Before hiring former state Rep. Jeffrey Perry of Sandwich as Barnstable County's new special sheriff, Sheriff James Cummings hired a former FBI agent to review allegations raised about Perry while he was a Wareham police sergeant in the early 1990s.
Cummings paid Robert Schlabach $3,800 to answer two questions: Whether then-Sgt. Perry stood by and watched as 14-year-old Lisa Allen was illegally strip searched by Officer Scott Flanagan, whom Perry supervised; and whether Perry was involved in a cover-up of a second illegal strip search of a teen girl by the same officer several months later.
The results of that investigation were enough to satisfy Cummings that Perry had done nothing wrong. Schlabach said he concluded "Mr. Perry's biggest failing is too deep a faith in Officer Flanagan."
Perry was hired last month with a salary of $110,000 a year plus benefits and is now the second highest ranking law enforcement official in the sheriff's department.
The Times made a formal request for Schlabach's report under the state's Public Records Law. On Friday, Cummings denied the request under the investigatory and privacy exemptions in the law.
The investigatory exemption allows law enforcement officials to withhold materials that "would probably so prejudice the possibility of effective law enforcement that such disclosure would not be in the public interest," according to the "Overview of the Massachusetts Public Records Law" published by the office of Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin. The exemption is also designed to protect witnesses.
Schlabach spent nearly 40 hours sifting through court documents, interviewing police officers and speaking to at least one of the families involved, according to Cummings. Schlabach did not speak to Allen, who in October said that Perry stood nearby and did nothing as she screamed for help while Flanagan put his hand in her panties. Allen's attorney said Schlabach contacted him requesting information, but never asked to speak to Allen.
Much of what Schlabach based his report on is already public record. The witnesses he spoke to were police officers. So the evidence is thin at best that releasing Schlabach's report would impede future investigations.
The privacy exemption allows the withholding of personnel and medical files or information. However, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts has ruled that materials in police internal affairs investigations, including "officers' reports, witness interview summaries and the internal affairs report itself," are not exempt, according to the public records law overview.
Cummings has a long history of denying Barnstable County taxpayers access to public documents. In 2003, Cummings denied a public records request for a list of reserve deputy sheriffs, after a reserve sheriff was arrested on criminal charges. The Times filed suit and ultimately the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the public's right to access those records.
In 2009, when high-ranking sheriff officials were caught watching pornography on their work computers, Cummings refused to release information about how the officials were punished.
These are just two examples of Cummings' continuous efforts to block from public view the work of the sheriff's department, which has an operating budget of $20.7 million. The exemptions cited by Cummings in the Perry case do not apply and the sheriff, who used taxpayer money to pay for the investigation, should release the report. Questions about Perry's integrity and the powerful position he now holds make transparency imperative to the public interest.
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