A Mass State Police sergeant has been indicted on a felony motor vehicle homicide charge in connection to an alleged drunken cruiser crash in December 2023 in Woburn, the Suffolk District Attorney announced Thursday.
“Today’s indictment by a statewide grand jury convened by the Attorney General’s office alleges that Quigley was driving both negligently and under the influence of alcohol on December 12, 2023, when his unmarked State Police vehicle crossed the centerline on Lexington Street at about 5 p.m. and crashed into an oncoming van,” said the said the Suffolk DA’s office in a statement.
Accusations arose last month that Sgt. Scott Quigley had a blood alcohol level of .11, the legal limit is .08, when he crashed into a wheelchair van, injuring a person inside who later died in the hospital.
The Herald has reached out to Quigley’s lawyer for comment.
The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office referred the case to Suffolk after they said they learned about the allegations at the end of January. Quigley’s alleged blood alcohol level initially emerged in a wrongful death suit filed against the Mass State Police by the family of Angelo Schettino, the crash victim.
But the Middlesex DA disclosed last month that an employee had known about the sergeant’s alleged blood alcohol level over a year before it came up in open court and that they learned about it from another state police officer working in the office.
Quigley, who was embedded in the office as a homicide investigator and was out injury for eight months following the crash. Quigley is not suspended without pay from the State Police effective Feb. 6 at noon, according to records obtained by the Herald.
The disclosure of the allegations more than two years after the crash has raised questions from Schettino’s family and others over whether the cause of the crash was covered up.
According to dash camera footage published by the Herald, the sergeant who investigated the crash was encouraged not to interview Quigley at the hospital that December night.
Defense attorneys for three brother on trial for first degree murder who were investigated by Quigley have successfully had their clients’ case delayed while Suffolk was looking into criminal charges.
While Suffolk worked on its investigation, Middlesex and the Mass State Police initiated separate independent reviews of their handling of the crash.
Quigley’s arraignment has not been scheduled.
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