Stephanie Kotseas Fattman
In an election season marked by a surge of strong Republican candidates across Worcester County, Stephanie Kotseas Fattman is an unlikely, but unusually appealing, challenger to 12-year Democratic Register of Probate Stephen Abraham of Shrewsbury. The Webster Republican, 26, wife of state Rep. Ryan Fattman, who is mounting his own challenge to veteran state Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, is formally announcing her candidacy for the county-wide seat this week.
Fattman’s official campaign kickoff is Thursday at Chuck’s Steakhouse in Auburn at 6 p.m. with six area GOP state reps and her uncle, noted Worcester lawyer Harry Kotseas, and Worcester city councilor Michael Gaffney, among others, expected to be on hand. Fattman, who will be a third-year student at Suffolk University Law School in Boston in the fall, declared she is a fresh alternative to an entrenched incumbent whose tenure has been marred by mismanagement.
She said if she is elected she will work to educate the public more about the duties of the probate office – which handles divorces, child custody and estates – and improve customer service. “I think we all know the problems in the probate office,” Fattman said an interview this week at the second-floor walkup apartment she shares with her husband. “There are a lot of great people who work there who are overwhelmed by poor management.”
State Auditor Suzanne Bump, a Democrat, investigated the probate registry in 2011 and found that Abraham’s top aide, former Worcester city official Paul LaCava, taught courses at three different local colleges while on working hours and failed to complete many of his duties at the probate office. LaCava still works for Abraham. Bump’s audit also found that some $3,500 in filing fees for domestic relations cases were missing and not reported as required by state law. Abraham, a former lawyer, attributed the missing money to a bookkeeping error. Last year, the probate office underwent a fiscal audit by the Administrative Office of the Trial Court. The results were never revealed. Abraham’s office has been further roiled in recent years by Abraham’s firings of two former registry officials, John Murphy and Robert Terk. Murphy has been appealing his dismissal.
Fattman, whose campaign chairman is former GOP attorney general candidate Jim McKenna of Millbury, is getting help running her campaign from veteran Central Mass. Republican strategist Carl Copeland. Her husband, Ryan Fattman, is also helping even as he pursues his own race. While Abraham has a big fundraising advantage as of now, with $26,000 in his campaign account, Fattman, with only $112 in her campaign account as of this week, hopes to narrow the gap at her event Thursday. Abraham raised most of his money at a big Worcester fundraiser in early June attended by dozens of lawyers.
Fattman also expects to benefit from having her well-known husband’s name on the ballot in a sprawling southern Worcester County Senate district dominated by GOP state reps She said she is working with Republican activists and office holders in northern Worcester County and MetroWest. She also expects to compete strongly in Worcester, where she and her family have been longtime members of the Saint Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church, the same church Abraham has been associated with.
In 2010, Governor’s Councilor Jennie Caissie of Oxford, another young Republican woman, overwhelmed Democrat Fran Ford, a former clerk of courts, with the same suburban-rural strategy. Caissie lost Worcester but did well enough in the city and piled up big winning margins in the county. Caissie is not endorsing either candidate – a sign that she is quietly supporting Abraham, a fellow elected county official.
Fattman said she has quit her job as a law clerk at a Boston law firm to campaign full-time. She said she would finish her law degree at night if she is elected. Among other challenges in the race, Fattman noted that she and her husband, 30, are sharing one car, a 2002 Pontiac Bonneville. Both Sutton natives, the Fattmans said they moved to Webster after they got married a year ago because it is more affordable and has more amenities, such as 24-hour grocery stores, for a young working couple.
“He’s been the one out front up to now,” Fattman said of her husband. “But I saw so many problems in the probate office that I knew it was time to step up.”
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Contact Shaun Sutner at [email protected] and @ssutner
