LaMar Cook, former Healey aide indicted on drug charges, says he should be allowed to keep $31,000 payout
LaMar D. Cook, the former aide to Governor Maura Healey indicted on drug trafficking charges, said he should be allowed to keep a $31,000 payout the state sent him, in part because he was fired “via email” before he was criminally charged.
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Cook said in court documents that the timeline undercuts Healey’s attempts now to claw the money back, and that forcing him to repay $31,438 in unused vacation time “would be inequitable.”
The state paid Cook in November, several weeks after he was arrested on gun and drug trafficking charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
State authorities said they seized eight kilograms, or roughly 17 pounds, of cocaine that were slated to be delivered to the city’s “Little State House,” a state building where Cook worked for Healey. Prosecutors said they also found a digital scale with traces of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and cutting agents in a cabinet in Cook’s office.
Healey, who hired Cook in 2023, sued him in January, saying the money he received was “erroneously paid out,” and that he should return it, plus interest.
Healey’s administration argued that Cook is not entitled to receive any of the money for unused leave he had accrued because he was terminated “for cause.” According to her lawsuit, he was subject to the so-called Red Book, a set of rules for managers and “confidential” employees which states that those who retire, resign, or are dismissed “through no fault or delinquency of their own” can cash out unused vacation time.
Cook disagrees. In a response to the lawsuit he filed late last month, he said he denies “the material allegations” against him, and asked the court to deny Healey’s request and allow him to keep the money, arguing the timeline of his arrest and termination is “critical.”
Police said they conducted a sting operation on a Saturday in late October after they seized the 17-pound package that included bricks of cocaine and was addressed to the governor’s Springfield office. With a state trooper posing as a UPS driver, police said they detained Cook after he came to the building to retrieve it.
He was later released pending further investigation. Police arrested and formally charged him three days later. Healey’s office has long said Cook was fired “effective immediately” from his $115,668-a-year job.
In court documents, Cook, 46, said he received an email notifying him he was terminated “prior to any arrest or formal criminal charges being brought against me,” and that Healey’s basis for now trying to deny him the payout “is factually and legally disputed.”
“At the time of termination, there had been no adjudication, conviction, or formal finding that would substantiate a ‘for cause’ determination sufficient to forfeit [the] earned compensation,” Cook wrote in the letter, in which he indicated he is representing himself in the litigation. “Any retroactive attempt to justify the denial of earned wages on that basis is improper and unsupported.”
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Cook wrote that he accrued a “substantial portion” of the unused leave when he worked at Hotel UMass, before Healey hired him. According to Healey’s lawsuit, the payment included 530 hours of unused leave, or roughly 71 days’ worth.
Cook also argued that the payment went through the state’s “own payroll and human resources processes, without any misrepresentation or wrongdoing on my part.”
“Equity and fairness weigh strongly against requiring repayment under these circumstances,” Cook wrote. He later added: “Repayment would be inequitable given the Commonwealth’s role in issuing the payment and my good faith reliance on it.”
Cook’s arrest last fall shook Springfield, where he was long considered a pillar of the community and a mentor for the city’s Black youth. After his younger brother was killed in a 2017 shooting, Cook advocated against gun violence in Springfield and at the State House in Boston.
Prosecutors contend he was living a “double life.” Cook appeared to have worked with an accomplice who previously lived in Springfield but later moved to Houston, according to records prosecutors said were recovered from Cook’s cellphone.
“He was conning all of these good people in the community, conning the UMass hotel, conning the governor’s office,” Kerry A. Beattie, a Hampden County assistant district attorney, said at a March court hearing. “Because in reality, he was pushing this poison into our community.”
Cook, who had been held on $25,000, posted bail and was released in March from the Hampden County Correctional Center.
Healey, who is seeking reelection this fall, has said she wishes that Cook had “never been hired.”
“It’s outrageous what he did,” she told reporters in March. “I hope he’s held accountable.”
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