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Problematic partners? Suffolk County DA's “Do Not Call” List sees 40 percent increase in names of police personnel whose credibility is in question
By Maggie Mulvihill and Scott Van Voorhis
When then Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins released a list in September 2020 of law enforcement personnel whose conduct raised questions about their credibility in criminal cases, it was big news.
But while the story faded from the headlines, the Suffolk County DA’s database has quietly and steadily swollen in size, with nearly 60 additional names added over almost the past two years, a review of records by Contrarian Boston shows.
The LEAD database, or Law Enforcement Automatic Discovery list, now contains nearly 200 names of officers and employees from the Boston Police, Massachusetts State Police, the MBTA, the Internal Revenue Service and local law enforcement who have been disciplined, terminated or resigned under a cloud – as well as those currently under internal or state and federal investigation.
That said, the data is missing names of Boston Police personnel who have been placed on administrative leave in recent years for various alleged and sustained misconduct, a comparison of department Internal Affairs data and the LEAD list indicate. Many names on the list come from news reports.
Meanwhile, the stakes are high: The nearly 200 names on the list could jeopardize an untold number of criminal cases in Suffolk County and beyond, as defense attorneys raise questions about their credibility in arrests, investigations and criminal cases that stretch back years. Many of the officers on the list have worked for their respective departments for years.
The document – containing at least 150 redactions – is sometimes referred to a “do-not-call list,” or a “Brady list,” a reference to the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case called Brady v. Maryland. (Prosecutors are not legally required to keep these records, and not all prosecutors in Massachusetts do so.) The high court in Brady mandated that prosecutors turn over all information to an individual facing criminal charges that could aid in that defense. But in 2020, in an opinion in a Fall River case, the state Supreme Judicial Court urged prosecutors across the state to adopt a policy to maintain such records. There is no national or statewide database of law enforcement personnel whose credibility is in question in current or completed criminal cases.
The MSP and BPD comprise more than half of the names on the Suffolk County list, in part because of overtime scandals that have plagued both departments. Dozens of state police personnel in recent years been accused or found to have stolen overtime earnings they never worked for. Four Boston Police officers from the department’s evidence warehouse in Hyde Park have pleaded guilty to stealing overtime pay, while others have charges pending since their arrest nearly two years ago. A clerk in Area A-1 was sentenced to 90 days in prison after pleading guilty in March to doubling her pay over two years by stealing $29,000 in overtime funds for time she never worked – in many instances forging her supervisor’s name on pay slips, records show.
An additional 13 BPD officers from the Youth Violence Strike Force have been added to the Suffolk LEAD list in the past year after the department’s Internal Affairs Division sustained charges against them for consuming alcohol on duty on New Year’s Eve 2017 at the unit’s Dorchester headquarters. The data does not indicate what, if any punishment, was meted out to the 13 officers.
That same night, allegedly after leaving the unit’s headquarters, Youth Violence Strike Force Officer Domenic A. Columbo, slammed his personal vehicle into another car, seriously injuring the driver and leaving his 21-year-old occupant in a coma for six months, records show. Columbo, who has pleaded not guilty to felony drunk driving charges, is also on the LEAD list and is slated to go to trial in October in Suffolk Superior Court. Columbo’s blood-alcohol level was between .119 and .125 percent when tested at the hospital shortly after the 3:25 am crash, according to CBS Boston. The legal limit for driving in Massachusetts is .08 percent.
“The LEAD database is an important tool for ensuring that we fulfill our obligations not only in the courtroom, but in the community,” said Suffolk County DA Kevin Hayden, in a statement. “Those of us who work within the criminal legal system are rightfully held to a higher ethical standard. When anyone working in law enforcement fails to meet that standard, it hurts the public’s trust in the integrity and fairness of our entire system. This database helps ensure a level of transparency that the public expects and deserves.”
A former state trooper was added to the LEAD list last August after being disciplined for getting paid – without authorization – to escort vehicles in funeral processions. Another former trooper was added after being dishonorably discharged for sending inappropriate text messages to a crime victim. A Boston Police officer was added last October for lying in federal court, while another former state trooper made the list after being dishonorably discharged last year for failing to report that his gun had been stolen and for disabling his cruiser’s geo-tracking software, the data shows. Information about a Chelsea police employee is entirely redacted from the LEAD list as are workers with the Revere and MBTA Police forces and one identified only as “special PO.” Another state trooper was dishonorably discharged from the force after being found to have uttered ethnic slurs while off-duty. Others are present on the Suffolk County LEAD list because their names appear on similar lists in Middlesex or Norfolk counties, the records show.
