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One by one, Seth Aitken pulled each of his clients into a windowless beige conference room.
A judge was about to take the bench in Fall River District Court on this recent Tuesday morning, and Aitken had just finished meeting with Bristol County prosecutors. He was serving as a public defender on two drunk-driving cases and three assault and battery cases, including one with a felony strangulation charge.
Aitken made notes on manilla folders while he went over scheduling and evidence with his clients. He only made it through two meetings before court went into session — he would have to squeeze the others in between appearances in front of the judge.
“I always spend too much time talking to clients,” he said, right before bumping into another defense attorney who congratulated him on the big news.
Aitken had just announced his candidacy for Bristol County District Attorney.
He’s the first Republican to run for this office since 1974, the year he was born. He is also the first candidate to officially jump into the race this cycle, more than a year in advance of the November 2026 election, according to state campaign finance records.
The current district attorney is Thomas Quinn III, a Democrat who was appointed by Gov. Charlie Baker to fill a vacancy in 2015. Quinn has been challenged only once in the three elections since then, defeating Shannon McMahon in the 2022 Democratic primary with 61% of votes cast.
Aitken says Quinn leads an office that poorly manages a high caseload of low-level crimes, is not transparent, and doesn’t do enough to make sure law enforcement agencies are collecting solid evidence in criminal cases.
“The impact is that safety is an illusion,” Aitken said.
His announcement comes months after he resigned from his job as Fall River city administrator amid an apparent conflict of interest — Aitken filed paperwork to help a city employee set up a business, which he admitted was a mistake.
He described widespread “public corruption and waste” in municipal governments across the county, which he would seek to prosecute as district attorney. He acknowledged the irony of his allegations following his own resignation.
Since resigning, Aitken has practiced criminal and civil law out of an office in Fall River. He previously served as a prosecutor under Quinn, from 2018 to 2021, and under Quinn’s predecessor Sam Sutter, from 2010 to 2012.
Aitken ducked back into the beige meeting room to talk with a Light reporter while he waited for a Portuguese interpreter for his last client of the day. What should have been a 15-minute wait took about two hours.
In the meantime, he spoke at length about ways he thinks he could do a better job than Quinn — starting with the District Court, a jurisdiction he believes Quinn has ignored.
Aitken said prosecutors in District Court are overburdened by a large caseload they aren’t equipped to handle — 25 assistant district attorneys prosecute 16,000 criminal cases every year, accounting for 97% of criminal cases in the county, according to Aitken.
“That’s not close to enough people to deal with that number of cases,” he said.
In Massachusetts, local district courts mainly handle misdemeanors, while the county superior courts mainly handle felonies.
Aitken said lawyers tend to view Superior Court as more prestigious, and prosecutors seek to be promoted to work there. He described a two-tiered system in which more experienced prosecutors handle a more manageable caseload in Superior Court, while less experienced prosecutors face an “overwhelming barrage” of cases in District Court.
This causes cases to move more slowly through District Court than they should, he said.
The solution, Aitken says, is to hire more District Court prosecutors and provide them with more training. He said he could possibly cut some positions from upper management levels to pay for it.
He said he would also work to break down the perception among lawyers that District Court is only a springboard to get promoted to Superior Court — it should be a “badge of honor” to work in District Court, he said.
Quinn provided a written statement in response to The Light’s request for an interview.
“With the election well over a year away I will let my record speak for itself,” he wrote. “I will continue to focus on fighting for victims and protecting the citizens of Bristol County, as I have done throughout my entire career as District Attorney.”
Transparency
Quinn is not transparent about “anything at all,” Aitken said.
“Even if the public doesn’t have a reason not to trust the office, they don’t have a reason to trust the office,” he said.
Aitken pointed to the case of Anthony Harden, a man shot to death in his home by Fall River police in 2021. Harden’s brother, Eric Mack, has battled the district attorney’s office for years to get more information on what happened and who was responsible.
The district attorney’s office was fined in 2023 for improperly withholding records, The Public’s Radio reported at the time. And in 2024, the state’s highest court sided with Mack when it ruled that the office could not use a privacy exemption in the state’s public records law to withhold the names of police officers investigated for misconduct.
“To fight tooth and nail every time Eric wanted something, I didn’t understand that,” Aitken said.
Another example Aitken pointed to: The case of an alleged affair between former New Bedford District Court Judge Douglas Darnbrough and Bristol County assistant prosecutor Karlyn Butler.
Aitken said Quinn has not released enough information about how his office addressed anonymous allegations that Darnbrough and Butler were having an affair while they worked on the same criminal cases. The district attorney’s office, Darnbrough, and Butler have denied the allegations.
In May, the state’s highest court appointed a special master to investigate the matter.
“If something really happened, there’s got to be accountability on both sides,” Aitken said.
He said he didn’t know enough about the case to know whether the allegations are true, though the picture they paint “looks terrible.” He said has known Darnbrough for “years and years and years.” They text each other occasionally, Aitken said, but they don’t “hang out socially.”
As district attorney, Aitken said he would hold regular community meetings with local leaders who run homelessness and substance use organizations, law enforcement agencies, veterans’ groups, and faith leaders to understand their public safety concerns.
Collaboration with law enforcement
Quinn’s office doesn’t work well with police, and doesn’t do enough to ensure that departments are collecting high-quality evidence for criminal cases, Aitken said.
He acknowledged recent “startling revelations” about police departments’ use of confidential informants. A Bristol County judge dismissed a high-profile drug case earlier this year because former New Bedford Police Officer Jared Lucas had a sexual relationship with his confidential informant Carly Medeiros, tainting evidence in the case.
“I would rather lose a case than go forward with bad evidence,” Aitken said.
