Says McKeon retirement is ‘admission of wrongdoing’
The abrupt retirement of state police Col. Richard McKeon was an admission of wrongdoing by the state, said the lawyer for two troopers who is vowing he won’t settle their cases until he exposes everyone behind the scrubbing of the embarrassing arrest report of a judge’s daughter.
Attorney Leonard Kesten told the Herald yesterday he is pressing ahead with the explosive Troopergate case, and intends on “going right up the chain” in deposing everyone from low-level supervisors to Secretary of Public Safety Daniel Bennett. Kesten said he wants the truth on everyone who was involved in pushing the redactions, and he wants to protect the careers of troopers Ryan Sceviour and Ali Rei, who remain on active duty.
“You don’t get to walk away. It’s not that simple,” Kesten said of McKeon. “Clearly the fact that the colonel retired is an indication that someone in government determined that he did something wrong.”
Kesten said he was contacted by “someone from the state” after McKeon announced he was leaving Friday. He declined to say who or what was discussed, but he said, “This is not a case where we’re going to settle because somebody’s going to pay them money.”
Kesten vowed “all those responsible will be named. We will find out the truth. We’re going to do a real investigation. We’ll look at all communications: emails, texts, phone records . ... There’s good cops out there, trying to do their jobs.”
Kesten added, “I think my clients will get awards for heroism. The line troopers uniformly support these guys. They’re getting support from around the country. Let’s air it all out. This should never happen again.”
Gov. Charlie Baker’s office last week acknowledged it was a “mistake” for McKeon to order Sceviour to scrub embarrassing statements made by 30-year-old Alli Bibaud from an Oct. 16 incident report of her drunken-driving and drug arrest after a crash on Interstate 190 in Worcester. Baker further ordered state police to review protocols and procedures for handling arrest reports. A Baker spokeswoman said yesterday there would be no further comment while the litigation is pending in U.S. District Court.
Attorney General Maura Healey’s office said its investigation is ongoing.
Bibaud is the daughter of Dudley District Court Judge Timothy Bibaud. She allegedly told Sceviour during her Breathalyzer test “she would offer sexual favors in return for leniency,” according to his lawsuit. Bibaud told Rei she typically used 2 grams of heroin per day and was “sick of living like this,” explaining she traded sex for drugs, Rei’s suit states.
Rei claims she was ordered by Maj. Susan Anderson to shred her log entries in an administrative journal and to omit certain statements from her report on Bibaud. Kesten said Rei refused and “prepared her report as she believed was appropriate. Rei delivered her report to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office on Friday in response to their request.” Middlesex prosecutors are handling the case because Bibaud once worked in the Worcester DA’s office as a victim-witness advocate. Her father served there as a prosecutor.
Sceviour, 29, formerly a cop in Brewster and Canton, has been with state police for little over a year and was most recently assigned to the Holden barracks. Rei, 32, a 2012 academy graduate, was certified as a drug recognition expert just four months ago.
State Police Association of Massachusetts president Dana Pullman said yesterday: “The resignation of Colonel McKeon is a good start to rectify the misuse of power that took place under his administration. It’s imperative that the new colonel make sweeping changes at all levels of the command staff and leadership to fully address this matter. We need to stop the blatant abuse of power.”