DA-Elect Picks Suffolk County Prosecutor to Leadership Post

Fourth Outsider Selected by Incoming DA in a Reorganized Prosecutor’s Office; UMass-Amherst Grad Will Head Narcotics Unit

NORTHAMPTON – DA-elect David E. Sullivan has named Jeremy C. Bucci, an assistant Suffolk County DA and a native of Erving, Mass., to serve as chief trial counsel for the Northwestern District Attorney’s office.

Sullivan, who ran unopposed Nov. 2 to replace outgoing Northwestern DA Elizabeth Scheibel, made the announcement in a press release Friday. Bucci, who heads the Suffolk County DA’s Narcotics and Forfeiture Unit , will prosecute major crimes, supervise all narcotics and forfeiture cases, and act as the attorney-in-charge in Franklin County, Sullivan stated.

“Jeremy brings with him a range of trial skills and state and federal contacts that will be invaluable, and he has a strong family connection to Western Massachusetts,” Sullivan said.

“Of course, I’m thrilled,” Bucci told Northampton Media during a telephone interview Friday about his appointment to a top job back in Western Mass. “I’m thankful I get to go home,” he said, adding that his widowed father still lives in Erving.

Bucci was a 1994 graduate of Turners Falls High School and a 1998 graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where, according to “LinkedIn” – a social networking site – he earned a bachelor’s of science degree in political science and philosophy. He graduated from the Suffolk University Law School in 2001 and began working for Suffolk County DA Daniel F. Conley in 2002.

His return to this part of the state, Bucci said, will allow him “to take some of the skills I’ve learned here and share them” with his new colleagues in Hampshire and Franklin Counties. He also acknowledged that he’s getting a pay hike to come west to work for Sullivan.

”I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity,” he said.

Bucci lives in Brookline with his wife, the former Jamie Frank of Boston, who is a corporate lawyer in the city. Bucci said the couple was meeting today with a Realtor to look at houses in Easthampton and Northampton, but that his wife plans to commute to her job in Boston.

Sullivan’s Appointments and Team-Building

Bucci becomes the fifth person named to a leadership post in Sullivan’s overhaul of the Northwestern DA’s office organizational chart.

In recent weeks, Sullivan has named three outsiders to key posts: Janice Healy as his deputy DA, Rosemary Tarantino as chief of district court, and Martha Murphy Kane as his director of operations. Healy, of Conway, currently works as the state Attorney General’s Western Mass. division chief; Tarantino, of Haydenville, works directly under Healy as the division’s deputy chief; and Kane, of Holyoke, serves as the Hampden County DA’s superior court supervisor.

Sullivan has also said he will keep on Scheibel’s longtime chief financial officer, Donna Dudkiewicz.

After he was elected, Sullivan – who with his new staff wil be sworn in on Jan. 5, 2011 – invited all prosecutors and staff in the 70-person DA’s office here to reapply for their job by filling out a brief application and submitting their resumes.

Earlier this week, Sullivan said he was continuing to interview existing staff and nearing the end of interviews with outside candidates for the open posts. One position that remains unfilled as of Friday is that of first assistant DA in the office.

The Northwestern DA’ office includes Hampshire and Franklin and Franklin Counties, and the Town of Athol.

Scheibel, who has held the DA’s job since she was appointed to fill a vacancy in 1993, announced this spring she would not seek re-election. In a September primary, Sullivan trounced fellow Democrat Michael Cahillane, an assistant DA under Scheibel.

While he is replacing Scheibel’s top tier of managers, “95 percent” of the current prosecutors will remain at their jobs, Sullivan told us this week.

More staff announcements are expected soon.

Bucci’s Experience

Bucci said he has worked in a variety of posts while at the Suffolk County DA’s office over the past eight years, and has headed the narcotics unit there since 2008.

Since 2002, Bucci has handled cases involving home invasions, drug trafficking, kidnapping, sexual assaults, manslaughter, carjacking, cruelty to animals, embezzlement, and assaults, stabbings and shootings, Sullivan said.

“In the prosecution and investigation of drug trafficking, he has developed an expertise in search and seizure issues, and sophisticated investigative techniques, including wiretaps, one-party consent warrants, GPS warrants, and cell phone-tracking orders,” the press release stated.

“Bucci is frequently consulted by all units within the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office on issues involving warrant applications, particularly non-traditional warrants such as GPS and cell-tracking orders, and litigation surrounding warrants.”

As a top prosecutor for Suffolk County DA Conley, Bucci has also found himself in the headlines on numerous high-profile cases.

In one well-publicized trial this spring, Bucci successfully prosecuted four people charged with the kidnapping, torture and attempted murder of a man whom firefighters found bound and gagged in a building that was set on fire. (Click on the boldfaced links to see a prosecutor’s summary of the case and a news story on the sentencing of the defendants.)

“That was a horrifying case,” he said.

And in two other complicated cases he handled for Conley, Bucci will continue on the job even after he is sworn in here and takes on new duties. One case involves elderly Middleton, Mass. doctor Leonard Friedman, who allegedly wrote illegal prescriptions for Oxycodone, Percocet and valium; the other involves a major Colombian cocaine cartel authorities say was headed by a 24-year-old East Boston man. Both cases involved lengthyinvestigations in which Bucci played a role.

In both of the above cases, Bucci said, his old boss will appoint him as a special prosecutor to maintain continuity in the ongoing trial process.

© 2010 Northampton Media

David Reid can be reached at dreid@northamptonmedia.com