What is the next worst thing to being arrested for DUI just before Christmas with a viral video of you berating an officer? Being confused with that person by irate citizens because you share the same name, Maria Bucci. It is particularly unwelcome when you are a substance abuse counselor.
On December 18, Maria Bucci, a 51-year-old Rhode Island political figure, was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving by an officer in East Greenwich. The Chairwoman of the Democratic Committee in Cranston is shown on the police bodycam video invoking her special or influential status: “You know who I am right?”
The Cranston Herald reported Bucci is a former Cranston mayoral candidate who previously served on the City Council and made an unsuccessful bid for the Rhode Island House of Representatives last year.
The officer responds by saying, “I don’t know who you are, miss. You can start throwing out names and start doing out what you need to do, it’s not going to work with me, I’m telling you right now, I’m not the guy for that.”
That only seemed to set Bucci off, who then abused the officer. The most ironic statement was the following:
“Call my husband right now, and call the attorney general and everybody else in town, cause this is disgusting, God forbid I was a Black person, I’d be arrested.”
So, after invoking a special privilege or status, Bucci attacked the officer as presumptively racist for not arresting white people for crimes that Black people are arrested for. He then arrested her for a misdemeanor as she declared, “You’re a d**k … Like I am not drinking, you’re a loser.”
If she were drunk, it would seem a case of in vino veritas, or “in wine there is truth.” The immediate response of this politician is to reveal a deep dislike of police officers and her view of officers as inherently racist.
Bucci will have to deal with the consequences, but it should be the right Bucci. While the real Bucci asked “You know who I am, right?” some appear to have done little to answer in the affirmative before going on the attack.
The problem is that East Greenwich has a second Maria Bucci, who is also a substance abuse counselor. She was apparently deluged by trolling and angry citizens.
The “other” Maria Bucci is also from Cranston but works in East Greenwich. She is 61 years old and was surprised to find herself taking the heat for someone else over the holiday.
It was bad enough that East Greenwich News ran a story to ask people to stop harassing the poor woman, noting that the newspaper:
“typically doesn’t use names when people who get arrested unless there is a public service aspect. We did not consider Bucci’s arrest rose to that level but we are writing about it now to clarify that the Maria Bucci who works for the Town of East Greenwich is not the same Maria Bucci arrested by EGPD Dec. 18 (here is that arrest report: 25-251-AR).”
Legally, the “other” Maria Bucci could sue for a publication that falsely claims she was responsible for this viral encounter. (So far, no news organizations have committed that error). However, such litigation is expensive and trolls are notoriously difficult to track down. That leaves Maria Bucci in the unfortunate class of others who share names with notorious figures, as Dr. Jeffrey Epstein recently learned after a bizarre shoutout from ep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). Indeed, even spelling “Madoff” with one “f” does not help when you are scooped up in the sensation of a crime.
Bucci is clearly not on the same level as an Epstein or a Madoff. This is, after all, a still unproven misdemeanor. However, in the community of Cranston, Rhode Island (pop. 84,934), it is hard to shake a viral story with your name. The greatest penalty likely to befall the real Maria Bucci is the reputational damage, which should not be shared with that “other” Maria Bucci.
Cross over identities are a huge problem!
Back in the mid 1970’s, my best friend’s Dad went through the same kind of mis identified destruction of his livelihood.
To fully confuse the crossover identity, both people were construction contractors. My friend’s Dad was a reputable construction contractor, his company did good quality work, and payed their bills on time; however, the cross over person was scamming his customers, not completing contracted work, didn’t pay his workers properly, didn’t pay his bills, he was a real piece of work. Eventually the name was tarred so badly in the southern Indiana community that my friend’s Dad had to close his construction business, lost his house, had wrongful judgements against him, the crossover identity destroyed his life. The name was tarred so badly in the area that he moved his family to Texas and completely started over. It took many years to get “his” name completely cleared.
Cross over identity is a huge problem. It can destroy credit ratings, cause people to be denied opening bank accounts, denied housing, denied social services, etc.
My son and I, who have similar names with different middle names, had the three major credit rating services blend our accounts together and it had absolutely nothing to do with anything either one of us did. One credit rating service screwed up when my son opened a checking account in a new town after he moved and the other two credit rating services chose to do the same thing a month or so later. My son was about 20 with almost no credit rating, I was in my early 40’s with a really good credit rating. The credit rating companies blended our accounts together and the effective change was that my credit rating was cut by a lot more than half and my son’s credit rating took a big jump up. My wife and I had no clue anything was wrong until we tried to refinance our home to add on a nice screened in porch and remodel our kitchen. It took nearly a year to get it all straightened out.
