DEVELOPING: Potential Bombshell Lurking On Shannon O'Brien V. Deb Goldberg Docket, As Secret Documents Involving Two High-Ranking CCC Staff Members Made Public And Then Quickly Impounded

By: Grant Smith-Ellis
Date: 4/2/25
Time: 5:50am ET

There’s a potential bombshell emerging on the Shannon O’Brien Vs. Deb Goldberg docket. After a number of highly-sensitive case files (related to two high-ranking staff Massachusetts CCC staff members, Communications Chief Maryalice Curley and Deputy General Counsel Mike Baker moving to secretly intervene in the proceedings for the purposes of reviewing an impounded administrative record) were released Monday on the public MassCourts website, the files have now been pulled down.

After inquiring with the Court Clerk’s office, I was told all of the docket entries in question are now impounded. However, I obtained the files from the public MassCourts docket on Monday, and backed up all of the documents while they were still public. In turn, my explosive story from Monday is now the only record, of any kind, as to these pleadings (that provide a unheard-of look into the inner workings of what has been alleged to have been a pretextual plot to “take out” O’Brien from her position as CCC Chair after O’Brien uncovered coverups of serious abuse allegations within the agency, along with other allegations of misconduct and corruption).

O’Brien, for her part, has sued Goldberg as a result of that alleged “plot” to take O’Brien’s job. As part of that proceeding, a still-secret record of the proceedings related to O’Brien’s firing has been the subject of months of court battles (and these motions from Curley and Baker). The record is expected to be made public, with some redactions, by Judge Robert B. Gordan in the coming months (based on Judge Gordan’s previous statements during oral arguments and in Order Papers).

 A number of staff members in the orbit of that alleged plot are, at this point, no longer with the agency (and one staff member even lashed out at this little towel in recent days for his prescient reporting, dating back to 2023 when a friend of that person banned towel from agency press conference due to the weight and content of towel’s reporting and legislative testimony about these very issues).

Apparently getting 110,000,000 impressions as to my coverage over the past 18 months, and inducing a number of state and federal probes into a once-renowned regulatory juggernaut) has ruffled some feathers.

Read that (now quite historic) story here - https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-scoop-two-to-125572600

Read Curley’s full, unredacted, memo in support of her motion here (wherein Curley details that she was one of the CCC staff members who cooperated in a secret process that resulted in O’Brien’s firing) - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1my9I2fiWjINqkSgDswhwVUT4Z3jA9psy/view?usp=sharing

Curley, in her motion to intervene, also asked Judge Gordan that the “docket display redacted copies of this motion and all related materials filed alongside it.” Read that document here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qfg294K6GrGqLFe13xu-uFAeiyo26hXs/view?usp=sharing

Read Baker’s request to hide his name from the public docket (also clearly rejected by Judge Gordan) here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mj_d14vSEKr_Y-0PmOMQtDkRRfaZLyLy/view?usp=sharing

Also read a request from CCC Commissioner Nurys Camargo to impound portions of the administrative record that is central to O’Brien’s lawsuit against Goldberg (and which is expected to be made public soon) here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TbVjv09zsxqqT4dX9CcIzO4f2ZUkfJOH/view?usp=sharing

Read more background coverage about the O'Brien and Goldberg case here - https://www.patreon.com/posts/121109593

See my coverage of oral arguments related to the still-impounded (but soon-to-be-made-public) administrative record here - https://x.com/GrantSmithEllis/status/1880392052850192413

And find even more background on the timeline for the case going forward here - https://www.patreon.com/posts/breaking-major-122544223

Read O’Brien’s full lawsuit against Goldberg here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QCI8sp4paUSpZU_Kdt0I2joVeKPzv2pu/view?usp=sharing

Read the CCC’s motion to keep documents in the case secret here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JdJOnYM6nBnO0Lr3DYAiC9Kdck99ZaoI/view?usp=sharing

Read O’Brien’s approved motion to file her own supplement in response to Goldberg’s continued motion to impound here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S-Y-aYT48nb0vW5fpZW5j1WPlFfCqH0R/view?usp=sharing

Read more about the five people, in March, who sought court permission to review copies of the records in question here - https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-updated-of-123603218