald did not contain details of Cook’s conditions for release. When the Herald called the Hampden County Superior Court’s probation office to request the information, a staffer falsely stated that the office cannot release the public information, before hanging up on the Herald.
When the Herald called the office back, another staffer answered the phone and again refused the information, saying “I need to transfer you to my Chief, but she’s on the phone right now and I want to go home for the day. I’m not waiting.”
Beattie revealed more details in the case during Friday’s hearing, calling Cook’s alleged cocaine trafficking operation “an ongoing enterprise” in which he dealt with ever-larger shipments of cocaine.
She added that the parcel seized by police featured bricks of cocaine stamped with the word “Gold,” which she described as “a new sort of imprint or stamp” for investigators who linked it to other cocaine shipments seized since the start of the investigation.
She also said investigators found a gun in Cook’s bedroom, for which neither he nor anyone else in the home possessed a firearm identification card, and a scale commonly associated with drug trafficking in Cook’s state building office, replete with residues of heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine as well as common cutting agents like caffeine.
Cook was serving as Healey’s Western Mass. deputy director when he was arrested on Oct. 28 after State Police say they intercepted a package containing nearly eight kilograms, or about 18 pounds, of cocaine shipped to his office. He was originally ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing following his arraignment at Springfield District Court.
His case was elevated to the Superior Court level following his indictment Feb. 12 on five charges: trafficking in 200 grams or more of cocaine, conspiracy to violate drug laws — this one with an unidentified “John Doe” co-conspirator — possession of a gun without a firearms identification card, possession of ammunition without a firearms identification card, and unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
Healey immediately fired Cook upon his arrest, calling the allegations against him “a major breach of public trust” and “unacceptable.”
Healey faced backlash in January after the Herald reported that Cook was paid over $31,000 in a contract buyout after he was fired and arrested on the cocaine trafficking charges. The governor’s office attributed the payout to an “error” in the Human Resources Department, adding that the office is actively working to get the money back.
The Herald has asked Healey’s office for an update on the effort to reclaim the money.
Cook was paid a total of $130,227 last year, off a base salary of $98,789 and the contract “buyout” after he was fired that totaled $31,439.
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