Friday, February 20, 2009

Feds attempt contact with former state CIO

By Mass High Tech staff

Federal and state officials made an early morning housecall Thursday to the Beacon Hill apartment of Bethann Pepoli, former state chief information officer, but received no answer, the State House News reports. Pepoli was involved in the controversial August 2007 awarding of a $13 million contract to IBM Corp. division Cognos ULC, linked to former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi.

According to the writeup, an unidentified FBI agent and an official from Inspector General Gregory Sullivan’s office,  knocked on Pepoli’s door at 7:30 a.m. Thursday. No reason was given for the early morning attempted contact, and officials’ inquiries into Pepoli’s location were not known by passersby.

Pepoli served as CIO under both Gov. Mitt Romney and Gov. Deval Patrick and now works as a business development manager at EMC Corp., the State House News writes.

The contract given to Cognos was awarded under suspect circumstances, including a proposal presented to DiMasi by friends of his who were paid by Cognos officials. Richard McDonough received $1.1 million from Cognos during the time period from June 2003 to July 2008, while Steven Topazio received Cognos payment of $125,000 from April 2005 to March 2007.