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Former Transit Police sgt. accused of falsifying report to cover up assault
Prosecutors say David Finnerty helped cover up a subordinate’s assault on a homeless man at Ashmont Station in 2018.
A former MBTA Transit Police sergeant was arrested Thursday as federal prosecutors allege he falsified a report about a subordinate’s assault on a homeless man in 2018.
Court records show David Finnerty, 47, of Rutland, was indicted on charges of filing a false report and aiding and abetting a false report. He appeared in federal court in Boston on Thursday, where he entered a not guilty plea and was released.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday that Finnerty was supervising another officer, previously identified as Dorston Bartlett, when Bartlett “physically assaulted a man without legal justification” at the Ashmont MBTA station on July 27, 2018.
More on the case:
Bartlett pleaded guilty last year to state charges in the assault and was sentenced to probation, Universal Hub reported at the time.
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Finnerty allegedly falsified an arrest report and a briefing document on the incident by including false and misleading statements and by “omitting material information,” federal prosecutors said Thursday.
The man Bartlett assaulted, Anthony Watson, claimed in a separate federal civil rights lawsuit that Finnerty and another officer helped Bartlett cover up the attack.
He said he fell asleep on the Red Line and awoke to Bartlett rousing him at the last stop. As the officer escorted him along the platform, Watson alleged that Bartlett pushed him against a pillar and struck him with a metal baton.
After fleeing the station, Watson said he asked a passerby to call 911 on his behalf to report the assault. Hearing the radio call for Boston police officers, Bartlett allegedly “turned his car around and drove back towards the station. He falsely told the Boston officers that he had been looking for Mr. Watson to arrest him because Mr. Watson had assaulted him on the train,” according to the 2021 lawsuit.
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Bartlett arrested Watson and brought him back to the Transit Police station. There, the complaint alleges, Finnerty and Sgt. Kenny Orcel helped Bartlett draft a false police report justifying his actions.
Watson’s lawsuit, which names Bartlett, Finnerty, Orcel, and the MBTA as defendants, is ongoing.
Finnerty previously faced criminal charges at the state level, but Suffolk County prosecutors dropped the charges last year after a previously unknown computer record supposedly showed that Finnerty had not added false information to a report on the assault.
“This new evidence establishes that, although the defendant did revise some portions of the report, the defendant was not the source of the false and misleading statements that are at issue in this case,” state prosecutors said at the time.
Speaking to reporters following Thursday’s hearing, Finnerty’s lawyer, Brad Bailey, said his client “has already been cleared and exonerated, in my opinion, on the same core allegations in Suffolk Superior Court,” according to the Globe.
Bailey added: “We have every confidence that ultimately when the truth comes out, we’ll have the same outcome here.”
Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said in a statement that “instances of police misconduct are rare, but they need to be investigated and prosecuted when they do happen, especially when supervisors are involved as alleged here.”
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Levy added: “For the good of the community and all the honorable officers and supervisors in the police ranks, misconduct of this nature cannot be tolerated.”
Finnerty faces up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000 if convicted.
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