Ricardo Arroyo campaign posts docs saying sex assault allegation was ‘unfounded’

A day after winning a court battle for files, Ricardo Arroyo’s campaign for Suffolk County district attorney on Friday released several documents related to the 2005 police investigation of allegations Arroyo sexually assaulted a high school classmate, with the files posted by his campaign saying the matter was determined to be “unfounded.”

“This afternoon (Arroyo) is releasing the attached documents that clearly show this issue was investigated at the time by respected Assistant District Attorney Tara Burdman and the Boston Police Department and that it was determined to be unfounded and that ‘based on the assessment of the information…there was no crime committed,'” the campaign said in a lengthy statement.

In a thread on Twitter, the campaign attached three pages of documents: a final case update, an email from Burdman, and a case closeout form.

Notably, remarks in those documents are at odds with a statement from Interim District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office — Arroyo’s opponent in the Sept. 6 Democratic primary — released earlier on Friday, before the Arroyo campaign posted the documents.

“We have thoroughly reviewed our entire unredacted file regarding the sexual assault allegations against Ricardo Arroyo,” the statement reads. “Nothing in the file suggests or indicates that the allegations were unfounded. Also, nothing in the file questions the validity of the victim’s statements. The campaign to sabotage this victim’s credibility is shameful.”

However, the case closeout form posted by the Arroyo campaign, dated July 21, 2006, states the final disposition for the investigation is “unfounded.”

Additionally, the final case update states investigators “concluded that this case should be cleared as unfounded.”

In her email to an investigator, dated Feb. 17, 2006, Burdman wrote: “Based on the assessment of the information we had, there was no crime committed.”

Arroyo, a Boston city councilor, called out Hayden over the statement, writing in a tweet: “Not only is @DAKevinHayden’s use of the office in this way unethical and a violation of professional responsibility. It’s also a blatant lie.”

James Borghesani, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, told Boston.com in an email Friday evening, “nothing in our files indicate or suggest the allegations were unfounded.”

“The report referenced by Arroyo is not in our files,” Borghesani wrote, referencing the final case update. “It appears to be an internal (Boston Police Department) document.”

Borghesani, on a follow-up call with a reporter, noted the question before prosecutors at that time was whether a crime occurred.

“There was nothing in our files that indicated the incident didn’t occur,” he said.

Controversy and character attacks have ensnarled the race for the county’s top prosecutor over the past week-and-a-half after a Boston Globe report found Arroyo was investigated for possible sexual assaults twice as a teenager, in 2005 and 2007. He was never charged with a crime.

Arroyo, 34, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has said he had no knowledge of being the focus of any investigation until the Globe brought the matter to his attention for comment. The latter statement, though, is at odds with a police report filed in the 2005 case, in which investigators wrote they spoke with Arroyo, his mother, and his attorney at the time.

In a follow-up story from the Globe, the woman from the 2005 case told the newspaper on Monday she stands by what she told police: that Arroyo, who was a good friend of hers at the time, pressured her to perform oral sex, mentally manipulated her, and sent her threats via email.

The Globe, on Friday, obtained an unredacted version of Burdman’s 2006 email, showing Burdman wrote, “There is no indication that [defendant] threatened or was violent towards [victim].”

Burdman, according to the Globe, also wrote that she told the woman that Arroyo’s alleged actions did not constitute a criminal offense and the woman told her “it wasn’t consensual.”

As for the threatening anonymous emails the woman received, Burdman wrote that she did not have “enough info on that as to who the suspect would be.”

“The documents confirm that my client always told the truth and no one doubted that she did,” the woman’s lawyer, Leonard H. Kesten, told the Globe. “The district attorney had to evaluate whether the office could prove that a crime was committed and in 2005 an assistant district attorney decided that, if there were no threats or violence, a crime was not committed.”

The woman in the case from 2007, via an attorney, recently said Arroyo “never assaulted” her. Her initial allegations involved her belief that Arroyo may have raped her at a party.

Arroyo has framed the controversy as a political smear campaign spurred by an illegal leak to the media.

“Along with the public statement from the woman in the 2007 issue that Ricardo never assaulted her, this new information confirms what Ricardo Arroyo has been saying all along — he has never sexually assaulted anyone,” the Arroyo campaign said in its statement Friday.

The campaign also said “it is clear from these new documents that the person who illegally leaked this issue to the media intentionally left out information that proved these allegations were unfounded in order to falsely attack Ricardo and try to win an election.

“More importantly, the leaking of these files harms people’s trust in the confidentiality of their complaints,” the statement continues. “In addition, this document clearly shows that Kevin Hayden’s comments today about the case file were lies. His review and comments on the file were also likely illegal and unethical.”

Hayden has denied he, his office, or his campaign illegally leaked the documents to the press.

Arroyo, seeking to prove his innocence, petitioned Suffolk County Superior Court on Thursday for access to the files pertaining to the 2005 investigation.

A judge heard arguments from Arroyo’s attorney and from Kesten, but ruled in Arroyo’s favor, and declared the district attorney’s office would have to hand over files to Arroyo by 2 p.m. Friday.

“In light of the apparent and immediate impact on an ongoing primary election and Arroyo’s ability to serve effectively in his current role, I find that Arroyo will suffer irreparable harm if he is denied the requested materials to respond to the public allegation,” Suffolk Superior Judge Debra Squires-Lee ruled. 

Because the woman involved in the case already spoke with media members and made public information about the case, Squires-Lee added there was “no additional risk of invasion of privacy so long as all identifying information and all statements of the complaining witness are redacted.”

In a statement Thursday night, Kesten said his client was disappointed with the ruling, but respects it.

“We also wish to reaffirm that our client told the truth,” the statement says. “There is absolutely nothing in the file that suggests in any way that she was not credible. What we know is that in 2005, a single prosecutor concluded that no crime was committed merely because there was no indication of threats or violence reported. We are grateful that the concept of what constitutes rape and sexual assault has changed since 2005: no means no.”

The woman had told the Globe earlier this week she initially did not want to speak publicly about what happened, but ultimately decided to speak out after Arroyo adamantly pushed back on the newspaper’s initial report.

“It makes me feel sick, sick to my stomach,” she told the Globe. “I see so many people continuing to endorse him without finding out more. As the potential DA, women are not going to feel safe calling his office. Their cases won’t get heard. … All those people will be afraid to come forward.”

In its statement Friday, the Arroyo campaign said Arroyo “understands that this issue has been difficult for so many people in our community, especially survivors of sexual assault.

“He is very sympathetic to the expressed concerns of the individual from 2005 relative to the public release of these files and knows that there’s much work to do in order to restore faith in the District Attorney’s Office,” the statement continues.

“Ricardo believes all allegations of sexual assault should be taken seriously. He understands the pain and the harm that sexual assault causes and he cares deeply for survivors. He believes our systems should deliver justice through due process and providing spaces to be heard, and that’s what he will do as District Attorney.”

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