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Report: After a police officer allegedly assaulted a dispatcher, Natick kept it a secret
The officer was indicted almost two years after the alleged assault, after media outlets requested records.
The Town of Natick reportedly shrugged off allegations that one of its police officers had groped and assaulted a police dispatcher following an overnight shift in April 2020, according to a WBUR report.
The female dispatcher and four male cops had gathered in a secluded parking lot for drinks after work. The dispatcher later told investigators that Officer James Quilty stuck his hand down her pants, then “trapped her in her car, undid her bra, kissed and fondled her, and forced her hand onto his pants over his crotch,” according to the report, produced in collaboration with The Boston Globe.
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Middlesex County prosecutors say that Natick police at first shrugged off the allegations, WBUR reported. Natick officials have fought for more than two years to keep almost all the records secret, the news outlet said. Boston.com has reached out to the Natick Police Department for comment.
Quilty was indicted in December 2021 on three counts of indecent assault and battery. He has filed a motion to dismiss the charges, and his next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. Quilty’s attorney, Michael Perpall, declined to comment on the case to Boston.com.
Breaking down the timeline
Shortly after the alleged assault, the woman told a fellow dispatcher, who told a sergeant, who reported it to then-Natick Police Lt. Cara Rossi, according to a WBUR timeline.
Police accountability
Rossi reportedly took no action, until Chief James Hicks learned about the allegations when Quilty was up for a promotion two months later and ordered her to conduct a full investigation.
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Rossi — now chief of police in Ashland — allegedly approached the dispatcher in the open office, in front of Quilty, and asked if she had anything to report. When the dispatcher said she didn’t, Rossi dropped the matter.
“Interviewing victims and possible offenders in the same room together, it’s something that’s just not done. It used to be, back in the 60s and 70s,” said Mark Wynn, a retired Nashville Police Department lieutenant who has trained police on responding to domestic and sexual violence in their ranks.
Speaking Monday on WBUR’s “Radio Boston,” he added: “If they confronted an alleged abuser in front of the victim, it’s like interviewing a bank clerk and a bank robber in the same case and telling the bank robber where the bank clerk lives; it’s just not proper.”
In July 2020, Natick’s town administrator at the time hired a law firm to investigate, and the town put Quilty on leave, according to WBUR.
The town notified the Middlesex DA’s office that October about allegations that Quilty violated Natick’s sexual harassment policy, but didn’t publicly disclose the allegations or the law firm’s report.
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Quilty returned from leave in June 2021 after signing a “last chance agreement” and agreeing to serve about two months’ suspension, WBUR reported. Town Administrator James Errickson, who took on the role in July 2021 and was previously a deputy town administrator, did not immediately return Boston.com’s request for comment.
The fight over records
Quilty was indicted months later, after a Framingham blogger and WBUR requested records on the incident.
“That’s what’s really unclear, is why it took so long to get to criminal charges in the first place, why the town put him back to work before any kind of criminal charges had been filed, and what the town did or didn’t do,” Ally Jarmanning, one of the article’s reporters, said on “Radio Boston” Monday. “The big thing with this story is the town has refused to provide any records about what happened.”
Some of the court documents related to the case are sealed, WBUR reported, and the news outlet said Natick rejected its request for “virtually all its records” regarding Quilty’s alleged sexual assault. WBUR filed a public records lawsuit against Natick in September, and the case is still pending.
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Select Board Chair Paul Joseph told WBUR that Natick is hesitant to release documents and comment on the case while the criminal charges are still pending.
“We do, as a board, have confidence in the process we’re undertaking,” he said. “And we are trying to do it in the spirit of transparency and fairness to the parties that are involved.”
In a Tuesday release, Natick noted that Quilty is currently out on unpaid suspension, providing a timeline and some documents outlining the town’s response to the allegations. Ongoing legal matters prevented the release of some documents, including the investigative report and Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination file, the town said.
“The Town of Natick strives to be transparent and as timely as possible with all updates provided to the residents of Natick and the public at large,” Joseph, Errickson, and Hicks said in a joint statement. “We’re providing this timeline and accompanying documentation in an effort to summarize all shareable facts, as the law permits, given multiple, active legal proceedings pertaining to this incident.”
They added: “We fully appreciate the significance and sensitivity of this matter. We’re confident that this timeline illustrates our earnest attempt to balance transparent communications and the realities of legal due process.”
Ultimately, sexual misconduct among law enforcement has implications far beyond Natick, Wynn explained on “Radio Boston.”
Sexual assault and domestic violence by police is an abuse of power and authority and cannot be tolerated by police leaders across the country, he asserted.
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Wynn added: “We’ve been struggling to try to get women into policing for years, and this is one of the things, when you talk to young women about … why [they] don’t go into policing — this is it.”
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