Cross over identities are a real problem, especially in the internet Information age, because people just don’t give a sh!t enough do their due diligence and insure the people they are trying to publicly smear actually deserve to be smeared. This is one of the reasons I refuse to engage with the multiple people on Turley’s blog that use the moniker “Anonymous”.
Good point, Steve.
Sincerely,
Anon. 😂
“Cross over identities are a real problem, especially in the internet Information age,”
I’m going to give you a “that depends” response to that assertion. If you have a goal of successful anonymity, a common name can also be helpful. The cost/benefit analysis may depend in part on just how common a name is.
I first became aware of the internet in the late 1980s, and it wasn’t long after that I also became aware that it put safety based on selective anonymity at risk (someone in a forum that I was also on took umbrage at an opinion I expressed, and threatened to track me down and attack me), pretty much by its very nature. I began doing research on how to mitigate that risk. One of the steps was to find out how many people shared my first and last names.
While my surname isn’t in the top half dozen, it isn’t very much further down the list. My given name is a bit lower in rank, but not all that far, and my middle name is even closer to the top than either of the other two. As a result, when I wanted to see how many like-named individuals there were in my geographic vicinity (the forum I mentioned exposed name, state, and optionally county of residence to other users) I found that there were on the order of 2,000 persons close at hand who could potentially easily be identified as me. While other factors that are more-or-less public knowledge could have been used to narrow that down somewhat, I decided that the fool who made the threat had no practical chance to carry it out.
Getting back to my point: if you have a name in common with a handful of others, and one of them does something notorious, you may have legitimate cause for concern, but when the focus set numbers in the thousands, nearly everyone, even most idiots, will likely discount coincidences.
I think you have misunderstood my opinion about “being” anonymous as opposed to using the moniker “Anonymous”. A person can have a moniker like “HogTied101”, A$$O or “RedTreeBark666” and still “be” anonymous. “Be” anonymous if you like, I really don’t give a hoot, just don’t use a moniker like “Anonymous”, or any other moniker, that others are already using. I have absolutely no idea how many different individuals in these threads are using the moniker “Anonymous”, based on comments I’m guessing that it’s five or more. You all can choose to be who you are behind an anonymous moniker if you like, just make sure it’s unique so you can be differentiated..
I choose to be who I am at all times.
Make your own choices.
Steve, you pointed one hell of a better way to make one’s self heard.
I made no claim about the relative merits of anonymity, I only used a desire to remain unknown as an example. The point of your post (to which I replied) was about the risk of being blamed for the conduct of others with an identical name. My point was that it the risk for that confusion would seem to vary asymmetrically with the number of duplicates. A few duplicates, and someone may lazily assume that you are the person implicated. Ten thousand duplicates makes the folly of such an assumption evident to nearly everyone.
Then we get people like the imbecile that tried and failed to post a reply to my comment using my name. The imbecile wrote…
“That’s absurd and pretty dumb Steve. you don’t ‘know’ anyone here. the ‘Anonymous’ ones are easiest to spot because they’re deranged… Please do not engage with me.”
FYI; I generally have no intention to “engage” with internet trolls like you. You thinking you could post using “my” name is deranged, and you called others deranged, HA!
“It’s “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak/write and remove all doubt”.
.* A banal example of–> abuse of power.
The newly rich snap their fingers at waiters too and kick and beat their girlfriends down hallways while wearing only a bath towel in hotels. The newly powerful abuse power in congress by screaming and insulting.
Maria Bucci of alcohol fame should not be
re-elected. Her decisions will also be tainted by the same and the lowly, meek, will re-elect her abuse desiring to abuse with the power to vote.
It’s a rarity otherwise. Do not give power to the lowly is wisdom.
Have a nice day.
This sets a good tone. It’s nice that it isn’t particularly partisan. (If the drunk lady’s party was mentioned I didn’t notice.)
It is surprising how angry some people are at the police while also relying on the police. But I did have an in-law who was an officer and he did report that his fellow officers were largely racist. When I went to Turks and Caicos with a scuba group that was largely officers, they were all amazingly racist to the locals, except for one who appeared mostly to be keeping his head down. Their stories of using the power of their position to get revenge on personal enemies were “edifying”.
