This piece is the third part of a series that examines the response to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) pattern and practice investigation report on the City of Worcester, some of the biggest factors within the Worcester Police Department that led to the need for the investigation, and the near total inaction of the controlling majority of the Worcester City Council and administration officials to initiate real reforms.
The first piece in the series, Worcester, MA: Gaslight City, USA, Part 1, looks at the perspective of city government in response to the announcement of the DOJ investigation, since the release of the report. and discusses the manipulative aspects and lack of transparency.
The second piece in this series, A Cult of Silence in Gaslight City, Worcester MA, discusses how restrictions put on the Human Rights Committee, the silencing of a city councilor by his colleagues, and the denial of a citizen petition by the city solicitor, have acted to control the narrative the city government wants to promote.
This piece will look at a case that has led to controversy related to the Worcester Police Department, including a civil lawsuit, without disciplinary measures administered to the officers involved.
Wrongful Incarceration
When presenting estimates of wrongfully incarcerated individuals in the United States, which range from 2 percent to up to 10 percent depending on the study and its methods, many object furiously. However, the number of documented exonerations is massive.
The National Registry on Exonerations has documented 4,132 exonerations since 1989, with an average of 8.7 years lost to incarceration by each exoneree. Those individuals lost 35,875 years in prison before the overturning of the convictions against them. Of those, 143 faced the death penalty before exoneration.
In Massachusetts, the National Registry of Exonerations documents 110 exonerations since 1989, an average of 12.1 years lost per individual, for 1,332 years lost. Six of those cases included a false confession, while 63 cases included official misconduct. Mistaken identity affected 24 cases and false or misleading forensic evidence affected 21 cases.
The deprivation of liberty by incarceration is the most solemn responsibility government has. Defining crime as a violation of individual rights, rather than by government statutes, wrongful imprisonment is of the most insidious crimes a government can be responsible for, after murder.
In the incidents a law enforcement officer investigates, they play a critical role in determining the government’s narrative during prosecution. Those who provide false information on incident reports, make false statements in court, or submit false or manipulated evidence can substantially affect the prosecution of a case, and the perception of facts by a jury.
A law enforcement officer making a mistake in a high-stress situation, like using more force than the situation required, or using force when unnecessary, is a serious matter. However, consideration of the scenarios in which an individual officer made that decision is important.
When a law enforcement officer provides false evidence or testimony, they undertake a premeditated act to attempt to secure a wrongful incarceration. This is an attempt to manipulate the government into seeking the approval of a jury to kidnap an individual using the power of law. There is no excuse.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Title 18 U.S.C. Section 242, defines it a crime when “a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States,” as a crime punishable by “up to life in prison or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.” Prosecution under this law is extremely rare.
A law enforcement officer who engages in such behavior, at the very least, should never again operate under the color of law. Most of us on the outside of the thin blue line would face charges for similar behavior.
Beyond eliminating the police powers of an individual who provided false information, the municipality should engage in a broad review of that law enforcement officer’s past cases to determine if similar behavior in other cases went undiscovered and contributed to any wrongful conviction or incarceration.
Indifference in Worcester
In Worcester, those alleged of officer misconduct face an investigation by the Bureau of Professional Standards. Those investigations often end with little discipline or no discipline at all. The law enforcement officer is soon back on the street, encouraged to do it again with a clear message that their department will protect them.
In Worcester, that message resonated through the department for many years and contributes to a breakdown in discipline and culture rot.
The city administration and city council say nothing, as the city pays out lawsuit settlements one after another. Those most likely to voice their dedication to public safety are those most likely to say nothing. First, they can’t talk about it due to ongoing litigation. After settlement, they just won’t talk about it.
The way the city has behaved in the case highlighted below makes it difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than they just don’t care. Their status as government insiders ensures it won’t happen to them or anyone they care about.
