A former top official in the Norfolk County Sheriff's office is facing federal extortion charges over accusations he forced jail employees to perform free plumbing and electrical work at his home.
Tom Brady, 53, served as assistant deputy superintendent of jail operations at the Norfolk County Sheriff's Office until earlier this month, when he was terminated.
The case concerns a time period from December 2021 through November 2022, according to the U.S Attorney's Office for Massachusetts. In the first incident in late 2021, Brady is accused of ordering a maintenance officer at the sheriff's office to install a new showerhead at his home during work hours. The officer, fearing for his job, agreed to have Brady drive him to the home, installed the shower head, then had Brady drive him back to work to finish his shift.
Prosecutors allege further that around Feb. 13, 2022, Brady contacted that same maintenance officer to fix his water heater. The following morning, the officer drove to Brady's home instead of work, unhooked the water heater, then purchased and installed a new one from Home Depot.
A Norfolk County Sheriff's spokesperson confirms the deputy has left his job as the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission investigates allegations he had department employees do work on his home.
Brady is also accused of asking a different maintenance officer to fix the heating system in his home sometime between October 2022 and November 2022. The officer, prosecutors said, followed the order, fearing for their job status. The officer made the first set of repairs on Oct. 6, 2022, during work hours. Several days later Brady went looking for the same officer, asking them to replace the circulator pump.
Prosecutors shared a text message between the officer and another employee who warned them Brady was searching for them.
The officer later returned to Brady's home in November 2022 with a third maintenance officer to make further repairs.
Brady was charged with four counts of extortion and three counts of use of interstate facilities to commit bribery and extortion. If found guilty, he could face decades in prison.
Separately, he could face civil penalties. These federal charges come following a Massachusetts State Ethics Commission investigation into this case, which was launched after a report from the NBC10 Boston Investigators.
Mike Ramponi, who worked as a licensed plumber for the Norfolk County Sheriff's Department before retiring last year, said he was one of the employees Brady asked to leave his taxpayer-funded job in the middle of his shift to do work on his home.
"I didn't feel comfortable leaving and going there, but you know, basically, the boss said, 'Go do it,'" Ramponi told NBC10 Boston.
Texts obtained by the NBC10 Boston Investigators show Ramponi alerted his supervisor that he was heading to Brady's house to the work -- and that Brady sent Ramponi the address and code to his house, then tells him he left the circulator pump that needed to be replaced on top of the dryer.
"I felt like that if I didn't go there and do it, there would be repercussions towards me, you know?" Ramponi said. "He could do anything … change my shift."
The State Ethics Commission looked into these allegations and found that Brady violated the conflict of interest law on multiple occasions by having subordinate sheriff department employees perform plumbing work at his home during and outside of their state work hours.
The commission said Brady neither paid the plumbers for replacing the shower head and water heater in his home – nor did he reimburse the sheriff's office for the value of the state work time the plumbers used to do this work.
Brady did not answer any questions when the NBC10 Boston Investigators previously approached him about the allegations.
The state's conflict of interest law prevents the use of public resources for private use and prevents public employees from accepting gifts of $50 or more.
The commission found Brady did give the plumber and electrician who did that free work a bottle of wine each.
The Norfolk County Sheriff's Office said it delivered a termination notice to Brady for "failure to meet expectations and standards."
A spokesman for the sheriff's office said that Brady resigned a day before his termination was to take effect.
The Ethics Commission could impose civil penalties following a hearing, scheduled to take place May 29. Brady could face a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation of the conflict of interest law.
Payroll records show that Brady was collecting a salary of $142,000, and that when he stepped down, he cashed in another $82,000 of unused vacation and sick time.