And of course, we have all seen or ignored the well publicized cases were officers were involved or aggressively uninvolved in the deaths of black people in custody.
I once was summoned for hopping a broken turnstile in the PATH (subway under Hudson River) after I had paid. I requested a trial. The officer was apparently “well known”. After a trial I was fined $25 (not not seeking help) when people who pleaded guilty were charged $150 + fees (with a black judge), so I considered myself largely exonerated, I had asked a lawyer friend for a copy of the statute that did say it was only illegal to jump if it were to avoid paying, That caused a ruckus in the courtroom since trials apparently normally went on with reference to the actual laws!! The prosecutor initially threatened to charge me with evading arrest if I didn’t plead guilty, so I said: You are asking me to lie? Let’s talk to the judge about this. He backed down. When I went to pay my $25 fine the clerks in the office erupted in applause. Apparently the officer was NOT well liked. And the officer himself said to me afterward: Why didn’t you tell me you went to work in a suit? I would have left you alone! So, a good day for the justice system, if not the officer.
People who are mistreated by the system are more likely to break the laws. And people who are scrutinized more heavily are more likely to be found to be criminals. I read a while ago that almost everyone breaks at least one federal law. Certain people get the attention and often white guys in suits are immune.
Anon, the point of your story is bad reputations follow people. A good name is worth its weight in gold.
It’s one reason the Epstein files are a legitimate problem. Good names are being ruined. Some were just, merely investors and donors.
“Anon, the point of your story is bad reputations follow people. A good name is worth its weight in gold. ”
The good/bad reputation thing only works when people take the time to exercise diligence wrt name association. Unfortunately, our instant gratification culture strongly mitigates against taking the time to do that.
Since this a legal blog, let’s nail down a few specifics about your turnstile case: you refused to take a plea and went to trial, which turned out to be a he said/he said, and the judge (as a member of the justice establishment/apparatus) found for the cop, but split the difference 1/5 and you and the clerks call that victory because you held the cop’s feet to the fire.
That’s somewhat better than the advice I got from a sheriff when I went to the wrong courtroom: when you find the right place, ask for a lower fine. I did and the judge cut the fine in half. No trial.
The judge said it was impossible to prove whether I paid or not, but it was clear he believed me. He said – fairly, I believe – is that it was disruptive of me to jump the turnstile and then gave me a micro fine. $25. I would have paid $25 just for the standing ovation by the clerks, which made it clear they felt that I had addressed a real problem by standing up for myself and the truth.
I WANTED the trial. I flew in from out of town to represent myself. I researched the law. And, in any real sense, I won. I got the Prosecutor to retreat. And I learned how the system works and experienced evidence of its class bias.
Maybe one takeaway is that we could all profit from a better practiced understanding of the word whoa.
Having watched many alcoholic relatives over the years, there are three types of drunks. Happy drunks, sleepy drunks, and angry drunks. I’m convinced that drinking amplifies the personality of the person who imbibes. In her case, she has a lot of anger and self entitlement in her heart. The liquor brings it to the surface.
If you want to drink yourself stupid, have at it. However, stay off the roads. I don’t want to be killed because of your stupidity. With all the ride services and bars willing to pay for rides home, there isn’t a valid reason to drive drunk today. Driving is a privilege, not a constitutional right.
Alcohol releases inhibitions
But in my experience what you get when drunk can not be predicted by what a person is sober.
My mother was a difficult person do deal with sober. She was a “happy drunk”
My father was a very easygoing person sober – he was a mean drunk.
Fortuntately my father was never drunk until after my mother died.
Conversely my mother freuently had a glass of vodka in late afternoon, and that made dealing with her
pleasant.
My grandfather was nasty sober and worse drunk.
Your experience? So you’re a drunk. Thought so from your slurred comments.
Could you imagine if you were ‘The Other’ ~ Hunter Biden?
O.M.G. !!!
Professor Turley’s point was not “Democrats,” “progressives” or “leftists,” but reflexive, i.e., knee-jerk, reactions, particularly in this age of phone cameras and videos and internet and social media posts, wherein innocent people are automatically presumed to be the bad guy or alleged bad guy in a story soley by the happenstance of having the same or a similar name, and facts are crushed by emotion.
