The National Sheriff’s Association — the organization that represents rogue sheriffs like Sam Page, David Clarke, and Tom Hodgson and which celebrates the abuses of Customs and Border Patrol officers — has a soft spot for animals. Yes, the NSA actually endorsed legislation on animal cruelty, arguing that there is a link between animal cruelty and cruelty to humans. And we would not disagree.

But the sheriffs didn’t seem to appreciate the irony of defending puppies while torturing humans in the county jails they themselves operate.

Not to be out-done by the sheriffs’ hypocrisy, Donald Trump signed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) last month, giving rights to animals that he refuses to extend to Central American children in his concentration camps.

But concern for animal rights while simultaneously showing indifference to human suffering is also a feature of Massachusetts law.

Massachusetts has animal cruelty statutes which provide for up to seven years in prison for the abuse of animals. In 2016 the Attorney General charged ten people with the mistreatment of over a thousand animals on a farm in Westport. All were allowed to plead guilty and serve probation, which outraged animal rights groups. When it comes to humans, the AG’s office has a civil rights division but has not similarly intervened in behalf of prisoners suffering and dying in the state’s jails.

The rights of dogs and cats in the Commonwealth have a leg up — actually four legs up — on the rights of their human counterparts. According to the Massachusetts General Laws, Part I, Title XX, Chapter 140, Section 137C:

“The mayor of a city, the selectmen of a town, the police commissioner in the city of Boston, a chief of police or an animal control officer may at any time inspect a kennel or cause the inspection of a kennel. If, in the judgment of such person or body, the kennel is not being maintained in a sanitary and humane manner or if records are not properly kept as required by law, such person or body shall, by order, revoke or suspend the license for the kennel.”

That’s right. Kennels may be freely inspected by public officials if conditions are believed to be unsanitary or inhumane. This is a right that not even state legislators have in Massachusetts “corrections” facilities.

For dogs, state law likewise regulates confinement:

“No person owning or keeping a dog shall chain or tether a dog for longer than 5 hours in a 24–hour period and outside from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., unless the tethering is for not more than 15 minutes and the dog is not left unattended by the owner, guardian or keeper.”

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. “No excessive solitary” for dogs is written into Massachusetts law — while mentally-ill Bristol County prisoners are going to have to wait for the courts to decide if the overuse of solitary confinement is legal.

Under Massachusetts law a dog must be given adequate space to move, and environmental considerations (heat and cold) are strictly regulated. Specific types of inhumane treatment are prohibited:

“(1) filthy and dirty confinement conditions including, but not limited to, exposure to excessive animal waste, garbage, dirty water, noxious odors, dangerous objects that could injure or kill a dog upon contact or other circumstances that could cause harm to a dog’s physical or emotional health;

2. taunting, prodding, hitting, harassing, threatening or otherwise harming a tethered or confined dog; and

3. subjecting a dog to dangerous conditions, including attacks by other animals.”

No such protections exist for the safety and well-being of humans confined in Massachusetts jails and prisons.

Finally, it boggles the mind that “inhumane” is the word chosen by people to describe mistreatment of animals — but not of fellow humans who “deserve what they get” in prisons that “are not country clubs.”

But there is a solution. By simply re-designating jails as “kennels” — a name change prison rights advocates point out already describes the inhumane conditions in state prisons and jails — human prisoners in Massachusetts will finally receive the legal rights their four-legged friends already have.

The nation’s right-wing sheriffs flock to the White House for vanity photos of themselves, often captured in embarrassing thrall to the President.

Among the many White House emails returned from the ACLU FOIA request, there are at least fifty that include photos of Tom Hodgson in rapt attention to the stirring insights of Donald Trump, who is sometimes pictured holding a photo of his border wall.

These taxpayer-funded photo-ops are meat for the President and manna for the sheriffs. But sometimes even the dozens of photos offered by the White House are not enough. Here Hodgson’s media guy Jonathan Darling is found begging for more:

Emails were not the only product of the ACLU’s FOIA request to the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO). Eventually, the BCSO had to cough up travel documents and Tweets as well.

