Two Massachusetts town officials used their positions to get more than 30 discounted cemetery plots, according to the State Ethics Commission.
Steven Mscisz and Robert Benjamin both signed Disposition Agreements, admitting the violations and waiving their rights to a hearing. They paid $14,000 and $6,000 penalties, respectively, for violating the conflict of interest law, according to the ethics commission.
In 2017, Mscisz served as the Topsfield Parks and Cemetery Commission chair. During a meeting he moved to transfer two lots in the Topsfield’s Pine Grove Cemetery, each including multiple burial plots, to himself for $5,000 and to Benjamin for $3,000. They then each voted to approve the motion.
This was a “substantial discount,” the ethics commission said, adding that the established price of a plot is $1,000 each.
A year later, Benjamin paid the town $1,200 for the deed to a lot in the D.C. Circle Block area of the Pine Grove Cemetery including six numbered plots. In 2019, Mscisz and his brother paid $5,000 for the deed for a larger lot in the D.C. Circle Block area with space for well more than five plots.
In 2023, the Topsfield Town Administrator raised conflict of interest law concerns with Mscisz and Benjamin over their burial plot purchases. The ethics commission stated that Mscisz’s family ultimately paid the town an additional $25,000 for a total of 30 plots. Benjamin paid the town an additional $4,800.
This, the ethics commission said, covered the established price of $1,000 per plot for their plots.
“Being a municipal board member or commissioner does not entitle one to unwarranted preferential treatment or special discounts,” said State Ethics Commission Executive Director David A. Wilson. “Municipal employees who use their official positions to obtain valuable unauthorized benefits for themselves and their families that aren’t properly available to them or other residents, betray the trust the public has placed in them, undermine the public’s confidence in the integrity of municipal government, and violate the conflict of interest law.”
