A Massachusetts State Police sergeant will be arraigned on a motor vehicle homicide charge next week, more than two years after he allegedly drunkenly crashed a cruiser into a wheelchair van.
Sgt. Scott Quigley will go before a judge the afternoon of April 15 at Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, according to court records.
A statewide grand jury handed down an indictment against Quigley at the end of March after the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, where the sergeant was embedded as a homicide investigator, referred the case to the Suffolk DA’s Office in January.
Middlesex DA Marian Ryan said that her office became aware of the allegations that at the time of the 2023 crash Quigley had a blood alcohol level of .11 — the legal limit is .08 — because of a wrongful death suit filed in another county by the family of Special Olympian Angelo Schettino.
Schettino was an occupant in the wheelchair van injured in the crash with Quigley. He died in the hospital about a month later.
Middlesex disclosed the allegation in the middle of a jury empanelment for a Lowell murder trial in February, making the accusation public for the first time. The disclosure paused the trial of brothers Billy, Billoeum, and Channa Phan, who are accused of killing 20-year-old Tyrone Phet in 2020. Quigley had been the lead investigator on the Phans’ case.
Since the disclosure, both the State Police and Middlesex DA initiated independent reviews of their handling of the crash. The independent report on the DA’s office cleared them, but the MSP report has not been completed.
Quigley has been suspended without pay since early February. An internal affairs probe into members of the State Police involved in the crash and its investigation is also ongoing.
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