By William Tauro 

This story begins with a letter to the editor that turned into a tragic ending. 

Dear Billy T, I have seen your articles about Joe Curtatone. I have information that you may be interested in. My family ran a small business in Somerville. They had many dealings with the mayor. My son tried to get on the Somerville Fire Dept. He was a veteran but he was put through something horrible and didn’t get on. This is a very dangerous situation. If you would like to meet face to face I would be willing to talk to you, I live outside the city now but like I said, I’m willing to talk to you. 
Sincerely,
A wonderful boy’s mom

Back a few years ago, the City of Somerville received an $800,000.00 grant to put on thirteen firefighters. 
The grant allowed priority consideration for candidates with military service backgrounds. At this particular time there had to be at least three veterans that were already put on the list including a Navy veteran who was honorably discharged after serving four years of active service. 
This particular veteran candidate scored over a 90 on the exam. City Hall was was running two lists. The veteran candidate’s family who is also a city vendor is alleging that they were approached by the Somerville Department of Public Works Commissioner Stan Koty to put $10,000.00 cash in an envelope to ensure that their veteran candidate son would automatically be placed on the Somerville Fire Department.  
The family member immediately then informed us with allegations that they informed Commissioner Koty that his son scored a 90 on the list as welll as him also being a veteran and declined Koty’s offer.  
After that being said, Commissioner Koty then allegedly responded with retaliation by cutting off all the family’s contracts with the city including and their vendor service with city hall were all stopped. 
At that time the City of Somerville owed the family’s business over $100,000.00 for services rendered and that they were allegedly threatened by Koty that they would might never see this money or they would have to wait a very long time to get it now and all new work came to a stop. 
The family hired a lawyer but the family was allegedly told by Koty that their contracts and city vendor services would go forward if they backed off with the lawyer and that their son would get on the Somerville Fire Department. 
The end result in this story is that the son never did get on the Somerville Fire Department but they broke him, they broke him bad. 
The son was found dead later that month of a sudden death.  
The family told us that there are allegedly others who this was done too, and that their family is not the only one out their who was allegedly extorted by Commissioner Koty. 

This was previously reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2013 but for some reason did not gain the attention it deserved. Since then and especially with all of the current activity and allegations of corruption about the Curtatone Administration, more allegations have been surfacing with more witnesses having come forward giving this case more momentum and the needed attention that it deserves.  
Therefore we urge the Federal Bureau of Investigation to revisit, reinvestigate and prosecute these suspects in this case.