Closing arguments in the federal extortion trial of Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins are set to begin Wednesday in Boston. The evidence is closed. Judge Myong Joun denied a defense motion for acquittal on Tuesday, and the sheriff did not testify.
The defense spent two weeks building a case that Tompkins never threatened anyone. Under the statute he is actually charged with, that may not be the argument that matters.
Where the case stands
The government rested after calling Ascend Wellness executives and, on Friday, its central witness.
The defense moved under Rule 29 for a judgment of acquittal. Judge Joun denied it Tuesday, which is the ordinary outcome and means only that a reasonable jury could convict on this record, not that it should.
The defense then put on a case. Andrea Cabral testified, the former Suffolk sheriff, Tompkins’s predecessor and longtime friend, later installed as Ascend’s chief executive in Massachusetts. Her testimony went to the heart of the government’s theory: she said the sheriff’s office partnership was not critical to Ascend’s state approvals or licensing, and that withdrawing it would not have jeopardized them.
Tompkins did not take the stand.
What the cross-examination produced
Martin Weinberg’s cross of Frank Perullo, the government’s immunized central witness, is the defense case in miniature.
He put their relationship in front of the jury through their own messages: “I love you,” “I miss you,” “my brother.” Perullo had helped run Tompkins’s campaigns and boosted his reelection.
And he got the concessions the defense wanted. Perullo acknowledged that Tompkins never explicitly threatened to pull the reentry partnership. He agreed he is not usually easily intimidated and does not struggle to say no.
Prosecutors used the same messages for the opposite purpose, as evidence of the closeness that made the ask effective.
Why “he never threatened anyone” may not decide this
Here is the part that will not come through in most coverage of the closings.
The Hobbs Act defines extortion as obtaining property from another, with consent, “induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.” The First Circuit has been explicit that those are two distinct forms of the offense, not one theory with two labels.
Tompkins is charged under the second. And under the second, fear is not an element.
The First Circuit upheld a jury instruction in a Boston City Council extortion case that says it about as plainly as it can be said:
“The Government does not need to show that Mr. Turner made some specific threat or used force or fear to cause a person to tender the money… The Government does not need to prove that the defendant made any particular request or demand for money or engaged in some affirmative inducement to obtain the money. Passive acceptance of a benefit by a public official is sufficient if the official knows that he is being offered or tendered the payment in exchange” for official acts.
That comes from Evans v. United States, where the Supreme Court held the government “need only show that a public official has obtained a payment to which he was not entitled, knowing that the payment was made in return for official acts.” The Court added that the offense is complete when the payment is received, and that “fulfillment of the quid pro quo is not an element.”
There is an exception, and it does not help here. Under McCormick v. United States, an explicit promise is required when the payment is a campaign contribution. This was a $50,000 purchase of pre-IPO stock, not a campaign contribution, so the ordinary Evans standard governs and an implicit understanding can suffice.
So Perullo’s concession that he was never threatened, which sounded like the moment of the trial, addresses a prong the government did not charge.
What the government still has to prove
That does not make this case easy for prosecutors. The color of official right prong has its own demanding element, and it is where the defense’s real argument lives.
The government must prove Tompkins obtained property he was not entitled to, knowing it was given in return for official acts. The First Circuit describes these cases as requiring proof of “the sale of public favors for private gain.”
Which raises the question the defense has been building toward all trial: what official act was being bought?
The government’s answer is the sheriff’s department reentry partnership, which Ascend used to satisfy the positive impact plan its state cannabis license required. The alleged leverage is that Ascend needed that partnership.
Cabral’s testimony attacks exactly that. If the partnership was not critical to Ascend’s licensing, and withdrawing it would not have endangered anything, then the sheriff had no public favor to sell. A friend buying stock from a friend is not a federal crime.
Three other Ascend witnesses said earlier in the trial that they felt no pressure and that nobody suggested the company’s license depended on the sheriff’s goodwill.
The two closings to expect
The government will argue the transaction speaks for itself: a sitting sheriff asked a man whose company depended on his office for a piece of a pre-IPO stock offering, invoked what he had done for that company when first refused, and later demanded his money back when the shares fell. It will lean on the words Perullo attributed to him, “I helped you get that spot on Friend Street, you wouldn’t be this big company without me,” and on the fact that Perullo, in his own testimony, relented because he feared losing the partnership and delaying the company’s opening.
It will also tell the jury, correctly, that it need not find a threat.
The defense will argue the case rests entirely on one immunized witness, and that the record contains no corroboration of pressure from anyone else at the company. It will argue the relationship was a forty-year friendship, documented in the parties’ own affectionate messages, and that the partnership Ascend supposedly feared losing did not matter to its license, which Cabral testified to directly.
Weinberg has framed it since opening as a case that “boils down to the uncorroborated testimony” of a witness testifying under an immunity agreement.
What happens after
Judge Joun will instruct the jury, and the wording of the color of official right instruction is worth watching closely, because it is where an appeal would begin if there is a conviction.
Tompkins faces two counts. He has been on leave from the sheriff’s office since his arrest in August 2025 and has pleaded not guilty. A conviction would not automatically remove him from office, and a Massachusetts sheriff can be suspended only by a majority of the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court.
The sheriff’s seat is not on this year’s ballot. His term runs to January 2029.
Common questions
What is Steven Tompkins charged with?
Two counts of extortion under color of official right under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951. Prosecutors allege he pressured Ascend Wellness into selling him $50,000 in pre-IPO stock and later demanded a refund when the shares lost value. He has pleaded not guilty.
Does the government have to prove he threatened anyone?
No. Under the color of official right prong, no threat, demand, or inducement is required. The First Circuit has upheld instructions stating that passive acceptance is sufficient if the official knows the payment is offered in exchange for official acts.
What does the government have to prove?
That he obtained property he was not entitled to, knowing it was given in return for official acts. The offense is complete when the payment is received; the official act need not actually be performed.
Did Tompkins testify?
No. The defense called witnesses including former Sheriff Andrea Cabral, but Tompkins did not take the stand.
Would a conviction remove him from office?
Not automatically. Only a majority of the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court may remove or suspend a Massachusetts sheriff. He has been on leave since August 2025.
Trial developments as reported by the Boston Globe, WBUR, WHDH, and the Boston Herald, August 25 through September 2, 2026. Legal framework from 18 U.S.C. § 1951; Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255 (1992); McCormick v. United States, 500 U.S. 257 (1991); United States v. Turner, 684 F.3d 244 (1st Cir. 2012); and United States v. Brissette, 919 F.3d 670 (1st Cir. 2019). The charges are unproven and Tompkins is presumed innocent. General legal information, not legal advice.