Frisoli meets with The Alewife

by Will Larson

The former vice-mayor running for state attorney general on the Republican slate spoke to the Sept. 1 contributors meeting of The Alewife held at Porter Square Books.

Born a Democrat, Larry Frisoli, said his political journey began on the streets of Cambridge when he was a 12-year-old boy ringing doorbells and handing out flyers for John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign.

Frisoli said he switched to the Republican Party slowly in the late 1980s out of frustration with the antics of his old party. “I got tired of the using sections of the budget to buy votes.”

Best known as the attorney who represented the family of the late Jeffrey Curley, a 10-year-old molested and killed by two men in 1997, Frisoli was the youngest member of the city council and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s 2000 “Lawyer of the Year.” Now he finds himself opposing current Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley, the Democrat.

Larry Frisoli

Coakley has a record of falling to pursue political sensitive cases and is beholden to the Big Dig contractors and other special interests, who have give her campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.

Her contributions from interests he would target for reform more than doubled after he announced his candidacy, he said.

One prime example of Coakley’s reluctance to prosecute is the case of the former Somerville police officer, Keith Winfield, he said.