His post does not specify, but there is a risk of physical harm, where websites publish addresses and phone numbers, excusing it as “based on” or “taken from public records.” Imagine someone going to the innocent Ms. Bucci’s home, or the home of someone with the same or similar name as a worse offender, vandalizing the house, attacking that person or a family member, even a pet, as the assailant’s notion of “justice.” Sadly, it is not difficult to imagine.
“El sueno de la razon produce monstruos,” “The sleep of reason produces monsters.” – Francisco Goya. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/338473
“The sleep of reason produces monsters.” – Francisco Goya.
Great theme beautifully rendered. Had not seen that piece. Thank you.
The real question I’m left with is “How often does it actually work?” The times when it goes viral, it’s when it doesn’t work and the “VIP” goes ballistic. But how often does the officer just let the “VIP” walk and there’s no reporting on it?
I’ve observed that the biggest tantrums are performed when someone is denied something they are normally used to. If the person in question didn’t really expect it to work but was giving it a try anyway, being denied wouldn’t generate this kind of response. These tantrums look to me like someone who was used to being able to just get away with this and erupted into a tantrum because this time it was denied.
I loved the police officer’s answer. Perfect. You drive drunk then you accept the consequences. There are so many ways to deal with this as in 1-Don’t drink, 2-have a designated driver, 3-if you are going to drink then have one small beer and go home, after about an hour. Women do not process alcohol well and are far more likely to be inebriated on small amounts. Then you save all of the rest of us watching videos of self righteous and obnoxious drunks making asses of themselves.
I always found that the main way to minimize damage was to say “yes officer”, “no officer”, “it won’t happen again officer”. Minimal words and total cooperation.
Merry Christmas
“I loved the police officer’s answer. Perfect.”
The answer was good, but imo could have been improved upon: “I neither know nor care whether you are black, white, or purple, lady, but I can assure you that you *are* under arrest.”
I always found that the main way to minimize damage was to say “yes officer”… so you’re a regular drunk driver then? It was obvious.
Didn’t this also happen in Rhode Island, (Newport I think) last summer when a drunk Democrat woman AG tried to pull rank on a police officer but was nevertheless arrested and sent to jail? Does this sense of entitlement apply to Rhode Island Democrats or just drunk Rhode Island woman Democrats?
All Democrats
Residents of Rhode Island seem to tend to be especially obnoxious.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/08/20/devon-hogan-flanagan-rhode-island-ag-arrest-video/85737023007/
Here she is in all her egotistical glory.
Democrats in RI don’t really get noticed by voters until they are arrested at least once. The more arrests, the more popular they become. Cianci is the mold they attempt to fill. We do need to keep a list but it would be a full time job.
The one last summer also invoked the RI AG: https://www.golocalprov.com/news/video-ri-assistant-attorney-general-screams-i-am-an-ag-and-berates-police
There’s a sheriff being sued in CA over bodycam recordings, so I wonder what makes them so available in RI pretrial?
https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-sheriff-wont-release-taser-body-cam-footage/
Someone should start a collection of incidents of Democratic political figures who attempt to “pull rank” on police officers who stop them for driving offences. I have been hearing these stories for years. Democrats really think they are “above the law”.
“Someone should start a collection of incidents of Democratic political figures who attempt to “pull rank” on police officers who stop them for driving offences.”
A list no doubt to include the likes of John Smith, James Jones, Susan Williams, Henry Brown, and Mary Johnson?
I’m glad we still have some semblance of a republic. Tyranny of the majority, mob rule, seems to be a norm of human behavior. Whether it plays itself out in small fora as described in the article or in larger ways as with the whole woke mob, it is evil, the Oxbow Incident in all its fractal glory.
We should be grateful for police officers that show the professionalism and allegiance to the law as did this one. I know that I am.
The mere assumption that she is being treated differently than a black or brown person makes HER the racist. Why does she not see that?
“Why does she not see that?”
Why would you expect a Democrat politician with a overwhelming sense of entitlement (please excuse the redundancy) to correctly grasp any aspect of the real world?
Liberal/Dem/Progressive privilege.
She isn’t. It’s in the dem playbook. She has no idea if he’s a racist, it’s intended to invalidate his authority and supplant it with hers.
I wish they would actually punish this woman appropriately, but those handling justice in RI will indeed “know who she is” and act accordingly. or else.