When the ACLU asked for Twitter records from accounts @Sheriff_Hodgson and @BCSO1, the Sheriff’s Office initially tried to avoid producing the documents by changing the account handles to @SheriffHodgson and @BristolSheriff. But ACLU counsel threatened to sue. So the BCSO responded like grownups with grainy, low-quality screenshots of a surprisingly small number of private communications.

But rather than discussing programs for rehabilitating his prisoners — surprise! — Hodgson’s private Tweets were almost all about scheduling media appearances to spread his anti-immigrant gospel and to market his own “brand.” And the many free media opportunities Hodgson was (and is) given to develop his “brand” represent nothing more than unreported “in-kind” campaign contributions.

The majority of Hodgson’s Tweets were to and from local radio station WBSM 1420, which features mainly right-wing bloviators like Barry Richard, Ken Pittman, Howie Carr, and Chris McCarthy. And they were all from radio host Chris McCarthy — whose job it is to feed Hodgson stories to comment on:

Tom should see this ASAP (23 Jan 2017)

McCarthy strokes Hodgson’s ego by comparing him to the president:

The Sheriff and you as his media person changed the national conversation in the way only a President can usually move an issue. Tremendous job. (28 Mar 2017)

McCarthy passes along an article by Howie Carr lambasting acting U.S. Atty. William Weinreb for Hodgson to read:

Jonathan- Howie wanted to make sure TH saw this column (4 May 2017)

McCarthy then directs Hodgson to an interview he did with Michele McPhee, who has just been a guest on his show — before he discusses it with Hodgson:

J – I interviewed Michele McPhee about her book on the Marathon Bombing yesterday. She discusses UMass Dartmouth and the bombing and I hope you can share this with Tom. She names a UMD professor. (15 May 2017)

We learn that, besides Jonathan Darling, BCSO legislative liaison Brock Cordeiro also handles Hodgson’s media work. Hodgson does not simply do radio interviews, he has a radio schedule:

Hi Chris, I’m out of the office this week. Brock is handling this stuff and has his radio schedule for the next few days. Give him a hollar at brockcordeiro@bcso-ma.org or send him a facebook message. Good luck — Jonathan (23 Jun 2017)

At Hodgson’s request, Darling suggests to McCarthy that he give Hodgson a regular spot on his show:

Hi Chris, Congrats on the new show. Sheriff asked me to get in touch. He mentioned you wanted him to come on sometime. Right now, our best bet is a call in tomorrow or an in-studio on Tuesday or Wednesday. Also, if you want to set something regular up, say every Friday or every other Wednesday or the first Thursday of the month or whatever, we’re open to that as well. — Jonathan (3 Jan 2018)

McCarthy acknowledges the amount of work they do together:

Jonathan – we do enough together to have you call or text me – my number is 781-308-5662 – send me a text when you have a moment so we can communicate rapidly when needed. Thanks

Remember those unreported “in-kind” campaign contributions.

Sometimes McCarthy tries to elicit information or get Hodgson to speculate on local politics:

Thanks – I’m hearing the same thing. I understand the Commies at the Coalition for Social Justice are going to run SEIU organizer Lisa Lemieux in the special. (2 Feb 2017)

and

Off the record: Have you heard anything about Jill Ussach running for the open NB Ward 3 CC seat? (2 Feb 2017)

Darling replies:

Hi Chris, Consensus of some of the clued-in folks around here is she’s no doubt interested, but if she actually pulls the papers and runs is another story.

