| Date: | 01/31/2023 |
|---|---|
| Organization: | David A. Wilson, Executive Director |
| Referenced Sources: | G.L. c. 268A, the Conflict of Interest Law, as Amended by c. 194, Acts of 2011 |
- This page, Public Education Letter in the Matter of Lisa Riccobene, is offered by
- State Ethics Commission
Letter Ruling
Letter Ruling Public Education Letter in the Matter of Lisa Riccobene
Table of Contents
Public Education Letter
Dear Ms. Riccobene:
As you know, the State Ethics Commission (“Commission”) conducted a preliminary inquiry into whether you, while Chief of Staff and as Chief Administrative Officer of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (“OCME”), violated the state conflict of interest law by obtaining a loan from a subordinate OCME employee and by using the subordinate’s credit card information to make your personal purchases.
On November 17, 2022, the Commission voted to find reasonable cause to believe that your actions, as described below, violated sections 23(b)(2)(i), 23(b)(2)(ii) and 23(b)(3) of the conflict of interest law, General Laws chapter 268A, and authorized adjudicatory proceedings. The Commission has determined, however, that, instead of adjudicatory proceedings, the public interest would be best served by issuing you this Public Education Letter publicly discussing the facts revealed by the preliminary inquiry and explaining the application of the conflict of interest law to those facts. By resolving this matter through this Public Education Letter, the Commission seeks to ensure that you and public employees in circumstances similar to those described below will have a clearer understanding of the conflict of interest law and how to comply with it.
The Commission and you have agreed that this matter will be resolved publicly with this Public Education Letter and that there will be no formal proceedings against you. You have chosen not to exercise your right to a hearing before the Commission.
Facts
In 2006, you and another OCME employee (“the Employee”) began working together as administrative assistants in the OCME. You and the Employee developed a close personal relationship. In the context of this personal relationship, the Employee allowed you to use the Employee’s credit card information to make your personal purchases.
The OCME promoted you to Chief of Staff in 2018 and, in 2019, to Chief Administrative Officer. As Chief of Staff and as Chief Administrative Officer, you directly supervised the Employee, who had been promoted to a manager position that reported to you, approving the Employee’s leave time and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, scheduling the Employee’s remote work.
From 2018 to April 2021, you repeatedly used the Employee’s credit card information to make your personal purchases. Your charges on the Employee’s credit card mostly ranged from $150 to several hundred dollars. You paid the Employee back in cash for some, but not all, of your charges. In or about June 2020, you borrowed $1,500 from the Employee.
In or about April 2021, after the OCME questioned you about your use of the Employee’s credit card and the Employee’s loan to you, you tendered a check for $7,000 to repay both the $1,500 loan and your outstanding charges on the Employee’s credit card. You received a warning regarding your conduct relating to these financial transactions with the Employee and were required to report your conduct to the Commission, which you did. You continued to be employed by the OCME until late July 2021. You cooperated with the Commission’s investigation.
Legal Discussion
Section 23(b)(2)(i)
Section 23(b)(2)(i) of the conflict of interest law prohibits a public employee from knowingly, or with reason to know, soliciting or receiving anything of substantial value which is not otherwise authorized by statute or regulation for or because of their official position. Anything worth $50 or more is of substantial value within the meaning of G.L. c. 268A.[1]
As Chief of Staff and as Chief Administrative Officer for the OCME, you were a state employee. As described above, you knowingly solicited and received a loan of $1,500 from a subordinate OCME employee in 2020 and, from 2018 to April 2021, repeatedly used the Employee’s credit card information to make your personal purchases. Your use of the Employee’s credit card information and the loan from the Employee were of substantial value.
While your use of the Employee’s credit card information began as part of your personal friendship when you and the Employee were both administrative assistants, there is reason to believe that the Employee continued to agree to your requests for personal financial favors from 2018 to April 2021 at least in part because of your superior OCME position. There was no statute or regulation that authorized you to obtain and use your OCME subordinate’s credit card information or to obtain a loan from your subordinate.
Therefore, the Commission found reasonable cause to believe that you violated § 23(b)(2)(i) when, while supervising the Employee, you asked for and received the use of the Employee’s credit card information and the $1,500 loan from the Employee.
Section 23(b)(2)(ii)
Section 23(b)(2)(ii) of the conflict of interest law prohibits a public employee from knowingly, or with reason to know, using or attempting to use their official position to secure for themselves or anyone else an unwarranted privilege of substantial value that is not properly available to similarly situated individuals.
