Mass State Police Sgt. Jennifer Penton will make her first court appearance this week after being charged with manslaughter in connection to the 2024 death of a trooper trainee.
Penton is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday at Worcester Superior Court.
She and three other troopers were indicted by a grand jury on involuntary manslaughter charges and causing serious bodily injury while participating in a training program involving physical exercise in February.
Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell appointed independent prosecutor David Meier to investigate the case after trooper trainee Enrique Delgado-Garcia died following a State Police Academy training in September 2024.
Delgado-Garcia was knocked out during a boxing match at the academy on Sept. 12 and died in the hospital the next day, but Meier said that he had been injured in a previous, unsupervised match on Sept. 11.
“Reckless conduct resulted in Enrique Delgado-Garcia suffering concussion-like symptoms as the result of unauthorized, unapproved and unsupervised boxing-related sparring exercises that occurred during academy training activities,” said Meier at a press conference announcing the indictment.
Penton was the supervisor of a defensive tactics unit which oversaw boxing matches between trainees at the State Police Academy, while troopers Edwin Rodriguez, David Montanez, and Casey Lamonte were instructors in the unit.
Rodriguez and Montanez are also scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, while Lamonte will be in court April 14.
All four officers have been suspended with pay.
In addition to the charges in Worcester Superior, Penton was also charged with perjury for allegedly lying to the grand jury about when she knew about Delgado-Garcia’s injuries.
The arraignment for that charge is scheduled for April 15.
After the indictment was announced, the Herald and the Lowell Sun published several stories about Penton’s role in another case involving now-indicted State Police Sgt. Scott Quigley.
Quigley has been charged with motor vehicle homicide two years after he allegedly drunkenly crashed a cruiser into a wheelchair van in Woburn, injuring Special Olympian Angelo Schettino. Schettino died in the hospital a month later.
Penton was the officer who investigated the crash, initially issuing Quigley a written warning for a marked lanes violation.
According to dash camera footage from the night of the crash, Penton was urged by a lieutenant not to interview Quigley, who was also injured and had gone to the hospital, the night of the crash.
In the recording, she tells another officer, “They’re looking out for him… Maybe they know it was his fault, and they’re like, ‘Woah woah woah, let’s just wait.’”
Penton didn’t interview Quigley until eight days later. She has not been charged in the Quigley case.
The State Police have opened an internal affairs investigation into individuals involved in the handling the crash and hired an independent firm to review their response.