In another Tweet Darling refers McCarthy to an order form for a t-shirt a local group produced for its visit to the governor to lobby for an investigation into Hodgson’s abuses:

Hey Chris. Tom wanted me to send this to you: He can’t wait to get a t-shirt: bccjustice.wordpress.com/2018/09/29/baker-is-the-new-orange (1 Oct 2018)

But Hodgson is a self-appointed expert on everything from Iran to marijuana. Darling offers Hodgson as an anti-marijuana spokesman:

Hi Chris. Sheriff was interviewed by the herald today about that stoned kid who hit the school bus in Gloucester. Just wanted to let you and the other radio guys know he’s available to take the anti-weed side if anyone’s interested. Thanks, and merry Christmas. — Jonathan (21 Dec 2016)

At one point McCarthy sends Hodgson a private text about New Bedford City Councilman Hugh Dunn’s letter to the state legislature on marijuana dispensaries — to feed Hodgson answers for a forthcoming interview:

I sent TH a text with the letter NB CC Hugh Dunn sent to the state legislature asking them to change the law on local control. This story is going to be big and I wanted Tom to have all the information in advance of the media. (1 Jun 2017)

Darling replies:

Awesome. Thx Chris. We will be ready for it when it hits. (1 Jun 2017)

Darling sends sheriff A. J. Louderback a photo of himself with Trump — under the assumption Louderback loves vanity photos as much as Hodgson:

Sheriff, I thought this was a nice picture. It’s from the Associated Press from Friday’s meeting. Catch up soon — Jonathan. (14 Jan)

Darling sends McCarthy a Tweet thanking him for Hodgson’s chance to vent on his favorite topics:

Hi Chris, just wanted to follow up and say thanks for having the Sheriff on this morning. Trump, immigration, Elizabeth Warren … he was in heaven. Anytime you want to chat again on Herald of BSM, just drop us a line …. thanks, Jonathan (1 Dec 2016)

McCarthy returns the compliment, sending Hodgson a link to a press release from Hamilton Strategies:

Jonathan, I just spoke with the Sheriff and scheduled him to call in to Boston Herald radio this Friday morning at 7:20am to discuss this press release: hamiltonstrategies.com/news/open-letter… (14 Dec 2016)

A word on Hamilton Strategies.

Hamilton Strategies advertises itself as a “mission-driven, full-service communications firm serving Christian non-profit organizations” which exists to: “connect ministries with media, engage Christians in the culture and inspire all to share the miracle of Jesus Christ throughout the world.”

Hamilton Strategies is also a propaganda center for Islamophobia and Homophobia.

McCarthy’s item for discussion is the interfaith celebration of an “Anti-Hate” event at the Islamic Society of Boston. Hamilton Strategies has issued a press release blasting liberal Jews and Christians who attended the event, including Marty Walsh and Elizabeth Warren, and has. accused the Islamic Center of being a “terror-linked, Saudi-funded radical mega-mosque.”

McCarthy also wants to link the Islamic Center with a terror attack [that never happened] on a mall in Attleboro. Once again McCarthy feeds an article to Hodgson like somebody fed SAT answers to Felicity Huffman’s daughter:

There is a section in the press release that mentions a planned machine gun attack on a “mall in Attleboro, MA” which we will be asking about. counterjihad.com/terror-experts… (14 Dec 2016)

The author of the article for discussion is Paul Sperry, part of a “Counter-Jihad” network with connections to every Islamophobic organization in America.

Thanks, ACLU. Keep the FOIA requests coming.

Tom Hodgson is not friend of the truth — even when it comes to stories of his own father.

On April 18, 2013, halfway through the Obama Administration, a group of eight senators known as the Gang of Eight stood before cameras in a Senate conference room, confident that their immigration reforms would shortly become a reality. At precisely the same moment in another room, Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (named for both a Confederate president and general) had organized a parade of county sheriffs, including Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson, to lobby against the reforms as a gratuitous “amnesty” for “criminal aliens.”

When it was his turn at the microphone (set up by Session’s aide, Stephen Miller), Hodgson painted a picture of five million people patiently waiting in lines outside American borders to become citizens — and another twelve million dangerous, criminal aliens living among us, “disrespecting” American laws. Hodgson invoked his Anglo-American heritage: “My father immigrated from England, and he raised thirteen children here.” Hodgson later told PRI: “My father didn’t walk around the streets hiding every time a police car came by, put his head down or what have you. My father came the right way.”