Others added since September 2020 – the last public release of the Suffolk County data – were accused or found to have committed misconduct or crimes including use of excessive force, unreasonable judgment, neglect of duty, drunk driving, issuing citations containing false information and masturbating in public at a concert.
“This is a file that is populated and maintained by the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office,” said Sgt. Detective John T. Boyle, a spokesperson for Boston Police, in an email. “The Boston Police Department is declining comment.”
However, Dave Procopio, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts State Police, said the law enforcement agency has already “investigated and disciplined” department members on the list, “up to termination in some cases.”
The “MSP has been transparent and proactive on this issue: we created an online portal that lists members who have been subject to internal investigation and discipline, and provided access to that list to every district attorney’s office,” Procopio said.
Mulvihill is an associate professor of computational journalism at Boston University and covers criminal justice and legal issues.
Decision looms on big downtown Boston redevelopment project
Word is the winning proposal for the revamp of the massive Hurley building near Government Center will be announced in the next month.
The state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance, which has been reviewing proposals by four development teams to transform the 1960s-era Brutalist concrete building and its three-acre site into the city’s newest megaproject, is on track to have a decision by Labor Day.
While the Hurley site has tower potential, the winning bidder is effectively barred from simply bulldozing the half-century-old structure after an outcry from preservationists citing the building’s design by architect Paul Rudolph.
Developers are required to include 350,000 square feet to accommodate the government offices currently using the building, with the proposals also likely envisioning a mix of lab, office and retail space for the private sector as well, the Globe’s Jon Chesto has reported.
Redeveloping the building has been a slow process, with the winning bid having originally been slated to be announced in June.
Stay tuned.
Will the real Charlie Baker please stand up?
Just like the old days, when Boston was truly a two-newspaper town, the Globe and Herald just ran two completely and almost comically different takes on Baker’s final months in office.
The Globe ran a front-page story on Sunday with a smiling mug of Baker above this headline: “The most powerful person on Democrat-heavy Beacon Hill may be the lame-duck Republican governor.”
The gist of the relatively upbeat story – by former Herald reporter Matt Stout, no less – is that Baker has the ability to effectively veto anything that comes across his desk as House and Senate leaders scramble to pass a flurry of bills before the session ends on Sunday.
That’s because the governor has 10 days in which to pass a bill, giving him more than enough time to let the clock run out as lawmakers prepare to bolt the State House after the session ends July 31. At that point, if Baker hasn’t signed a bill, it will be too late for the overwhelmingly Democratic dominated Legislature to override his veto.
But never fear, for Herald political columnist Joe Battenfeld offers a completely different take, noting that legislative leaders have sent a bill Baker had championed to study-committee oblivion.
And there was definitely no smiling headshot to accompany this story. Rather, the Herald managed to find a mug of the governor in which he looks as if his dog has just been mowed down by a tractor trailer.
“The governor will go out the door an unpopular outsider in his own party and a powerless tool to Democratic legislators,” Battenfeld writes.
Now that’s a nasty little kick in the pants for an outgoing governor who deserves better.
We’ll just say that for a “powerless tool,” Baker managed to get a fair amount done during his nearly eight years in office. In fact, he even offered an example of sane, non-ideological driven leadership at a particularly fraught time in our nation’s history.
Boston 1, Quincy Conservation Commission, 0
The Wu administration has won a pretty big victory in state court in its push to build a new Long Island Bridge and revive a now defunct drug and alcohol treatment center on the Boston Harbor island.
The state’s Supreme Judicial Court on Monday ruled that Quincy’s Conservation Commission doesn’t have the authority to block the construction of the bridge.
The battle is not over yet, with Boston having to nail down additional permits before anything can happen, while the project still faces other legal challenges.
Quincy conservation officials have cited traffic - the classic excuse of obstructionists everywhere - for their opposition, which has bogged efforts to move forward with plans for a new bridge.
The fight over the bridge is a prime example of the kind of NIMBY-fueled politics that makes is so difficult to get things built in the Boston area, and not just private development projects. Building a new Long Island bridge would arguably have a big public benefit, in this case paving the way for a drug and alcohol abuse treatment campus on the island that would help mitigate some of the mess over at Mass and Cass.
Quick Hits:
Between the T and Boston’s construction industry, no letup in the cascade of accidents: “Crane tips over at Boston construction site” Boston Herald
Five days and counting - time running out for Baker to sign climate change bill, including bans on gas hookups in handful of suburbs: “Activists Clamor for Baker to Sign Climate Bill” State House News
Shades of his infamous 2015 Mexican rapists’ speech? “Trump in DC speech calls for death penalty for convicted drug dealers” The Hill
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple of months asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.