After lawsuit, Northwestern DA releases Brady records naming officers

NORTHAMPTON — The Northwestern district attorney’s office has released the names of dozens of employees working in the district, mainly police officers, that were a witness to or accused of crimes and misconduct. This information was previously withheld until a judge ruled the DA must release the documents after losing a lawsuit to an independent journalist.

That process started in January 2022 when Andrew Quemere, a Framingham resident who authors a Massachusetts newsletter called “The Mass Dump,” requested and was denied police misconduct records from Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan’s office.

Last December, almost four years after Quemere made his original request, Judge Julie E. Green of Suffolk County Superior Court ruled that the information must be released.

“There’s a saying in law that the process is the punishment and I think that’s applicable here,” Quemere told the Gazette last week.

Quemere asked Sullivan’s office to release its “Brady list,” or Brady letters, along with related records of police officers in Hampshire and Franklin counties charged with criminal offenses. Brady letters include police officers’ names, docket numbers associated with officers’ criminal cases, and cases in which the officers were potential witnesses.

The documents date back more than 40 years ago and relate to a wide range of crimes and misconduct, from operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and improperly claimed hours of overtime, to improper storage of a firearm and providing false testimony, among others. Many of the incidents have been reported on over the years by the news media.

After making his original request in early 2022, Quemere said he disappointed to receive a slew of documents that refer to 31 officers with their names redacted. That prompted him to file the lawsuit against the DA’s office in June of 2023, claiming that the information was public record. Sullivan’s office argued that this information was exempt from disclosure under the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) law.

Quemere said he is pleased that Judge Green ruled the records should be made public, but he disagrees with and is disappointed by the judge’s finding that Sullivan’s office did not act in bad faith when withholding them.

“The DA’s attorney decided he wanted control over when names were released and what names were released but that’s not what they argued in court so they lied,” Quemere said.

In a statement, Sullivan said that his office “values its law enforcement partners and remains committed to maintaining strong, professional relationships that uphold the highest legal standards and ensure fairness in our courts. Our Brady review process reflects that responsibility, and we are committed to complying with the public records law.”

The Brady letters released to Quemere were based on all the records on file up to the date of his original request in January 2022, dating back to a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision, that the records are named after. Quemere then requested and received the remaining documents from Sullivan’s office — letters filed between January 2022 and now — that were not included in his original request.

The records

Quemere said he is still reviewing the roughly 167 pages of records but feels that the DA’s office intentionally stalled the release of this information. “The best time to release information is when its current,” he said.

Sullivan’s office denied that accusation.

“Any claim that the NWDAO delayed this process is unfounded,” spokesperson Melissa Sippel wrote in an email to the Gazette. “Mr. Quemere amended his complaint several times, and each time the NWDAO filed its response within 30 days.”

“While it is true that most court proceedings take quite some time to resolve, the NWDAO did not cause or contribute to any unnecessary or unusual delay in this case,” she added.

The letters that are on file up to January 2022 pertain to a total of 31 individuals that worked in the district, mainly police officers. Ten of those employees currently work in the district, Sullivan’s office said.

The section of the Brady letters that the district must provide under Rule 14 of the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure, titled “Current Master Letters,” govern what information is released to a defense council once someone, such as an officer, is identified as being involved or as a potential witness to a case.

These records include individuals dating from the law’s enactment in the 1960s to present, many of whom are still employed in the Northwestern District, according to Sullivan’s office.

“Some of the letters will be the same as what we had in 2022,” Cynthia Von Flatern, the chief of the appellate division of Sullivan’s office, wrote in a statement. “Others are different because different officers have come onto police departments and may have misconduct to disclose. We may also have learned of misconduct from the past that we have determined needs to be reported.”

However, officers or individuals working in the district who are defendants in currently pending civil suits no longer have letters, Sippel said.

These officers were removed from the letters after a 2024 Supreme Court Ruling that Sullivan’s office cites as sufficient evidence to not disclose officers in pending civil suits.

The ruling, in which defendant Denzel McFarlane was convicted for unlawful possession of a firearm, states that a pending civil lawsuit against a police officer does not need to be disclosed by a prosecutor, without sufficient evidence.

“Until a finding of liability has been made, a pending civil lawsuit constitutes an unsubstantiated allegation of police misconduct that does not tend to negate the guilt of a defendant,” the ruling states.

While officers with pending civil suits are not included, Sippel said the Current Master Letters include district employees who received a continuation without a finding on one or more charges. That means the individual admitted to there being sufficient facts to find them guilty, but the case ultimately ends in dismissal if the individual completes probation.

Sippel said this is different from specifically pleading guilty, rather just admitting to there being sufficient facts.

“In those cases, an officer has admitted to sufficient facts to find him guilty, but the case will be continued without a finding and will end in ultimate dismissal if the officer successfully completes a period of probation,” she wrote. “This type of case is distinguishable from a straight dismissal of a case where there would have been no admission to sufficient facts and no probation ordered after that admission.”

There are also letters included that pertain to officers that were previously reported, but their cases “ended in dismissal or nolle prosequi.”

Victory?

Quemere previously told the Gazette that he pursued the lawsuit to expose holes in the Massachusetts Public Records Law through a large public records request, and believes that the lawsuit outcome has “done just that.”

Asked if he was satisfied with the results of his lawsuit, Quemere said, “yes and no.” He said the case has raised concerns of the Northwestern DA’s transparency, noting that Sullivan’s office “wasted” taxpayer dollars to fight the lawsuit.

He said other law enforcement districts, such as the Middlesex County district attorney’s office, post Brady letters online.

Quemere said that several police officers’ names were redacted when he originally received the Brady letters, even though those same names had been released by Sullivan’s office in previous press releases. This is a significant contradiction, Quemere says, because Sullivan’s office argued in court that it was illegal for them to disclose the information Quemere requested, but had already done so previously.

“These lawsuits are not one and done things,” Quemere said. “Law enforcement will always come up with new excuses to not release information.”

Quemere said he has made similar records requests in other districts with varying levels of compliance. Some districts willingly release the records, while it takes lawsuits in other cases to get the information.

When Quemere originally received the Brady letters from the Northwestern district attorney’s office with information redacted, he filed three separate appeals to the records supervisor of the state’s Public Records Division, who deemed that the district attorney had not adequately shown that the information redacted was protected under CORI. The records supervisor asked the district attorney to release the documents unredacted.

Sullivan’s office gave the same rationale after each appeal and did not release the information after the first two appeals, according to court documents. For the third appeal, the district attorney contacted the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office to resolve the matter, but did not get a response back.

“The system is very one-sided” Quemere said. “It’s hard to find legal representation for this.”