The Massachusetts State Ethics Commission’s Enforcement Division has formally alleged ethics violations against Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr., his first assistant, and two former State Police officials.
The case at the center of the allegation is the arrest of the daughter of District Court Judge Timothy Bibaud in 2017.
The Enforcement Division alleges that after receiving the arrest report, Senior First Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Travers notified Early of sexually explicit statements made by the defendant who is the daughter of a judge.
Early allegedly informed Richard McKeon, then a State Police Colonel, about the contents of the report and advised him it could be revised.
McKeon allegedly issued an order through the State Police chain of command that the arresting Trooper revise the report to remove the explicit statements.
Susan Anderson, then a State Police Major and commander of C Troop, received the order from the chain of command and allegedly decided what material would be removed from the report.
Anderson then allegedly issued the order to the arresting Trooper to revise the report. When that trooper protested that the order was because the defendant was a judge’s daughter, Anderson allegedly agreed.
McKeon allegedly ordered the revised arrest report delivered to the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office.
Early allegedly directed Travers to go to the Worcester District Court Clerk’s Office to replace the original report with the sanitized report, which Travers allegedly attempted to do.
The conflict of interest law prohibits public employees from using or attempting to use their official positions to obtain an unwarranted privilege that is not properly available.
The conflict of interest law also prohibits public employees from acting in a manner that creates the reasonable appearance that they would act or fail to act in performing an official duty due to kinship, rank, or undue influence from another person.