Hodgson went on to blast undocumented immigrants as filthy, disease-ridden burdens on their communities: “Illegal immigrants are creating public health hazards, public safety concerns,” Hodgson said, “living in homes, one-room apartments with three families, taking mattresses off the streets that are infested with bedbugs, filling our emergency rooms for lack of a better care and costing the taxpayers millions and millions of dollars.” The Gang of Eight’s immigration reforms were scuttled.

But Hodgson was not only lying about immigrants — but also about his “model immigrant” father.

Actress Tina Alexis Allen, Hodgson’s youngest sister, published a memoir in 2018. Her story of family trauma and recovery is hers alone to tell. But “Sir John” Hodgson, as he insisted on being called — the sheriff’s father, Knight of the Holy Sepulcher, Vatican courier, a man who carried four passports and racked up half a million miles a year in travel — is a central character in both Allen’s memoir and in Tom Hodgson’s mendacious narrative of immigration done the “right way.” Allen’s recounting of her father’s immigration to the United States and how a fourteenth Hodgson child immigrated to the United States reveal her brother the sheriff’s narrative as nothing but a tale woven out of whole cloth.

From Allen we learn that her father “Sir John” claimed to run the War Office in British-mandate Palestine as a 24 year-old and that he became an American citizen — not by waiting in line or immigrating the “right way” — but by courting and eventually marrying an American nurse two years older than himself and wrangling a transfer to Washington DC. That nurse, a native of New Bedford, MA, not only gave “Sir John” a sure path to citizenship as a male “war bride,” but her family connections in Bristol County helped pave the way for her son Tom to burrow his way into the county’s political establishment.

Matt Cameron, a Boston immigration attorney, disputes historical revisionists like Tom Hodgson who claim there is an equitable and orderly immigration line. “Where is this line? Where does it start? How long is it? Are there bathrooms?” Cameron points out that, thanks to overtly racist policies before 1965, Anglo-Saxons like Hodgson’s father were always preferred. “You can whitewash your own family history all you want, but it’s always been this way.”

It also helps if you’re a rich white man who can game the system with high-level connections.

In 1954 — when Tom Hodgson was three months old — “Sir” John Gerard Hodgson and Anne Marie Hodgson adopted a 10 year-old Anglo-Arab orphan named Victor Charles Joyce, the son of an Army comrade of Hodgson’s, and a child who did not qualify for naturalization under existing immigration quotas.

While the elder Hodgson could have made his adoptive child wait in line until it was his turn, “Sir John” instead used his connections with U.S. Maryland Senator John Marshall Butler, who like himself was a virulent anti-Communist, and whose campaign Joseph McCarthy managed. Butler officially notified Arthur V. Watkins, Chairman of the Senate Immigration and Naturalization Subcommittee on the Judiciary, that he had filed a private bill for Hodgson. From the Congressional Record:

Dear Arthur: on June 23 I introduced Senate bill 3652 at the request of Mr. and Mrs. John G. Hodgson, American citizens residing in Maryland at 5 East Irving, Chevy Chase, Md., for the purpose of bringing their adopted son, Frances Timothy Mary Hodgson, age 11 years, from the Franciscan Orphanage in Jerusalem, Jordan, to the United States of America.

“At the time of adoption, it was assumed that the adopted son be charged to the Jordan quota and could enter the United States under fourth preference of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which is at present open. When petition was filed, birth and baptismal records showed that the boy was born on June 13, 1943, in Nazareth, Palestine, which city is now in the State of Israel. The fourth preference for the State of Israel is oversubscribed and bill S.3654 has been introduced to permit Francis Timothy Mary Hodgson, adopted son of John Gerard and Anne Marie Hodgson to enter the United States under the fourth preference quota for the Jordan Kingdom as he has resided in Bethlehem and Jerusalem since shortly after birth in Nazareth. Records show the boy was baptized in Bethlehem (Jordan) July 5, 1944.”

