On the evening of June 20, in a transmission captured by the website LiveATC.net, JetBlue flight 1354 approached Logan Airport and reported a problem on board.
"Boston police, meet us at the gate at C-34," an unidentified crew member said. "We have a customer that's been groping one of the female passengers, so we need to have the police meet the aircraft at the gate, please."
Two days later, WBZ-TV reported that the alleged groper was Andrew “A.J.” Baker — a son of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. Ever since, a big question has been whether A.J. Baker, who still hasn’t been charged, is being treated impartially by the criminal-justice system.
For example: the Massachusetts State Police, who the governor oversees, responded first, before handing the investigation to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which routinely handles allegations of in-flight sexual assault.
Patrick Smith, an airline pilot who runs the website “ Ask the Pilot,” says there’s a simple explanation.
"It makes sense that it would have been State Police responding at Logan, because it’s State Police who are stationed at Logan, and who are the law enforcement entity at the airport," Smith said. "At other airports it’s usually city or municipal police forces. [It's the] Port Authority police in New York."
And, in the airplane audio, there’s no indication the crew knows the alleged groper is the governor’s son — which suggests State Police might not have known, either.
Eventually, says Harvard Law School Professor Ronald Sullivan, they probably figured it out. So if and when that happened, how did the State Police respond?
"At what point did they realize they were talking to the governor’s son, and once they did realize they were speaking with the governor’s son, did any supervisor make a decision with respect to a conflict-of interest analysis?" Sullivan said.
It's also possible the State Police proceeded as if A.J. Baker were any other interviewee. If so, Sullivan says, that was a mistake.
"Very soon after the scene was controlled, once evidence and testimony was secured, the State Police should have looked for another authority to come in," Sullivan said. "And maybe that’s what they did. We just don’t know yet."
There might be some answers in the official State Police report. But while the Boston Globe has published some details, a full copy hasn’t yet surfaced.
The State Police rejected WGBH News’ request for a copy of the report, citing a Massachusetts law that says: “All reports of…sexual assault…shall not be public.”
The Globe also reported that despite inconsistencies in A.J. Baker’s story, State Police released him rather than making an arrest. Melissa Morabito, a UMass Lowell criminologist, says that isn’t surprising.
"For any type of sexual assault, arrest is just not going to be the typical outcome," Morabito said. "Of those sexual assaults that are actually ever reported to the police, probably somewhere around 30 percent or less will end in any kind of arrest."
"Unless there’s some kind of public-safety emergency," she continued, "prosecutors would just rather rather wait and build their case because the clock starts ticking once police make an arrest. And that means that the whole criminal justice system must move forward, including when that person needs to be in court [and] when they need to be arraigned."
The case is now with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Since federal prosecutors generally don’t comment on ongoing investigations, it’s not clear if they’re building the case against A.J. Baker or preparing to drop it. As the public waits for more information, WGBH News Legal Analyst Daniel Medwed said he’s struggling to make sense of the statements A.J. Baker reportedly made that night.
"The facts are incredibly bizarre, especially the discrepancy between A.J. Baker’s account — he claims he was asleep the whole time — and reports to the contrary that suggest something far more disturbing occurred, including a report that said he said it was okay because she was his sister’s best friend," Medwed said. "Now, he suggested that he was not on any medication and had less than two glasses of wine. I’m very curious to see if there’s more to this story."
He’s not the only one. But unless the U.S. Attorney presses charges, the full contents of that State Police report — and any additional information obtained by the U.S. Attorney’s investigation — might never come to light.
