Boston Police Deputy Superintendent Norma Ayala-Leong
Deputy Superintendent Norma Ayala-Leong. Deputy Ayala-Leong is in charge of the Major Case Division, an extremely important area of the BPD. The city’s first female homicide detective, Deputy Ayala-Leong now oversees many different areas of the Department including the Sexual Assault Unit, Human Trafficking, Domestic Violence, Crimes Against Children, Drug Control Unit, CrimeStoppers tip line, and Fire Investigation. A woman whose dedication and hard work allowed her rise through the ranks, Deputy Ayala-Leong has directed her focus towards leading the Department into the future. A woman with an unparalleled sense of dedication, we thank Deputy Ayala-Leong for all she has done, and all that she continues to do, for the Department.
Angel Taveras, former Mayor, Providence, RI
Angel Taveras focuses his practice on municipal restructuring, public finance, commercial litigation, pension litigation and public infrastructure. With over 14 years of experience in litigation, he is a licensed attorney in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. His diverse litigation practice includes complex commercial matters, including matters arising under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, as well as bankruptcy litigation, zoning and land use, shareholder disputes, and election recounts and challenges.
From 2011 to 2015, Angel served as the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, where he led a city government with 5,700 employees and a budget of $678 million. He is credited with rescuing the city from the brink of bankruptcy and confronting a $110 million structural deficit through landmark reforms to pensions, negotiated concessions in labor contracts and unprecedented assistance from tax-exempt institutions. Under his leadership, Providence was recognized with the All-America City Award from the National Civic League for its plan to boost third-grade reading proficiency, was the recipient of a $3 million award from the Carnegie Foundation to create innovative high schools, and received the City Livability Award at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2014. In addition, Angel won Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge $5 million grand prize for his innovative proposal to improve the vocabularies of pre-school age children.
Mark A. Berthiaume
White Collar Criminal Defense| Litigation | Antitrust & Trade Regulation Mark A. Berthiaume focuses his practice in the representation of clients in white collar criminal matters, internal investigations, government investigations, and complex civil litigation, including the defense of class actions. Mark has represented corporations in connection with internal investigations and government investigations of securities fraud, antitrust violations, bank fraud, health care fraud, mail and wire fraud, and immigration law violations. Much of his practice also concentrates on international, national and regional corporate clients and their officers and directors in complex civil litigation involving securities, intellectual property, real estate, construction, and telecommunications-related disputes. Mark, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, is an experienced trial lawyer, practicing in the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as U.S. Courts of Appeals and U.S. District Courts.
- Dennis Aiken
A licensed private investigator with over 40 years’ experience to include 34 years as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and 8 years as a senior investigator for United Technologies Corporation (UTC).
In addition to an extensive background conducting complex investigations in field offices throughout the world, Dennis rose through the ranks of the FBI serving as Chief of the FBI’s Public Corruption Section. He has also conducted worldwide training of business executives, public officials and law enforcement personnel on a wide variety of topics including white collar crime and internal controls. Dennis’ most recent experience with the FBI was in Providence, RI where he formulated and conducted investigations resulting in the dismantling of a racketeering enterprise that was running Providence city government and conviction of high level officials in both Rhode Island Senate and House of Representatives for corruption. Dennis received many awards based on his investigative success with the FBI, the most recent of which being the 2007 U.S. Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement. Dennis retired from the FBI in 2007 after 34 years of service.
In 2007, Dennis became the Senior Investigator for Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corporation (UTC). At Pratt & Whitney, Dennis conducted over 500 internal investigations, many of which were of the highest complexity and sensitivity. In 2012, Dennis was promoted to UTC Headquarters where he served as Senior Investigator for UTC Corporate conducting and overseeing the most complex and sensitive investigations on behalf of UTC Corporate worldwide. Dennis created and implemented standard work by which all internal UTC investigations were conducted, both in the Compliance and Human Resources organizations. He trained executives, compliance officers and Human Resources personnel worldwide.
Dennis retired from UTC in 2014 and since then has operated Aiken Investigations and Consulting, LLC serving primarily corporate and legal clients.