The bill was not drafted to provide a non quota visa but it was felt that as the adopted child resided in Jordan all his life, that he could be charged to the Jordan quota.

On August 19, 1954 Hodgson’s private bill quickly moved from one express line to another in the U.S. House of Representatives (relevant portions of Congressional Record here) — a professional courtesy for a fellow “Anglo Saxon” immigrant.

Interestingly, Butler went out of his way to argue that this special legislation for Hodgson was not really an effort to bypass immigration quotas, but that the boy had lived in a formerly Jordanian part of Israel “all his life” — a kindness Tom Hodgson today is not prepared to extend to DACA recipients.

When asked to help place this maneuver in historical context, immigration attorney Matt Cameron noted that “today’s closest analogue might be the Special Immigrant Juvenile process, a fourth-preference visa available for minors who were abused, abandoned or neglected by one or more parents (many are orphans). As with the fourth-preference beneficiaries from Israel, SIJ from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador (the countries which have benefited by far the most from the program) is seriously oversubscribed and wait times are now well over two years.”

“Given that this process is available for qualifying individuals up to the age of 21, I would guess that hundreds of SIJ-eligible people have been locked up in Hodgson’s disgrace of a jail over the years and deported either before they had a chance to apply or while waiting ‘in line’ for a visa in the same category as the one that his family had no problem manipulating to their benefit 65 years ago.”

Travel records the ACLU received from the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office feature the same sloppy paperwork and potential abuses of taxpayer money that a State Audit warned of last February and which Bristol County for Correctional Justice (BCCJ) found in documents from its own FOIA request last year.

BCCJ has previously called for a forensic audit of the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office — not just because two of its officers were convicted of federal money laundering charges in the “Godfather” case — and not merely because the sheriff is now being sued for receiving kickbacks from a phone vendor.

Tom Hodgson has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant and forfeiture money that were intended to be used for opioid treatment — and now we learn that he has never written a single email relating to MAT treatment — and that he lied to the public about his communications with other sheriffs at a 287(g) hearing last April.

One reasonable conclusion is that the Sheriff’s Office is simply pocketing the grant money and using it to subsidize ICE agreements which actually lose money for the state.

And we’ve said this before, too: the sheriff is using large sums of taxpayer money to fund a private war on immigrants — a war designed by and coordinated with white supremacists within and down the street from the White House. All while neglecting the rehabilitation of prisoners in his jail.

The ACLU’s information request proves it. Their FOIA request shows hundreds of Tweets and emails between White House and anti-immigration zealots, including 74 with the White House’s resident white supremacist, Stephen Miller — but nothing related to helping people with opioid use disorder.

If you believe in math, this is a ratio you can’t ignore.

And then there’s the sheriff’s travel — again. In 2017, shortly after the Trump inauguration, Hodgson spent almost two weeks in Washington, DC and in his hometown of Chevy Chase, Maryland. The hand-written cover sheet attached to his travel invoices states that the Sheriff was attending the PREA Conference (the National Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center Conference).

This sounds plausible enough — since no one ever really bothers to scrutinize sheriffs’ expenses — until you find that the Massachusetts Department of Corrections indeed convened a PREA Conference that month, but it was at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel — that’s Boston, not DC — and that Bristol County Sheriff’s Office CEO Lawrence Oliveira attended it, not Hodgson.

So what was Hodgson doing in Washington, DC for twelve days between January 30, 2017 and February 12, 2017? The Sheriff’s Bank of America statement shows him staying at some pretty swanky places in the nation’s capital. And he didn’t even send us a thank you.

Absent any oversight of the sheriff’s finances — and absent any thorough audits — this would have gone undetected if not for the ACLU’s FOIA request.

