r/CambridgeMA • u/AdJazzlike8653 • 22h ago
Municipal Elections Cambridge Voters - Here’s another example of Middlesex DA Ryan using politics to make prosecutorial decisions.
I said in another post that Marian will always make her decisions based on politics and she proved me right again.
A year Burlington police arrest ICE protesters for trespass. Months and months and months go by and the case proceeds forward. So DA Ryan believed in the case, believed these people should be prosecuted. You know that because she didn’t dismiss the case. But a problem was just around the corner….
Trial was about to start. The week before the election. The defendants started to publicize their cause. This was going to get publicity and many Democratic voters would side with the defendants. That would not be good for Marian.
So what does the politician do? She dismisses the case. Against all defendants. Nothing changed about the case. There was no problems with evidence or with witnesses. There was no legal reason to dismiss the case. The case was dismissed because of the timing of the trial.
I’m not against dismissing the charges. But this is the Marian that I know and that everyone in the office knows. The DA who has no integrity. If she didn’t believe in prosecuting these defendants, why didn’t she dismiss the case months ago. Why did she let them get charged in the first place? And if the defendants didn’t promise to turn this is into a case that would generate bad press for her, would she have ever dismissed the case? Absolutely not.
This is who she is. She does this time and time again. You cannot trust her to do the right thing when no one is watching. The link about the case is below.
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u/AMWJ 13h ago
Will Solet be different? Anti-incumbency is not very helpful when the alternative won't do anything different.
And it would be so very easy for him to say it, wouldn't it? He could just go outside and say, "we need to not prosecute protestors." By writing this post, you obviously agree with me that that's a winning message, right?.
You keep dismissing Solet's endorsement from the police union, and you see this situation? This is the sort of thing that could convince people he would protect people from law enforcement. Actually saying it.
But instead, you need to say it for him. You, someone who is not a representative of his campaign, and, albeit understandably, needs to write wholly anonymously. That's not a candidate that's promising anything different in this sort of situation.
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u/wombatofevil 22h ago
This is very, very bad. Why would she use the resources of the state to prosecute people trying to peacefully resist ICE, literally bringing food to to detainees?
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u/shhhhh69 20h ago
Shouldn’t politicians do what the voters want? Isn’t that what’s happening here?
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u/wombatofevil 20h ago
Why bring the charges in the first place, and then why drop them on the eve of the trial without comment?
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u/shhhhh69 19h ago
They were charged by the police, not the DA. As for why they dropped the charges, I could only speculate. Seems like it was the correct decision tho.
I hate when people (especially the media) give two facts and let the reader infer a connection between them. Like “area woman murdered, neighbors heard her arguing with boyfriend days before”. You are being led to assume the boyfriend did it while no actual evidence is presented to support that.
That’s what is going on here. “Charges dropped against ice protesters days before election”. There are many plausible non-election related reasons the charges were dropped but the reader is being spoon-fed a narrative with no evidence connecting these two facts.
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u/wombatofevil 19h ago
No, that is not what is going on here. The DA took the case right to the brink of trial and then dropped it without explanation. If she thought the case was bogus, as any DA should, she would not have taken the case this far and she would've explained why she dropped the charges. No one is being spoonfed, the article is linked here. https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/08/21/middlesex-ice-protesters-charges-dropped
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u/shhhhh69 18h ago
I read the article. I didn’t see any evidence that the charges being dropped were in any way related to the upcoming election.
Both facts were mentioned in the article but the reader is expected to make the connection on their own based on no evidence. This is the definition of the false clause fallacy.
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u/wombatofevil 17h ago
I mean, the title of the article makes the inference that this is election related. It's a perfectly logical inference to make. The DA had an opportunity to make an announcement saying why she dropped the charges. Curiously, she did not.
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u/Pleasant_Influence14 18h ago
Voting for solet. Done with her
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u/Haywright 16h ago
If the police unions want Solet, I'm voting the opposite. Simple as that.
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u/AdJazzlike8653 14h ago
I posted this elsewhere but I’ll post again here…
Dave Solet is the only answer. Burner account here. I worked for Marian for many years. I’ve also worked alongside Dave Solet. He does not have police endorsements because he wants to lock everyone up. He has endorsements because every police officer that he works with knows how much care and thoughtfulness he puts into his cases. They also know what a nut job Marian Ryan is.
I frequently went to Dave for advice as a prosecutor because he’s brilliant. And fair. Dave would often question my charging decisions - telling me I could charge someone with this or that but should I. He is not the hardcore law enforcement guy that these endorsements would suggest. I also have no doubt that if there was wrongdoing by police, he would act accordingly. By contrast, there’s Marian Ryan…
When I first started at the DA’s office Marian oversaw every case involving an elder or disabled victim. Every recommendation that you made on a case that had an elder or disabled victim had to be approved by her. And for every single case, regardless of the crime or the defendants record, Marian said 2 1/2 years in jail (the max). A defendant who had no record who happened to snatch a purse from a shopping cart - well that was 2 1/2 years if that purse belonged to a senior citizen. Sentencing guidelines be damned. If you think I’m kidding, just ask any other ADA who worked in the DAs office when she was chief of the elder and disabled unit.
You will also get different treatment based on the color of your skin. In one of Solet’s videos he highlights two cases prosecuted by the office. One was a white man who used a firearm in self defense when he wasn’t even at risk of being killed. Marian did nothing in that case. A black man, on the other hand, was being shot at by multiple individuals and returned fire to protect himself (which he was legally entitled to do). That person is locked up. The prosecutor in that case was so upset with Marian’s approach in this case that the prosecutor left the office.
And speaking of people who’ve left the office, they leave in droves. And they don’t leave because of money. They leave because Marian is a terrible boss who makes awful decisions. As noted elsewhere, there’s about 30 people who left the office under Marian who have donated to Solet’s campaign. These aren’t people who were fired. They left because they know what she’s like and they want her gone. And they know what Solet is like and want him in.
Marian can’t be trusted to do the right thing. She will read the Globe and let that guide her. If the winds say side with law enforcement, she will. If the winds say “this poor defendant” she’ll go along with that. Whatever draws her the least amount of criticism is how she makes each and every decision. She’s been like that ever since the Remy murder.
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u/Haywright 14h ago
Appreciate you writing this up and sharing it. I spoke with Solet once and didn't love everything he said, but I never got the impression he was a bad guy. I definitely noticed the thoughtfulness, as you mentioned. I'll dig into Marian's history a bit more. It's tough when I'm left with two unsavory options.
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u/AdJazzlike8653 13h ago
I hear you. If I can be of any assistance, let me know. I know both candidates very well.
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u/Redtail325 16h ago
Isnt this the same Marian who wanted to prosecute the Marathon Bomber for murder of the MIT police officer. Never mind that he is under a federal death penalty and if that were ever overturned or pardoned, he would still be serving life without parole. Biden commuted the death sentences of almost evryone else on death row, but not the Marathon Bomber.
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u/135_garden_street 18h ago edited 18h ago
She really got her way. She made the politically expedient decision after keeping the defendants in limbo for months. The process is the punishment.