Troopergate lawyer wants answers from Worcester court officials – By Laurel J. Sweet (bostonherald.com) / Feb 1 2018
A lawyer in the Troopergate case has subpoenaed state police and a court official and is seeking information about how a judge’s daughter’s case was handled by the Worcester court, according to new filings in the suits involving altered police reports.
Attorney Leonard Kesten, who represents Troopers Ryan Sceviour and Ali Rei in their suits against their department, wants to question Brendan Keenan, first assistant clerk at Worcester District Court, and multiple state police officials.
Kesten also has asked the general counsel for the Executive Office of the Trial Court to turn over “all documents containing any communication with any person or entity regarding the transfer of the case of Commonwealth v Alli Bibaud, Docket No. 1762CR8064 from the Worcester District Court of the Framingham District Court.”
On Oct. 16, Sceviour arrested a drunken Bibaud, 30 — the daughter of Dudley District Court Judge Timothy Bibaud — at the scene of a car crash on Interstate 190 in Worcester. The troopers say Bibaud made statements about trading sex for drugs and offered sex to Sceviour in exchange for leniency — statements they were ordered to remove from their reports. Sceviour and Rei, who are still on duty, are suing state police Maj. Susan Anderson and now retired Col. Richard McKeon, claiming they were threatened, coerced and put in fear for their job security for questioning the orders they were given to destroy or sanitize reports of Bibaud’s arrest.
Kesten said he wants to question Kara Colby, Bibaud’s original attorney in Worcester District Court who successfully sought to have her file impounded from public view.
A Worcester prosecutor later went to court to have Bibaud’s statements redacted.
Bibaud and her father had both previously been employed by the Worcester District Attorney’s Office, and the case was eventually transferred to Framingham to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Kesten also wants to question Anderson, state police Lt. James Fogerty and Lt. Col. Daniel Risteen, according to filings by Anderson’s lawyer, Timothy Burke.
Fogerty was Sceviour’s supervisor at the state police Holden barracks. Risteen is Anderson’s superior officer. Neither Fogerty nor Risteen are named defendants in the Troopergate civil actions.
In the filings, Burke tells U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole that Kesten has agreed to postpone the depositions of the state police officials.
Burke contends “initiation of discovery in this matter is premature” because there are several defendants in the lawsuits who have yet to be named.
Kesten said this morning he is rescheduling the depositions of Anderson, Fogarty and Risteen, but is moving ahead with questioning Keenan and Colby.
O’Toole has scheduled the case’s first pretrial conference on Feb. 26.
PB/TK – Oh the luxury of having a parent/family member in a position to alter records. We should all be so lucky