For years and years, we heard our democrat pals tell us that no one is above the law as they threw one meatball case after another meatball case of Trump. But, when they’re arrested for something like DUI, the first thing they claim is special privileges for themselves. In today’s world, when a cop hears the “Do you know who I am” line, that’s considered a full confession and grounds for immediate arrest, especially if it’s on a body camera. All the apologies and the “I took my dog’s valium by mistake and chased it with my husband’s beer by mistake” won’t work. Pay your ten grand fine (8 grand for the lawyer, a grand for a fine and another rand for court costs, and wish yourself Merry Christmas that you weren’t sent to the slammer for 90 days.
‘ the “Do you know who I am” line…’
That statement is the profound self-identification of the person uttering it as a total and irredeemable @$$h013 no matter what the circumstances or context might be. Elitism should never be expected (or allowed) to triumph over objective evaluation.
Along with the $5,000 additional insurance premium for the next 3 years.
Your post proves what Turley’s entire blog has turned into–more fodder for MAGA–attacks against Democrats, all as a prelude to the midterms which Republicans KNOW they are likely to lose–so they attack Democrats. So, he picks a nothingburger story about some local politician, all to continue reinforcing the MAGA message, which is that Democrats are bad, that they don’t respect law enforcement, they are fascists (knowing that MAGA mavens don’t understand that the REAL fascist is Trump)…yada, yada, yada—all to do anything to keep power, including paying Turley to write this blog. He has nothing to say about Pammie Jo failing to comply with the statute requiring her to turn over the Epstein files or the way she sasses elected members of Congress attempting to conduct their Constitutional oversight function (she is an appointee of someone who LIED to get into office, and she is an abject failure, but, under marching orders, when the cameras are on her, she insults and tries to degrade validly-elected Democrats who dare to ask her questions). Then, there’s Trump’s endless late-night rants, his obvious mental decline, his endless lying, killing of Venezuelans and failure to produce any evidence of them trying to smuggle anything to the US, failure to end the war in Ukraine, one court battle after another lost, all of the business dealings with foreign governments, including lavish gifts, the crypto scams, all benefitting him personally, and all of the diversions away from the growing Epstein scandal that he just can’t seem to shake. Now, he’s trying to deny that he even knew Epstein. It’s a shame, really, but it’s not working, and that’s the good news.
^^^gigi’s endless crusade to try to get someone to listen to her hateful crap.
Gigi, it’s CHRISTMAS!!!! Lighten up!!!!!!
For New Years, why don’t you pledge to stop using TUrley’s blog to spread your lies and poop
Political privilege in equity and inclusion, and another woman a victim of Diversity (i.e. color or class judgment).
“You know who I am right? Right? Ya wanna hold up before I make that call, I’m tellin’ you: I’m an AMERICAN CITIZEN.”
The cost of an Uber is so much less than the cost of a DUI — One DUI, and ALL your rides might be Uber or Lyft, for example — that it is plain foolish to drive yourself home after drinking.
“it is plain foolish to drive yourself home after drinking.”
While that is true, getting drunk removes many inhibitions (often that is the point of the exercise). If you didn’t plan alternative means to get home ahead of time, or if someone in your crowd doesn’t forcefully insist that you are in no condition to drive, the odds of accurately assessing both your condition and the relative risks of driving vs leaving your car and being driven are not very good.
Has anyone looked at the stats to see if the death rate down?
Politians in general have become to stroganoff. We need to stop putting them into office or the same politicians into different offices for so many terms. Only the voters can do that. Maybe every position from local, state and federal needs a two term limit like the presidency and you can never hold public office again. That would certainly stop some arrogance in politians.
“Politians in general have become to stroganoff.”
But what is your real beef ;?> FWIW, you might want to more closely monitor the use of autocorrect on your device…
Those that consider themselves morally, culturally and intellectually superior, ie progressive Democrats, think they’re above the law that only applies to the rest of us cretins. It’s nice to see them disabused of their misconceptions now and then.
Shameful behavior. It’s up to the RI electorate to vote her out.
The irony. Substance abuse counselor.
It wasn’t the substance abuse counselor that was arrested.
There was a sentence in the article that could be interpreted by some people to mean that they were both counselors, but I found another source that makes it clear that the woman that was arrested is not a substance abuse counselor.
“”
When does this BS stop? Someone who is somewhat politically connected insults law enforcement to get away with something the average person would be prosecuted for. She treated this cop like he was a butler or something like that.
Leftists. It’s what they do. It’s who they are.