Suspended cop Cahill sentenced to jail after alleged assault on student
WOONSOCKET –A Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced suspended city policeman Patrick Cahill to 40 days at the Adult Correctional Institutions as a bail violator after he was arrested for assaulting a student at Woonsocket High School last month.
Cahill, 28, was on bail while he appeals a conviction on 2012 child abuse charges to the state Supreme Court. He’s been suspended without pay from the Woonsocket Police Department since his arrest in that case, which involved his nine-year-old half-sister.
With the appeal pending, Cahill somehow was allowed to work as a volunteer with the football team at Woonsocket High School. On March 27, Cahill allegedly had a run-in with a 16-yearold boy he claimed was distracting the players while they were training in an exercise room. Police arrested Cahill for assault and disorderly conduct after witnesses said he tackled the boy to the floor in a headlock and punched him in the face two times.
Appearing before Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini on Friday, Cahill pleaded no contest to the assault charge and was given a suspended sentence of one year, according to Amy Kempe, spokeswoman for
Attorney General Peter Kilmartin.
Cahill was also ordered to seek anger management counseling and to have no contact with the victim. Additionally, prosecutors dismissed the disorderly conduct charge, according to Kempe.
As part of the plea agreement, Cahill admitted to being a violator of his bail following his 2014 conviction before Procaccini on one count of second-degree child abuse and was sentenced to 40 days, retroactive to the day he was arrested.
He’s due back in court on May 5 for another hearing.
As for the appeal, Kempe said via e-mail, prosecutors had a pre-briefing conference with Supreme Court Justice William P. Robinson on March 22 and the matter was placed on the calendar for a full briefing.
“The next step would be for defense counsel to file their brief, (the) state will file a response brief, and then it will be posted for arguments, which would not be before the fall session,” Kempe wrote.
Shortly after school was dismissed on March 27, School Resource Office Joseph A. Zinni reported he heard a disturbance near the cafeteria hall and saw the boy Cahill was accused of punching walking towards him with a bloody nose, sobbing.
According to Zinni’s report, Cahill told officers he had been in an argument with the boy for distracting football players during weighttraining. He said he told the boy to leave and began pushing him out of the room when the boy refused, triggering a confrontation. Cahill never admitted throwing a punch, but he told officers that he “brought (the victim) to the ground” after the boy “got into his face.”
Meanwhile, Schools Supt. Patrick McGee says the Woonsocket Education Department is conducting an internal investigation to determine whether a proper criminal background check was performed on Cahill before he was allowed to work at WHS as an unpaid volunteer.
He said state law normally prohibits anyone with a felony conviction from working with youth in a public school.
Cahill has been suspended from the WPD since Aug. 20, 2012. Police reports say he chased his half-sister out of his house at 25 Newport Ave., then dragged her back in by the hair and began choking her, leaving her gasping for breath. Cahill allegedly began chasing the girl after she entered his room while he was watching TV to ask permission to go outside.
After a jury-waived trial, Procaccini found Cahill guilty of one count of second-degree child abuse in October 2014. The judge sentenced Cahill to 10 years, including six months at the ACI, with 114 months suspended, coupled with probation. The sentenced was stayed, however, pending Cahill’s appeal.
While he has been listed as suspended without pay by the Woonsocket Police Department since the arrest in the child abuse case, his status could change after an administrative hearing under the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights. That process is on hold until all of Cahill’s appeals in the criminal justice system are exhausted, police officials say.