Was Hodgson visiting family, taking a winter vacation, huddling with his white supremacist buddies at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, meeting with the Trump administration, or what? And why were Massachusetts taxpayers once again footing the bill?

We just don’t know. And Hodgson’s deceptive record-keeping certainly doesn’t shed any light on the truth. It’s hard to imagine what sort of pressing county business requires a county sheriff to spend two weeks in luxury hotels in Washington, DC.

Two decades of friendly “performance” audits by the state have failed to improve Hodgson’s record-keeping habits or stop his abuses of taxpayer money. Once again we call for a forensic audit of the Bristol County House of Corrections.

For over two years Bristol County for Correctional Justice has been hammering away at a painfully obvious truth: Sheriff Tom Hodgson is neglecting the job voters elected him to do — caring for and rehabilitating prisoners — at the expense of his collaboration with white supremacists.

Recent disclosures of responsive documents from a FOIA request the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLU) made to the Bristol County Sheriffs Office (BCSO) last March prove just how true that contention is.

In the ACLU’s repository there are literally hundreds of communications between White House officials, including dozens from White Supremacist Stephen Miller and demonstrating coordination between Hodgson, the White House and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Hodgson’s real and only focus. Yet even though a majority of Hodgson’s prisoners have substance abuse disorders, his office could not provide a single email or Tweet documenting a shred of concern for helping prisoners with medically-assisted treatment (MAT).

The ACLU archives make for pretty interesting reading. Hodgson’s slavish, unctuous attempts to ingratiate himself with the White House are exposed in 74 emails to Stephen Miller. We find White House talking points that Hodgson receives, and we see Hodgson notifying Miller that he’s been a good boy and used them in various interviews. We see his pettiness in action as he blasts New Bedford representative Tony Cabral, the Immigrant Assistance Center, and — as Yvonne Abraham reported in the Globe — Hodgson even removes information cards on ICE from the back of his own church, St. Julie’s in Dartmouth, and dutifully reports it to Miller. And although the ACLU did not request Hodgson’s correspondence with FAIR, he CC’s fairus.org in emails with Miller and Britt Carter, Associate Director of the White House Office of lntergovernmental Affairs. The ACLU’s trove of documents follows the release by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of extensive correspondence between Stephen Miller and a number of white supremacists.

All Hodgson’s efforts paid off recently when he was rewarded with a White House doggy bone — honorary chair of Trump’s Massachusetts re-election campaign.

Last April members of BCCJ attended a so-called “public hearing” on ICE 287(g) agreements and the topic of medically-assisted opioid treatment came up.

Hodgson has received several large grants for opioid treatment, so the public is entitled to know what he’s doing with all the money — a question that still must be answered. In addition, under Section 98 of Chapter 208 of the Acts of 2018, five sheriff’s offices have started piloting MAT treatment of prisoners — Hodgson isn’t one of them.

At the 287(g) hearings Hodgson offered a number of excuses for not offering treatment. The worst was that his officers — now serving as state-paid, part-time ICE agents — can’t afford ten minutes to supervise the treatments.

Currently, prisoners now receive a spritz of Vivitrol — a drug Alkermes already gives National Sheriff’s Association members a “taste” of for free.

Needless to say, BCCJ was not satisfied with Hodgson’s response and on September 23, 2019 we began trying to get better answers to what kind of MAT treatments, if any, the BCSO and its medical contractor provided. We contacted Beth Cheney, the Chief Operating Officer of Correctional Psychiatric Services (CPS), to ask what sort of treatment CPS provides prisoners in Bristol County.

In response, Cheney sent us a link to an article about the sheriff’s pilot program — the very program Hodgson and CPS refuse to participate in. Cheney also directed us to Jonathan Darling, the Sheriff’s spokesperson, for authorization to speak to CPS. So we did — and Darling passed the buck back to CPS:

“If you feel that CPS is not answering your questions, that’s an issue between you and CPS.”