Natale Cosenza
This Week in Worcester has reported on this case extensively and will continue to do so. This will not be an exhaustive review of the case, but will focus on the city’s actions during it.
The actions of the city show a frightening indifference to the consequences of the abuse of power.
Background
A Massachusetts jury convicted Natale Cosenza in 2002 on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and armed burglary. The conviction relied heavily on the victim’s identification of Cosenza in a photo array administered by officers in Worcester. Cosenza received a sentence of 12 to 20 years in state prison.
In 2016, after Cosenza served nearly 16 years in state prison, a court granted him a new trial, citing an error during the 2002 trial when the judge prohibited testimony from an expert on eyewitness identification evidence, Steven Penrod. Cosenza’s attorney intended Penrod to testify about the factors that contributed to what the defense claimed was a suggestive identification procedure.
In 2011, the Massachusetts Supreme Court established the Study Group on Eyewitness Evidence. In the report and recommendations to the justices released in 2013, the study group wrote that it “benefitted enormously from the opportunity to hear from and discuss scientific evidence concerning eyewitness identification with Professor Steven D. Penrod,” the individual prohibited from testifying in Cosenza’s trial.
In 2017, a judge ruled that a suggestive lineup procedure resulted in the identification of Cosenza by the victim of the crime nnd ruled it inadmissible in a new trial. Later that year, prosecutors dropped the charges.
Cosenza filed civil lawsuits against the state of Massachusetts and the City of Worcester in 2018. The state quickly settled the case for the maximum allowed by state law, $750,000. At the time of publishing this piece, this is the only compensation Cosenza has received.
When the civil case went to trial in 2022, the two primary investigators of the case, Sgt. Kerry Hazzelhurst and Sgt. John Doherty remained the only defendants.
Connection to $2.1 Million Coerced Interrogation Case
In 2008, a 16-year-old Worcester teen discovered her infant son dead in his crib. Worcester Police Sgt. Kevin Pageau and Detective John Doherty, the same Doherty involved in Cosenza’s case, interrogated the teen for over two hours. The girl repeatedly declared she did not kill her child.
The interrogators eventually got a confession from the teen. Among other things, they told her that her confession would ensure her trial took place in juvenile court. She eventually repeated what the two officers told her to repeat.
The district attorney, not police officers, determines the circumstances around charges, including in which court to file charges. When the district attorney filed charges, he did not file in juvenile court. If convicted, the teen faced life in prison.
After over two years incarcerated awaiting trial, a judge ruled the confession inadmissible as evidence in the trial. Little other evidence supported the case. The medical examiner’s report ruled the cause of death inconclusive, but complicated by medical factors.
Prosecutors soon dropped the charges.
Duing the pre-trial phase of the civil lawsuit filed by the teen against the City of Worcester, Doherty, and Pageau, the city motioned the court to include the teen’s attorney as part of the defendants. The city wanted her attorney to pay part of the settlement, saying the attorney took too long to secure the teen’s release after the coerced confession.
The judge mocked the city in open court for its absurd attempt.
The city settled the case for $2.1 million in 2011.
After prosecutors dropped the criminal charges against the teen, then-Chief of Police Gary Gemme voiced unwavering support for the two officers involved, and took to Twitter to criticize the judge. Gemme continued in his role as chief of police until 2014.
Shortly thereafter, Gemme promoted Pageau to the Bureau of Professional Standards (BOPS), the unit the police department claims is an internal investigation unit, but acts as an acquittal clearinghouse.
When then-City Manager Mike O’Brien chose not to fire Gemme, the city council should have relaced him with someone who would. That, of course, didn’t happen. The city has a long track record of excusing the inexcusable at the police department.
No Credibility in BOPS Review of Cosenza Case
Now the story gets very Worcester.
When Cosenza filed his civil lawsuit in 2018, the department assigned the BOPS unit to investigate the handling of the case by the two officers. The report of its investigation, filed in April 2019, says that the methods used by Hazelhurst and Doherty, including in the photo array identification of Cosenza by the victim, followed the standards of the time which the investigation took place.
