A former aide to Massachusetts’ Democrat governor, who was fired for gun/drug trafficking, is now demanding he get to keep his unused vacation time pay.
LaMar D. Cook, a former aide to Gov. Maura Healey, was arraigned in March on drug trafficking and illegal firearm possession, according to The Boston Globe.
During his arraignment, the prosecution revealed that traces of fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine were found on a digital scale he’d kept in a cabinet in the office where he’d worked.
The arraignment came months after he was arrested in November in a massive cocaine and illegal gun bust:
🚨 BOMBSHELL in Massachusetts:
A top aide to Democrat Gov. Maura Healey just got hauled off in a massive cocaine & illegal gun bust — and yes, the drugs were allegedly being shipped straight to his government office.LaMar Cook — Healey’s Western MA deputy director and longtime… pic.twitter.com/jUxzXxJRAq
— Jim Weed (@JimBobW49) November 1, 2025
Several weeks after his arrest, he was fired by email and paid out $31,438 in unused vacation time.
The payout angered the public, in addition to Republicans.
“Maura Healey’s administration approved a $30,000 taxpayer-funded payout to a political aide after he was arrested for trafficking cocaine,” Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve, a Republican, told the Boston Herald at the time. “The public deserves to know who authorized this payment, why it was approved, and what safeguards, if any, exist inside her administration.”
“We already know Healey was aware of Cook’s prior gun charges, including an arrest connected to a drive-by shooting, because they were part of his background check. And yet, he was still hired. What else did they know? Who approved this payout? And how many other hires were waved through with similar red flags?” he added.
Fellow gubernatorial candidate Mike Kennealy called it a “pattern” of incompetence from Healey.
“From botched background checks in migrant shelters, to hiring an individual with prior gun charges into a senior role, to quietly issuing a $31,000 buyout after his termination and calling it an ‘error,’ the Healey administration continues to demonstrate a lack of competence and accountability,” he said. “An administration that can’t manage basic hiring, oversight, and payroll procedures cannot be trusted to run state government.”
In January, Healey fired back by suing Cook, demanding the return of the money, saying it’d been “erroneously paid out.”
“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 the Globe.
And because “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.”
However, Cook disagrees …
In a response to the governor’s suit, he reportedly submitted a filing denying “the material allegations” against him and demanding to keep the money.
In defending his stance, he trotted out so-called equity, a leftist term that basically denotes special privileges for certain minorities, especially black people.
“Equity and fairness weigh strongly against requiring repayment under these circumstances,” he wrote in his filing. “Repayment would be inequitable given the Commonwealth’s role in issuing the payment and my good faith reliance on it.”
Healey, for her part, wishes she’d never hired him in the first place.
“I wish he’d never been hired,” she said in March. “It’s outrageous what he did. … I hope he’s held accountable.”
In fairness to her, prosecutors have said he’d been living a “double life” selling drugs on one hand and functioning as a top government official on the other.
“He was conning all of these good people in the community, conning the UMass hotel, conning the governor’s office,” prosecutors said during a March court hearing. “Because in reality, he was pushing this poison into our community.”
March was the month that Cook bonded out of jail with $25,000 bail after a judge agreed to lower his bail from $75,000.
Cook was originally arrested after the police intercepted a package containing almost 18 pounds of cocaine that had been shipped to his work office.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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