Five Massachusetts State Police troopers and three civilian mechanics who work for the department obtained fraudulent commercial driver's licenses as part of a bribery scheme that was made public earlier this week, the agency said Friday following an internal investigation.
State police said their commercial driver's licenses have been revoked, but the employees are not facing any disciplinary action because they were not aware that the process they obtained their licenses through was fraudulent.
Six people, four of them current and former state police troopers, were arrested Tuesday as part of an alleged bribery conspiracy to give guaranteed passing scores to certain applicants for commercial driver's licenses, or CDLs.
The 74-count indictment alleges a scheme that dates back five years in which drivers who didn't take the commercial driver's license test in part or in full or failed it were allowed to pass anyway in exchange for goods or services, including a complimentary re-paving of Sgt. Gary Cederquist's driveway, valued at $10,000, and a free snowblower.
Cederquist, another state police trooper and two other people were arrested Tuesday, while two retired troopers were arrested Monday in Florida, Levy said.
The alleged conspirators texted each other about "the golden handshake" and "the golden treatment," according to the indictment.
Cederquist, of Stoughton, and Trooper Joel Rogers, of Bridgewater, pleaded not guilty in Boston's federal court Tuesday, along with Rehoboth resident Scott Camara, who worked for a Brockton truck driving school, and Boston resident Eric Mathison, a water company. The retired troopers who were arrested are Calvin Butner, of Halifax, and Perry Mendes, of Wareham. They were set to return to Boston for hearings at a later date, prosecutors said.
Col. John Mawn, interim state police superintendent, commented on the scandal in a video posted Friday, saying he is "deeply troubled" by the allegations of misconduct within the CDL division. He said an internal state police investigation into the bribery scheme is ongoing.
"I recognize that this development is disheartening to everyone who conducts themselves with the compassion, honesty, integrity and selfless commitment to service that this job demands," he said. "That is to say that it is disheartening to the overwhelming membership of the Massachusetts State Police."
"Let me be clear," he added. "Acts of misconduct will not be tolerated."
The state Registry of Motor Vehicles said it has identified 26 drivers who did not pass the proper testing. Their commercial driver's licenses have been pulled and they will not be able to obtain a new license without going through the full permit, training and skills testing again. The RMV is working with the U.S. Attorney's Office and will take additional action as needed.
The RMV said they've found no evidence that any of the drivers were involved in a crash while driving a commercial vehicle.
This is just the latest scandal to hit the the state police in recent years.
Forty-six current and retired troopers who worked for the now disbanded Troop E, which patrolled the Massachusetts Turnpike, were implicated in a scheme in which they collected overtime pay for shifts they either did not work or did not complete from 2015 until 2017, authorities said. Often, they said, the troopers issued falsified traffic tickets to make it appear as if they had been on duty.
The allegations also raise concerns about the integrity of a licensing system set up to certify commercial drivers, since a majority of those taken the test in Massachusetts fail. The latest data from 2022, federal officials said, showed a pass rate of 41%.
In 2019, the system came under fire after Volodymyr Zhukovsky, a commercial truck driver, crashed into a group of motorcyclists in northern New Hampshire, causing the death of of causing the deaths of seven motorcyclists.
Zhukovskyy’s commercial driving license should have been revoked in Massachusetts at the time of the crash because of a drunken driving arrest in Connecticut about two months earlier. Connecticut officials alerted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, but Zhukovskyy’s license wasn’t suspended due to a backlog of out-of-state notifications about driving offenses.
