Should you’re a cop charged with beating a drunk, and even worse, a cop accused of involuntary manslaughter and perjury, you’ve most likely acquired a couple of different query marks in your everlasting report as nicely.
C’mon down, ex-Boston law enforcement officials Christopher Cunniff and Jenn Penton.
Penton you simply realized about. Till Monday she was a Mass State Police lieutenant. She’s now stripped of her certification, after being charged with involuntary manslaughter within the dying of a Mass State Police cadet in 2024, after which mendacity about it to a grand jury.
Then there’s that warning she wrote in Woburn for a marked lanes violation to a fellow MSP trooper in 2023. He hit a disabled van head-on. One of many passengers within the van died of his accidents a month later.
A blood check of the trooper’s BAC degree reportedly confirmed .11 – legally drunk, which Penton didn’t point out. She didn’t interview him for eight days. The incident report doesn’t even point out the dying.
Ultimately, Penton simply wrote him a warning, after which she was promoted to lieutenant and the killer trooper was promoted to sergeant. Skilled courtesy….
However first let’s speak about ex-Sgt. Christopher Cunniff. He was arrested after the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Southie final yr. He was charged with beating a drunk in an alley in South Boston after the boozer took a Lyft again to Southie from J.J. Foley’s.
Cunniff tailed him in an unmarked police cruiser, accompanied by a second man who was not a police officer – on that the BPD and the Suffolk County District Lawyer agree. The second man has not been charged, at the least to this point.
After observing the video of the stomping, Superior Court docket Decide Christopher P. Belezos wrote this scathing opinion of the one-sided road combat.
“The person who emerged from the police car threw the primary punch, adopted by at the least one and probably two extra blows. After the primary punch, the alleged sufferer gave the impression to be helpless.”
Decide, inform us what occurred subsequent, in Southie, after the St. Patrick’s Day parade?
“The person who emerged from the driving force’s facet of the automobile then forcefully guided the alleged sufferer into an alley the place third-party witnesses reported {that a} one-sided beating ensued.”
A number of days later, Cunniff properly retired, one step forward of the posse. The case lingers on, principally as a result of prosecutors can’t determine what ought to be finished in regards to the civilian passenger in Cunniff’s BPD cruiser.
Cunniff turned a wealthy man whereas on the job. However now, together with his actions videotaped for all to see, Cunniff cries poor mouth and thrusts his hand out… once more!
Earlier than trial, Cunniff is begging the state to pay for his associated prices of trial — a medical knowledgeable, a personal investigator and transcription of information.
“The defendant has just lately retired,” Cunniff’s non-public legal professional Kevin Mullen wrote in a movement for a handout, “and consequently, his earnings has been drastically decreased, however his monetary obligations have remained the identical, together with the assist of his household.
Don’t do the crime in the event you can’t do the time. Or in the event you can’t pay the payments.
For the report, here’s what Cunniff made in his final three full years on the BPD:
2022: $206,081.43 (together with $67,571.72 in additional time).
2023: $219,954.80 ($77,173.09 in OT).
2024: $314,674.67 ($90,949,43 in OT).
Now he grabs a bloated metropolis pension. His base pay (on which the pension is predicated) was principally round $150K in his three highest years. So Cunniff’s annual kiss within the mail ought to be roughly $120,000 a yr, or ten grand a month.
Then there’s the home Cunniff owns on Orchard Road in Quincy. In line with the town assessing division, he purchased it for $1.05 million in 2021. Zillow says the Cunniff mansion is now price $1,185,500.
But he has the gall to say he’s broke and it’s best to choose up the tab for his authorized bills past his lawyer.
Let me ask you this: is your internet price roughly than Sgt. Cunniff’s? Do you assume the state would choose up your authorized bills in the event you did what he’s accused of doing to the man staggering out of J.J. Foley’s?
“The shopper,” his Quincy lawyer writes, “would retain these crucial companies if he was financially in a position to take action… The defendant is unable to pay….”
Cry me a bleepin’ river. Who does Cunniff assume he’s, an unlawful alien cholo?
Mullen didn’t return calls this week looking for remark.
Because the beating sufferer had spent most of St. Patrick’s Day night at J.J. Foley’s, I needed to ask Mullen the place his shopper unwound that night earlier than his exercise within the alley. And who was that second particular person?
Are civilians imagined to be joyriding within the entrance seat of police vehicles?
As for the opposite scandal-scarred ex-Boston cop, Jenn Penton, her Inside Affairs Officer Resume turned out to be a little bit skinny. The BPD says these 5 pages are it. Additionally they say there’s nothing else in Anti-Corruption, the place BPD unhealthy habits is typically broomed, beneath the rubric, “The investigation continues.”
In 2013, Penton was being featured in a “actuality” TV present referred to as Boston’s Most interesting.
A citizen complained that “he was pulled over for nothing… for ‘Obscure Quantity Plate.’”
“(Redacted) acknowledged the feminine officer turned extra impolite to him when he expressed his concern about being on digicam (actuality present was being filmed).”
Hey, pal, the present should go on. Hooray for Hollywood.
Earlier in 2013, she was within the South Finish for an NSTAR energy outage.
“Officer Penton was concerned in a Motor Automobile accident at Mass Av and St. Botolph St together with her Division Automobile. Officer Penton didn’t notify Operations instantly.”
Right here’s one other grievance in regards to the girl now accused of involuntary manslaughter and perjury:
“An audit of courtroom trip days confirmed that Officer Penton might have appeared for courtroom on a lot of circumstances through which her attendance was not crucial.”
Besides, maybe, for her paycheck. For the report, final full yr, Lt. Penton pocketed $178,230 from the MSP, as she was shedding a photograph end with a state grand jury.
Ultimate thought: It’s not the excessive value of regulation enforcement that’s ruining Massachusetts, it’s the excessive value of the corruption of regulation enforcement.
And it by no means ends.