Common sense and nearly every ethical standard under the sun would dictate that, during an internal investigation inside the police department, BOPS would never assign the former partner of an officer being investigated to any case- especially two officers whose unlawful behavior cost the taxpayers $2.1 million
Take a giant, wild guess which BOPS investigator received the assignment to investigate the conduct of Hazelhurst and Doherty in the Cosenza case?
Yup, Pageau, Doherty’s former partner. The report lists his name as its author.
Despite this investigation defying every rule of impartiality, conflict of interest, and any resemblance of caring about ethics, the position of the city government is the same as Pageau’s conclusion in the BOPS report: Hazelhurst and Doherty did nothing wrong.
No Consideration for Trial Evidence
In the pre-trial phase of Cosenza’s civil rights lawsuit, the city motioned to have itself removed as a defendant from the case, leaving Hazelhurst and Doherty as the only defendants. The judge also stripped Hazelhurst and Doherty of qualified immunity, leaving the personally liable.
Cosenza’s civil case went to trial, unlike most civil rights cases related to the Worcester Police Department. At the conclusion of the trial in September 2022, the jury ruled Hazelhurst concealed and fabricated evidence and Doherty conspired with him to do so. The judgement awarded Cosenza $8 million.
Both Pageau and Doherty have since retired. Hazelhurst remains a city employee with the Worcester Police Department.
These officers do not have $8 million, and the city isn’t a party to the case. Cosenza has nowhere to collect his judgement.
Cosenza appealed the decision to remove the city as a defendant. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed with the trial judge that the city did not have a policy of not training officers on photo arrays or a policy of fabricating or manipulating evidence, as alleged by Cosenza.
So what is the message here?
In court, it appears the city argues the department didn’t teach these two officers to do the things the jury found they did, so the city isn’t liable for it. The left Hazelhurst and Doherty with an $8 million judgement hanging on their heads.
Outside of court, the city claims Hazelhurst and Doherty did nothing wrong.
There has been some movement on the case. In 2024, Hazelhurst and Doherty fired the law firm hired by the city, which represented them at trial, and hired their own counsel. The pair soon settled the case with Cosenza, but court records show the settlement didn’t include compensation.
Earlier this year, the city manager discussed the Cosenza case with city councilors in an executive (private) session. That typically only happens when the city nears a settlement of some sort. There are some educated guesses on how the case changed, but we won’t know until an agreement makes its way to court.
While city officials should protect the monetary interests of the city, it should do so by removing bad actors from its police force, not dragging their victims through years of litigation and torturing them all over again.
For a city that puts equity at the center of much of its public relations, its sense of justice seems absent. City officials appear to use the word equity as they do transparency: something they congratulate themselves for, but don’t apply.
Worcester’s Indifference
Despite a civil jury trial taking place, with rules of evidence and procedure, the city continues to adopt the conclusion of the internal investigation at the Worcester Police Department, conducted by a former partner of one of those investigated, and conducted behind the thin blue line.
In a city with leadership interested in protecting residents from the harms of abuse of power, one could reasonably expect an exhaustive review of all available evidence by city government after the trial, or for the city to seek an expert independent analysis. No reasonable person should dispute that any individual operating under the color of law who would provide false or manipulated evidence is a clear and present danger to the public if allowed to continue.
Who in Worcester’s city government has the responsibility to conduct this review?
No one. It’s not happening. It won’t happen. The political convenience of a BOPS report, which lacks any credibility, ranks far higher on their list of priorities than public safety.
How many city residents have been the subject investigations by police officers the city knows have a track record of lies and manipulation? How many of those were without the financial means to hire a private attorney and took a plea deal? How many of those individuals served time behind bars?
They don’t care. It won’t happen to them. It won’t happen to anyone they care about.
Their indifference will allow it to happen again. The rest of us are on our own.