In October we tried again, telling Darling that the “public would be well-served by knowing what types of MAT treatment the BCSO currently offers its prisoners.”

On October 22, 2019 Darling agreed — but he never followed up:

“I agree, I think we can do a better job at sharing with the public about our Mat and substance abuse programs. I’ll be working to update our website with more information on this. I believe you’ll find your answers there in weeks ahead.”

But the ACLU was also interested. On March 18, 2019 the ACLU requested the following from the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office:

8. All records of any request, decision, or recommendation by BCSO to participate in, or not to participate in, any pilot program for the delivery of medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder at county correctional facilities, including under Section 98 of Chapter 208 of the Acts of 2018.

9. All records concerning the formulation or preparation of any request, decision, or recommendation described in paragraph 8, above, including without limitation any discussion of the reasons for such request, decision, or recommendation

The responsive documents the ACLU received to the request show that — while Hodgson was emailing Stephen Miller and numerous White House and anti-immigrant organizations almost daily — there was absolutely no correspondence regarding medically assisted treatment. None. Zero.

On May 29, 2019 — more than two months past the required 10 day window for response to FOIA requests — Hodgson’s office replied to the question of MAT treatments:

“No records exist that are responsive to this request.”

So on August 20, 2019 the ACLU’s legal counsel at Foley Hoag LLP wrote back to the Sheriff’s Office to obtain information the sheriff refused to divulge.

Among the many non-responses to the ACLU’s FOIA request, the BCSO had refused to provide records from the sheriff’s supposedly “personal” Twitter account.

The ACLU also disputed the BCSO’s contention that no records existed on MAT treatment because the Sheriff had made a public statement about collaboration with other sheriffs at the aforementioned 287(g) hearing on April 10th:

At the BCSO’s annual 287(g) steering committee meeting held on April 10, 2019, Sheriff Hodgson publicly announced that the BCSO will not implement the pilot program established by Section 98 of Chapter 208 of the 2018 Acts, and will, instead, continue its current practices for treating inmates for opioid disorder. ‘ During this meeting, Sheriff Hodgson made a number of statements that suggest he and/or the BCSO have records concerning this decision. For example, he stated:

• “The sheriffs all met not too long ago — a few months back — and collectively we decided, for those that were going to decide to use medically-assisted treatment, that there would be a sampling of four or five sheriffs who were going to do it to see how it goes. Medically-assisted treatment is very controversial with regards to the types of medication that have to be given. For example, when somebody is on a medically-assisted treatment program, there are certain medications where it takes ten minutes per person to have that medication dissolve in their mouth, and they have to watched by a person on our staff until it is done.”
• “We have probably the most difficult county when it comes to detoxing people for drug use.”
• “I am not going to institute a program that’s going to have people come to jail who want to get off drugs, be exposed to more drugs. Because if you can’t go to jail to get off drugs, I don’t know where you’re going to go to get off drugs.”
• “We aren’t going to institute programs that we don’t know [are] working yet, as are a number of other Sheriffs, until we know it works.”

Accordingly, no later than September 10, 2019, please: (1) confirm whether records responsive to Requests 8 and 9 exist and produce any such records; (2) confirm whether any documents responsive to Requests 8 and 9 are being withheld on the basis of any assertion of privilege; and (3) provide a description of what, if any, searches the BCSO undertook to identify records responsive to these requests, including the sources and custodians BCSO searched and any date ranges and/or search terms that it applied.

The BCSO replied on September 20, 2019, offering the following explanations to Foley Hoag and the ACLU:

• “… the Sheriff’s Office states that Sheriff Hodgson is referring to a Massachusetts Sheriff’s Association Meeting (‘MSA’). any records of decisions made, if any exist, would be records of the MSA.
• “… Sheriff Hodgson’s statements refer to his decisions to not institute medically-assisted treatment in its entirety. The decision was not reduced to writing and, thus, no record exists …”

Apparently Hodgson didn’t have time to jot anything down. He was too busy being a White House errand boy.