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Cahill Sues Top Campaign Aides, Claims Evidence Of Conspiracy

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Independent candidate for governor Tim Cahill is suing his former top aides, alleging they conspired to pass campain information to Republican candidate Charlie Baker. (AP)
Independent candidate for governor Tim Cahill is suing his former top aides, alleging they conspired to pass campain information to Republican candidate Charlie Baker. (AP)

State Treasurer and independent candidate for governor Tim Cahill is suing his former top campaign aides. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Cahill alleged that his campaign strategists, campaign manager and political consultant conspired to pass critical information about his campaign to Republican candidate Charlie Baker and to the Republican Governors Association.

Jordan Gehrke was Cahill's political director. He left the campaign in June. Adam Meldrum was the campaign manager. John Weaver and John Yob were the senior strategists. They quit the Cahill campaign in late September. They left e-mails on Cahill's servers, and Cahill is now basing his lawsuit on those e-mails.

"We were doing some cleaning up of our server, and realized that these e-mails existed, and they continued to exist even after these folks left the campaign," Cahill says.

In fact, Cahill says communication through his servers continued up until a few hours before this interview.

The Allegations

Cahill says the four men forwarded information about his campaign to Baker's campaign. He says e-mails between Meldrum, Yob and Weaver show the three men knew back in mid-September, when they all still worked for Cahill, that Paul Loscocco, his running mate, could be persuaded to defect to Baker, something Loscocco finally did last week.

"A number of damaging e-mails that illustrate how they were engineering Paul's (Loscocco) departure two weeks before he left, while they were still being paid to work for me, before they had even left," Cahill says.

Cahill's E-Mail Evidence

In one series of e-mails, on Sept. 18, Meldrum lets Yob and Weaver know that Loscocco requested a meeting with Cahill to talk about strategy, but that Cahill refused to call back. Several hours later, it looks like the three men are e-mailing about Loscocco wanting to jump ship:

Weaver asks Meldrum to pass a message on to "Paul," saying he "should do nothing right now...This has to be done in such a way as Paul's future is protected and everyone else is fine."

"I've started that process," Weaver says in an e-mail.

Yob writes later: "Important that Paul's interests are paramount."

Weaver: "The only moral obligation we have is to protect Paul."

Yob writes: "Yep." Weaver later says: "Paul will be given/offered a substantive lifeline. Up to him to take it or not."

Cahill claims his Republican advisers did not let him know what they knew, that his running mate was preparing to leave him. He also claims they were conspiring with a lawyer close to Loscocco, Jason Zanetti, to pass on more information to Baker and to the Republican Governors Association.

"And now, after Paul left, e-mails that show that these people, Meldrum, Weaver, Yob and now, this gentleman Zanetti who was Paul's associate, are offering to give information to the Baker camp, to Tim O'Brien, Charlie Baker's campaign manager," Cahill says.

Baker Campaign, Cahill Defectors Deny Involvement

The Baker campaign wouldn't make anyone available to talk, but issued a statement saying it did not receive any written internal information regarding the Cahill campaign.

The Republican Governors Association would not talk to us, either. They issued a statement saying, "Tim Cahill will do anything to get his name in the papers, even sue his former staff."

Asked to comment on the e-mails, John Yob sent us an e-mail from Adam Meldrum:

"This is a political lawsuit filed by Tim Cahill to prevent me from taking whistle-blower status and bringing to light their coordination with the treasury office with regard to the taxpayer-funded ads that say how well the Lottery is run."

The Lottery has been running such ads lately. Meldrum says he's been preparing to turn over evidence of illegal activity by Treasury employees and Cahill staff members to Attorney General Martha Coakley. Coakley's office says it has not received a complaint yet, but will investigate if it does.

Cahill says he does everything above board.

"Are Treasury employees volunteering on the campaign? Absolutely. On their own time. After work. And if they take time during the day, it's because they use their time," Cahill says.

Cahill says this standing in his campaign office, in front of a poster of Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek stuffing his catcher's mitt into the face of Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

"I'm Varitek," Cahill says.

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This program aired on October 8, 2010.

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Fred Thys Reporter
Fred Thys reported on politics and higher education for WBUR.

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