TrooperGate Lawsuit May Go the Distance, As Cast of Characters Thickens

By Evan Lips | February 23, 2018, 18:11 EST

Massachusetts State Police headquarters in Framingham. (Google)

UPDATED 10:45 P.M.

Governor Charlie Baker’s recent appointee to head the Massachusetts State Police, Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin, has announced a “continued restructuring of the command staff of the Massachusetts State Police and has accepted the retirements of Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Risteen, commander of the Division of Field Services, and Major Susan Anderson, Commander of Troop C (Holden).”

Per the following statement from Massachusetts State Police spokesman David Procopio:

“Colonel Gilpin thanks Lieutenant Colonel Risteen and Major Anderson for their many years of dedicated service to the Department and the citizens of the Commonwealth.”

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Attorneys representing two Massachusetts State Police troopers have reached a scheduling agreement with attorneys representing current and former top state police officials named in an explosive lawsuit concerning the altering of an arrest report involving a Worcester County judge’s daughter.

But according to the lead plaintiff’s attorney, there is “not a bit of interest” in reaching a settlement.

According to a Thursday filing in Massachusetts U.S. District Court in Boston, “all fact discovery shall be completed in nine months, by November 26, 2018.”

The joint statement also stipulates that “the parties agree to preserve and disclose all responsive electronically stored information documents (“ESI”) in their possession, custody or control,” with State Trooper Ryan Sceviour’s attorney, Leonard Kesten, given the green light to “take up to twenty (20) depositions.”

“The parties agree that discovery disputes and requests for guidance, which cannot be resolved after a reasonable effort to confer and reach a resolution has been made by the parties involved, shall be first submitted to the Court in letter form,” the joint statement adds. “If the Court cannot resolve the matter without formal briefing, a briefing schedule for the issue will be set.”

Sceviour and fellow State Trooper Ali Rei, a drug recognition expert, are suing a host of current and since-retired State Police officials — including former Superintendent Colonel Richard McKeon, his second-in-command, former Lieutenant Colonel Francis Hughes, and current Major Susan Anderson (and unnamed John/Jane Does) — over an order to scrub incriminating details from Sceviour’s arrest report of Alli Bibaud.

Bibaud, the daughter of Dudley District Court Judge Timothy Bibaud, was arrested in October after Sceviour responded to an accident on Interstate 190 north of Worcester. She later pleaded guilty in Framingham District Court — once the case was moved out of Worcester County — to a drunken driving charge, but according to Sceviour’s unredacted report, Bibaud admitted with no prompting that she had obtained heroin in exchange for sexual favors, offered to perform sex acts on Sceviour in exchange for leniency, and at one point informed police about her father’s judgeship.

Sceviour has claimed in his lawsuit that even after his original arrest report was signed-off on by a Worcester County District Court clerk magistrate, he was ordered by his superiors to remove the above lurid details from Bibaud’s arrest report and was reprimanded for including them in the original report.

Sceviour’s latest filing claims that Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early’s office was complicit in the alleged scheme, a charge that Early’s office is disputing.

Meanwhile, Rei has also charged in a motion opposing McKeon’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit that the order to alter Bibaud’s arrest report came from the top.

“In a nutshell, the facts in the complaint demonstrate that Major Anderson, a superior officer in a paramilitary governmental organization entrusted with enforcing the law, gave the plaintiff a direct order to commit and participate in multiple felonies, as part of an overarching and far-reaching conspiracy that Major Anderson told the plaintiff extended to top officials in the State Police, the office of the Worcester County District Attorney [Early], and the Secretary of Public Safety of the Commonwealth [Daniel Bennett],” Rei’s motion, filed Tuesday, claims. “The conspiracy was hatched in order to bestow unwarranted favorable treatment on an accused individual because she is a former employee of the district court and is the daughter of a Worcester County District Court judge.”

Bennett, like Early, is disputing the allegation.  

Kesten, Sceviour’s lawyer, has previously told New Boston Post that he plans to prove via multiple witnesses who were present for Anderson’s interaction with Sceviour’s union representative that Bennett was fully aware of the order.

“We have two eyewitnesses who said she did,” Kesten said in an interview conducted in late December, referring to a comment Anderson allegedly made in which she told Sceviour’s union representative, State Trooper Jeffrey Gilbert, “we all have bosses, Jeff.”

The joint scheduling agreement states that “the parties anticipate a two-week trial but recognize that discovery may dictate a shorter or longer trial.”

Sceviour, however, indicated in the agreement that he is “open to settlement discussions,” although the agreement states that “the parties do not contemplate settlement at this time.”

“To date, counsel for John Doe has refused to formally identify whom he represents but does not represent any party in this case,” the agreement states. The plaintiff disputes the propriety of the notice of appearance filed by counsel for John Doe and his participation in discovery insofar as his supposed client is not yet a named party in this action.”

Sources have confirmed to New Boston Post that John/Jane Doe is Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Risteen, and is being represented by Boston-based attorney Joseph A. Padolsky.

“Jane Doe” is a legal term that refers to an unidentified person, usually a female. But sources tell New Boston Post that Padolsky is representing Risteen.

Padolsky has not yet responded to a New Boston Post request for comment.

The filing also notes that the “parties have discussed settlement” but “do not consent to trial by magistrate at this time,” hinting that both parties believe the case may be best decided by a federal judge and not an administrator, such as a magistrate.  

Reached Friday, however, Kesten told New Boston Post that has has “received not a bit of interest from anyone regarding a resolution.”