Editor’s note: Following an internal review of his work, GBH News will no longer use Daniel Medwed as an on-air legal analyst. This decision was made following his being referenced in a Department of Justice report on U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins and subsequent comments he made on air about her tenure and the 2022 Suffolk County D.A. election, without appropriate disclosure. High ethical standards and credibility are central to our work and nothing is more important to us than our audience’s trust.
The controversy surrounding Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, a candidate for Suffolk County District Attorney, took another turn Friday as a Boston Police Department file regarding a 2005 sexual assault case against him became public by court order just days before the Sept. 6 primary election.
Arroyo took to Twitter and released a limited batch of the documents from the investigation, which show the 2005 case was deemed “unfounded” by a police detective, then closed by an Assistant District Attorney. The papers, Arroyo said, back up his claim that "he has never sexaully assaulted anyone."
About an hour earlier, Arroyo's opponent, interim Suffolk County DA Kevin Hayden, cast doubt on that assertion with an official statement claiming to have reviewed the entire, unredacted case file.
"Nothing in the file suggests or indicates that the allegations were unfounded," the DA's office said.
There is good news and bad news for Arroyo in the 57 heavily redacted pages of the newly released police file related to one of two sexual assault investigations first reported by the Boston Globe. GBH News obtained the file through a records request from Boston City Hall and had these three takeaways upon review:
1. The Police Documents
Some good news for Arroyo is that the file shows that the police indicated they decided not to prosecute Arroyo since “no crime was committed.”
The bad news is that at least one document within the file indicates that Arroyo was contacted by police, advised of the accusation against him and instructed not to contact the accuser. That appears at odds with Arroyo’s initial assertion that he never had knowledge of any police investigation until he was contacted by the Boston Globe.
2. The Boston Globe
The initial report by the Globe and its subsequent interview with the victim who went to police has been driving this high-profile political controversy.
In its earlier reporting and another story Friday, the Globe cites documents not released to the public. The Globe Friday concluded: "The documents released by Arroyo do not say that the alleged victim lied or that the conduct she alleged — that Arroyo repeatedly pressured her into giving him oral sex when they were high school classmates — did not occur, but that it did not legally constitute rape."
3. The Office of Bar Counsel
While the high stakes drama plays out in the press and at polls (with early voting already underway) another factor looms in the background: The Office of Bar Counsel, which is like the ethics commission for attorneys across the state.
Because Arroyo did not reportedly divulge his police investigation at the time he took the bar exam, he may have opened himself up to disciplinary action.
The issue may be a difficult one to evaluate, said GBH News legal analyst Daniel Medwed, professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University.
“Evidence revealed by the Globe suggests that he did understand he was being investigated,” Medwed said last week.
“On the other hand, one of the problems with [the bar application question is] the term 'investigation' is a very subjective phrase…if the police talk to you about an event, is that an investigation? Is an investigation something where there’s a warrant? Does an investigation involve what’s called a custodial interrogation, where you’re being interrogated and provided your Miranda warning?”
Since there has been no public polling in the DA's race, the public's reaction to the scandal won't be known until the polls close on Election Day, Sept. 6.