To make sure police departments “do it right the first time, every time,” Aitken said the district attorney needs to be involved in developing criminal cases earlier on. He said he would put more resources toward scrutinizing search warrants and consider hiring a liaison to work directly with police departments.
Candidate alleges widespread corruption in city government
As the Fall River city administrator, Aitken came across “clear evidence of corruption, of stealing” by city employees, and no appetite by the district attorney to prosecute it, he said.
“There’s no accountability of the people who are minding the till,” he said. “That’s nuts.”
In one instance, he said, an employee was “skimming money” from bulky items pickups that residents paid for in cash. This employee took a “substantial” amount of money over 10 years, he said.
He said he referred the matter to the district attorney’s office, but it declined to take on the investigation and instead told him he should talk to the employee about the allegation first.
That’s “not how it works,” Aitken said, because administrative city staff would be gathering evidence for a criminal investigation. That wouldn’t “preserve the integrity of the investigation” and could violate employees’ Fifth Amendment rights, he said.
He said he knew of several more examples of corruption, conflicts of interest, and “self-dealing” that he witnessed during his time in city government. If elected, he said he plans to expand the district attorney’s financial crimes team to investigate allegations of corruption.
Aitken’s resignation from Fall River
The former city administrator acknowledged it’s ironic that he was alleging corruption after he was accused of a conflict of interest. Aitken resigned from his position as Fall River city administrator in February after it came to light that he helped a city EMS employee set up an EMS billing services company.
The employee, Nicholas Silva, became the chief of Fall River EMS late last year. Aitken described him as a “brilliant guy” who had “a new idea every day.”
Aitken said he would sometimes answer legal questions for friends and acquaintances while he was city administrator. He said he didn’t represent anyone as their lawyer or accept any payment for legal work during that time, but he would explain the court process, direct them to helpful resources, or recommend that they get their own lawyer.
Aitken said he declined to be part of Silva’s company, but he agreed to file the paperwork with the Massachusetts Secretary of State to register it as a corporation last spring. Aitken listed himself as the signatory, meaning he would be the person to accept service of a lawsuit if the company was ever taken to court.
“And that was kind of the extent of it,” Aitken said. “I never really gave it a second thought.”
The registration took about an hour, he said, and he never asked or received any payment for doing it. The company’s registration is still active and still lists Aitken as signatory.
Looking back, Aitken called it a mistake and acknowledged that it looked like a conflict of interest. Fighting to keep his job would have been a “distraction,” he said.
“So, I walked away, and I never regretted it,” he said.
Running as a Republican
Aitken didn’t downplay his Republican beliefs, which he said included conservative values like small government. But he also didn’t fully align himself with President Donald Trump’s socially conservative MAGA base. Aitken apologized for referring to federal law enforcement using the gendered term “those guys.”
He said he supports targeting drug dealers and criminal organizations to “hit hard on where opioids are coming in,” but he also supports recovery court and diversion initiatives to help people who get into trouble because of an addiction.
Speaking about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, he used the phrase “style over substance” — agreeing with the goals of reducing government waste and removing undocumented immigrants, without endorsing the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to achieving those goals.
Aitken said he’s “sensitive” to the struggles of people who come to the U.S. without authorization to support their families, but “it’s still a crime,” he said.
“I don’t think we should be prepared to turn a blind eye to any crime, even if people have the best of intentions,” he said.
Being present in the U.S. without authorization is not a crime in itself, but certain actions like crossing the border without permission can qualify as a criminal offense, according to the ACLU. Many immigrants enter legally, but then overstay or violate the conditions of their visa.
Aitken said Quinn has been “silent” on immigration. While these matters are mainly handled by federal authorities, Aitken said the district attorney should be collaborating with those authorities and sharing information with the public.
‘Something unexpected’
Before becoming a lawyer, Aitken served for eight years as an Army officer, spending some of his time at the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
He has lived in Bristol County for 24 years, where he and his wife have raised three sons, who are currently all attending high school or college.
In his spare time, he draws and sews. During the pandemic, he wrote an unpublished novel about a city official investigating an insurance scam (it was not based on any real experiences, he said).
Knowing he would be meeting a reporter on Tuesday, Aitken dressed “conservatively” in a navy pinstripe suit that he bought secondhand online and tailored himself. His shirt was a light blue graph check pattern and his tie was yellow with small navy polka dots. On his right wrist, he wore a watch with a large black face and a wide metal band. He wore brown brogues with sky blue laces (the right one began to squeak as his day in court wore on). And of course, his belt matched his shoes.
Bespoke suits are one of the only things he splurges on, he said. One of his favorites has a blue and orange plaid pattern, and on Tuesday he was waiting for a double-breasted taupe suit in a “giant purple plaid” pattern to arrive from his tailor in Texas.
He said he likes to come to court in eye-catching colors and patterns.
“You come up with something unexpected, it puts people on their heels,” he said.
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org.
Considering that it’s the poorest and least economically prosperous part of the state Bristol County is probably ripe for a GOP candidate as that area has more in common with West Virginia or Alabama than Greater Boston.
That’s a bit harsh. Bristol County has a large immigrant population and those people need representation that they can trust and there has not been a single Republican to stand up for a single one of them. Also, Bristol County has always run pretty blue as it encompasses a pretty big and diverse area. Add in the fact that this guy who had to resign as Fall River Administrator under a cloud, and I’m wondering who thought this was a good idea?
My interactions with then Fall River city administrator were always polite and commendable. I alwats felt that, as a somewhat involved citizen as a neighborhood association board member, the association was treated with respect and always given the opportunity to offer alternate viewpoints to those of the city administration. I appreciated Mr. Aitken’s honesty and straightforward approach as city administrator. It remains to be seen as to how next year’s election season turns out.
It will be great to see a Republican on the ballot in Bristol County.
Do you miss Hodges?
Does anyone?