Last year's email deletion scandal in Boston ruled a mistake

Contributed by Debbie Howlett (Monday, August 02, 2010) | Category : Email archiving

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley recently provided some closure to the email scandal that has been an issue in Boston since allegations first began last September.

Last year, the Boston Globe discovered that Boston's policy and planning chief, Michael Kineavy, had been deleting emails and thus, violated state law by failing to retain correspondence.

While Coakley deemed the deletion to be inappropriate, she stated the action was not criminal. Ater her investigation, Coakley believed Kineavy, and others who were also guilty of the same violation, thought a backup was in place before deleting his emails.

"No evidence [existed] of either intent to destroy [the emails] or information that someone would want [them] destroyed," Coakley said.

If Coakley had found Kineavy guilty, the mayor's office would most likely have been assessed a fine for their lack of email retention. Recently, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced it has handed out $20.1 million in such fines to the brokerage firms it governs thus far in 2010.