The Mass State Police did not perform a “full, detailed” crash reconstruction after one of their own sergeants allegedly drunkenly hit a wheelchair van in 2023, according to a Suffolk County prosecutor.
“I know a full, detailed reconstructionist exercise was not done,” special prosecutor Ian Polumbaum said during a pre-trial hearing for MSP Sgt. Scott Quigley’s motor vehicle homicide case.
Quigley is accused of driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit in December 2023 when he veered into oncoming traffic and hit a wheelchair van. Quigley and a passenger in the van, Special Olympian Angelo Schettino, were both seriously injured.
Schettino died in the hospital a month later, and Quigley spent about eight months on injury pay. Details about Quigley’s blood alcohol level, taken at the Lahey Hospital after the crash, were brought to light during a wrongful death suit filed by Schettino’s family.
Polumbaum, who was appointed as a special prosecutor after the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office referred the case to Suffolk earlier this year, told the judge, “we weren’t involved,” at the time of the initial investigation.
“The investigation was what it was,” he said.
At the time of the crash, Quigley received a marked lanes violation and the Middlesex DA’s Office, where he was embedded as a homicide investigator, said they weren’t aware of his alleged BAC until this past January. The sergeant was suspended without pay from the MSP around the same time that the accusations emerged publicly.
Quigley’s attorney Christina Pujals Ronan said that there was no accident reconstruction performed, even though it was MSP policy to perform them for crashes that cause serious bodily injuries.
The Herald has reached out to the MSP to learn why a crash reconstruction was never performed.
Ronan said he discovery motion for any reconstruction materials would be argued at Quigley’s next hearing Aug. 19.
According to dash camera footage first published by the Herald, the investigating officer Lt. Jennifer Penton was urged not to go to the hospital to interview Quigley on the night of the crash by a higher up.
“I wasn’t here, there’s no witnesses,” Penton says on the tape. “I’ll see what the other driver says.” She tells the other officer that the van Quigley hit was on their own side of the road and, “it appears that Scott had his phone out.”
She also 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 was recently suspended with pay for a separate incident. She and three other troopers were charged with manslaughter in connection to the 2024 death of trooper trainee Enrique Delgado-Garcia, who died after being knocked out during a boxing match at the State Police Academy.
Along with the manslaughter charge, Penton also faces an additional count of perjury for allegedly lying to a grand jury about when knew about Delgado-Garcia’s prior concussion symptoms.
Original article
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