Your use of the Employee’s credit card information to make personal purchases and the loan you obtained from the Employee were privileges. Given your repeated use of the Employee’s credit card information to make thousands of dollars’ worth of purchases and that the loan was for $1,500, these privileges were of substantial value. As there was no statute or regulation that authorized you to obtain and use your OCME subordinate’s credit card information or to obtain a loan from your subordinate, these substantially valuable privileges were unwarranted.
These substantially valuable unwarranted privileges were not properly available to you or similarly situated individuals. No state employee who supervises other state employees is permitted to ask their subordinates for personal loans or for their credit card information for the supervisor’s personal use. To the contrary, state employee supervisors are generally prohibited from engaging in any private financial transactions with their public employee subordinates and, as an OCME manager, you were generally prohibited from engaging in any private financial transactions with the Employee.
Supervisory public employees are prohibited by § 23(b)(2)(ii) from engaging in private financial transactions or having private business relationships or other private dealings with their public employee subordinates unless, among other requirements, the subordinate initiates the private business relationship or other private dealing and the private business relationship or dealing is entirely voluntary on the part of the subordinate. This is because, as the Commission has explained in Commission Advisory 14-1 Public Employees’ Private Business Relationships And Other Private Dealings With Those Over Whom They Have Official Authority Or With Whom They Have Official Dealings[2], a personal request by a superior of a subordinate for a personal favor or benefit is inherently coercive and places pressure on the subordinate to agree to the request due to the superior’s official position.
Simply put, because it is very hard, due to the supervisor’s official power over the subordinate, for a subordinate to say “no” to a supervisor who asks for a personal favor, the conflict of interest law prohibits public employee supervisors from asking subordinate public employees for substantially valuable personal favors. For a supervisor to do so is to use their official position to obtain for themselves a substantially valuable benefit which is not properly available to them, which is prohibited by § 23(b)(2)(ii).
In this case, your financial dealings with the Employee were initiated by your repeated requests for personal financial favors, which continued while you were Chief of Staff, and later, Chief Administrative Officer and the Employee’s supervisor. Although you and the Employee had a close personal relationship predating your promotion to OCME Chief of Staff, you had reason to know that, once you became the Employee’s supervisor, any request by you for personal favors would be, at least to some degree, coercive of the Employee due to your official position of authority over the Employee. In short, you had reason to know that you were using the power of your supervisory OCME position to obtain for yourself substantially valuable financial favors from your OCME subordinate, the Employee.
Accordingly, the Commission found reasonable cause to believe that, when you repeatedly asked to use and used your subordinate’s credit card information for your personal purchases and asked for and received a $1,500 personal loan from your subordinate, you knew or had reason to know that you were using your official position to secure for yourself unwarranted privileges of substantial value that were not properly available to you as an OCME supervisor. Therefore, the Commission found reasonable cause to believe that you violated § 23(b)(2)(ii) by obtaining and using the Employee’s credit card information and by seeking and receiving the loan from the Employee during the period in which you supervised the Employee.
Section 23(b)(3)
Section 23(b)(3) of the conflict of interest law prohibits a public employee from, knowingly or with reason to know, acting in a manner which would cause a reasonable person who knows the relevant facts to conclude that any person can improperly influence or unduly enjoy the public employee’s favor in the performance of their official duties. This section prohibits conduct by public employees that creates the appearance of favoritism or bias in their official actions. A public employee may avoid a violation of this section by timely making a written disclosure to their appointing authority[3] of the facts that would otherwise lead a reasonable person to conclude that they are biased or unduly influenced in their official actions.
By, as described above, continuing to supervise the Employee, to whom you owed a substantial amount of money as a result of your use of the Employee’s credit card information and the Employee’s $1,500 loan to you, and by continuing your use of that information and failing to repay that loan, you acted in a manner that would cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to conclude that the Employee could improperly influence you or unduly enjoy your favor in your performance of your official duties as OCME Chief of Staff and Chief Administrative Officer. At no time did you make a disclosure regarding your private financial dealings with the Employee. Therefore, the Commission found reasonable cause to believe that you violated § 23(b)(3).
Disposition
Based upon its review of this matter, the Commission has determined that the public interest would be best served by the issuance of this Public Education Letter to you and that your receipt of this letter should be sufficient to ensure your understanding of and future compliance with the conflict of interest law.
This matter is now closed.