Author Richard F. Wright shatters the secrecy that has prevailed since 2013 surrounding the sudden and humiliating resignation of State Representative John Fresolo, a popular eight-term legislator who had just won reelection running unopposed in his district. As a result of a two-year investigation, which included hundreds of hours of face to face interviews with those who were there, Wright reports that the evidence used in the ethics committee hearings was false, distorted, and unreliable. Witnesses were proven to be lying under oath. When the state’s case was collapsing after three exhaustive days of hearings, House Leadership maneuvered the committee members to blindside Fresolo with materials, unrelated to any of the standing 13 allegations under investigation, not taken under oath or during the hearings, to blackmail Fresolo into resigning.

What started with a young, naive statehouse staffer seeking an easy way to get a transfer and promotion turned into a witch hunt fueled by false accusations, false testimony, confused and contradictory evidence and a sham process of investigation that denied the accused the right to challenge evidence or cross-examine witnesses. Amid a swirl of sexually charged headlines, the complainant went from her happiest day as a newlywed to accepting a dreaded Speaker Special job and eventually leaving the statehouse permanently, while Fresolo went from an unopposed election victory for an eighth term to a humiliating resignation under circumstances that were kept a secret, until now.

Wright has spent 40 years as a paid consultant providing campaign management, public relations, and political polling to candidates throughout Massachusetts for offices including school committee, city council, sheriff, clerk of courts, register of probate, county commissioner, state representative, state senator, mayor, congressman, governor’s council, and governor.