First campaign ends in defeatTo win the primary, the newcomer overcame the election eve arrest of his brother, Cameron, and campaign field director Thomas J. Vallely, both then 22, in the basement of a Lowell building that housed the headquarters of Kerry and another Democratic contender, state Representative Anthony R. DiFruscia of Lawrence. It was almost 2 a.m. - 30 hours before the polls opened - when the two were arrested on charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit larceny.
by Brian C. Mooney
6/18/2003
PART 4
Boston Globe
That day's Sun blared a memorable, double-deck headline: "Kerry brother arrested in Lowell 'Watergate."' DiFruscia, getting some extra ink in the campaign's waning hours, had drawn the parallel to the break-in at Democratic headquarters in Washington three months earlier.
But here's more from that same article:
The Kerry camp declared it a setup, saying that the two responded to an anonymous phone call, minutes earlier, threatening to cut the campaign's 36 phone lines on the day before its get-out-the-vote effort. Lowell Police arrested the pair in an area near the trunk line for all of the building's phones.
[...]
Kerry's brother today declines to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the arrests and the charges, which were dropped a year later.
"It was an impulsive, rash thing that we did and that John Kerry ended up having to deal with," said Cam Kerry, now a partner at the Boston law firm of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo. "That's all we're going to say on that one."
Vallely, a former Marine who served in Vietnam and later became a state representative in Boston, had more to say.
"I kicked in the door," he said, and then, police swarmed the area. Vallely said DiFruscia's office was of no interest; the Kerry phone lines were. In hindsight, he said, "We probably were overreacting to someone who was joking."
Mr. Kerry was arrested during that campaign. He describes the incident with a slight grin. An anonymous telephone caller informed him that an opponent was planning to cut his campaign's phone lines, so he and an associate broke into the building where the phone lines were housed to make sure they were secure. The police arrived with suspicious alacrity, he said, leading him and others in the campaign to believe that political opponents had set him up. He was arrested for breaking and entering, but the charges were later dropped.
"It was obviously not the smart way to do it," Mr. Kerry said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/15/politics/campaign/15CAM.html?ex=1103778000&en=b4f1b8d4a76d95c7&ei=5070&pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=b491c7d0d4b6bc2c&ex=1092196800&oref=login