Menino East End Aide John Forbes implicated in Oxycontin, marijuana and..... arson???

Illustration by Kathleen M.G. Howlett.

We noted an appropriate response by Mayor Menino pending more information in this post, but the new statements from DEA are very troubling indeed. There are allegations that John Forbes was dealing at City Hall and making job offers to druggies. Boston Herald story #1 and Boston Herald Story #2, with DEA info.

The baby-faced Forbes is a “close associate” of Anthony Cristallo, a convicted killer from Eastie who was weighing ways to intimidate or even whack a witness against him in a pending Suffolk drug case, according to the DEA. Doyle said the DEA’s informant - the same one in Forbes’ office - offered his muscle to Cristallo through Taylor for everything from “flattening tires” to “possibly setting the person’s house on fire ... up to and potentially including the murder of that witness.”

Cristallo and Forbes fled a tail by Boston police Dec. 12 - four days before Forbes was taken into custody by the feds. The cops later found Cristallo’s Mercedes-Benz parked behind Forbes’ Eastie house. Cristallo is out on $75,000 cash bail on the pending state case. He was federally indicted for dealing OxyContin last week and is a fugitive.

WCVB Channel 5 Boston video.

But don't let this take too much attention away from other key Boston City Hall issues including the missing emails and the scattering witnesses like Ronald Wilburn.