Welcome Back to Pottersville: Good Cop, Bad Cops, 2020 edition

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

Those of you who've been paying attention to my byline may recall a six part series I'd done in 2017 about former MA State Trooper Antone Wilson. Mr. Wilson had reached out to me some years before that asking for my involvement, specifically to write about his story. As I usually don't insinuate myself in state or State Police matters unless they prove to be a synecdoche of a larger national story, I resisted getting involved.

But when I'd received a summary of events from Mr. Wilson, I rethought my initial resistance to insinuate myself. It was an extraordinary story of duplicity and outright corruption on the part of the Massachusetts State Police, the Commonwealth's Board of Bar Overseers and even much of the legal profession of Massachusetts. Mr. Wilson's case serves as the perfect touchstone that puts a face and name to the rampant dysfunction, corruption and cronyism that has not so much plagued but actually governs the official actions of the nation's oldest motorized state police force.

There's an old saw that goes, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." In this case, the less things change, the more they stay the same. Mr. Wilson's legal push forward has received no traction to speak of, those who'd worked the most to derail his case in both state and federal court are either still on the job or are drawing a handsome, full pension that is still denied to former Trooper Wilson. In a matter of weeks, a major story will drop about Mr. Wilson by Boston-area independent journalist Chris Faraone.

Paul Manoff, Mr. Wilson's long-suffering attorney who'd been suspended for a year by the state's BBO, seems to have quit the legal profession entirely and is now teaching in Maine. Considering how he'd bungled Mr. Wilson's case and gladly imploded his dubious legal career to be used as a human countermeasure, a career that had resulted in his being suspended in both Massachusetts and California, that perhaps, in the interests of jurisprudence, is not a bad thing.

I reached out to Mr. Wilson last month in order to do a rare followup to one or several of my past articles. I was curious to see what was going on in his life and his case in particular and this is the result.

Q: What's been going on with you since we last spoke?

A: The biggest change is that I've relocated to Fort Bragg, NC to take a civilian Force Protection job with the Army. Before that, if you recall, I was doing counterintelligence work at Fort Meade, MD. I worked with a team of contractors and we did our job so well we finished six months early, forcing me to find another job. I was lucky that this position became open as I was leaving the counterintelligence position. The main point is I still have to work, State Police pension notwithstanding.

Q: Seriously? You can't live on your State Police pension?

A: No. It's a rather small one compared to what I could be and SHOULD be getting.

Q: Speaking of pensions, have you been following the news here regarding the Turnpike Scandal? The latest is that the retired officers involved were allowed to keep their pensions despite having admitted wrongdoing.

A: I've been closely following the news in Massachusetts and, reading between the lines as the story progressed, I suspected they'd be allowed to keep their pensions. The public was clamoring for them to lose them but, for reasons I won't go into because it'll take us down a rabbit hole, I knew that none of the retirees would lose their pensions.

Q: Do you think they should have lost them?

A: What I think doesn't really matter but I will go on the record as saying that the whole so-called scandal never really bothered me. I'm not saying that I support the Troopers involved, or their actions, but I understood their thought processes as they worked the system. Again, I'm not apologizing for them or defending them but, when you consider the big picture, you can see why they felt justified.

The State Police have endured several scandals that were publicized nearly simultaneously and I'm sure there are others that haven't come to light. You can be sure those Mass Pike Troopers knew of and saw a lot of shady, underhanded goings-on. When you observe all of these improprieties, the dysfunction; when you come to believe that nothing is, as we used to say, on the level; then your focus goes away from doing what is best for the team and the agency and you think only of yourself. An every man for himself attitude prevails and the focus is on feathering your own nest.

Now, in retrospect, it looks bad because, in a sense, they were stealing money but at the time they probably didn't see any problem with their actions; when compared to the disorder around them. There were two other scandals that hit simultaneously; the Leigha Genduso case and the one in Central Massachusetts where command threatened a Trooper with disciplinary action to force him to change his report, after he arrested a judge's daughter. (Ed. note: Two years later, the trooper got a $40,000 settlement to make his case against the MA State Police go away.)

In the Genduso case an unqualified candidate, she was an admitted drug trafficker, was placed on the job and given a plum K-9 position right out of the academy. It usually takes at least five years of exemplary service on the road before a Trooper can be considered for such a job. It was later determined that she was dating one of the most senior officers in the department so there was definitely an implication of a quid pro quo. She ultimately resigned with a dishonorable discharge when her record came to light.

So, if you were a road Trooper who tried to always do the right thing and you see impropriety all around you, you are going to say "To hell with it, I'm going to focus on me." Then, when there's an implication that a potentially improper action is OK because commanders are doing it, you are going to fall in line. Why? Because everybody is doing it and nobody at the command level is setting the proper example. I believe, in the right (or wrong) situation, I could have easily been sucked into such a scandal. I was well-aware of the dysfunction all around. More importantly, like a lot of other Troopers, my morale was so low that I became a reactive Trooper-answering and clearing my calls- instead of a proactive Trooper because I came to believe that nobody really cared. A lot of the older, seasoned Troopers felt the same way. Hence, my feelings for those Troopers in the Turnpike scandal are much more sympathetic than those of the general public. I attribute their actions to low morale and anger at the system and not necessarily greed.

Q: How do you think your story plays when compared to the most recent scandals?

A: I've always believed that my case is the culmination of all the State Police scandals of the last 30 years. What I mean is that you can see how incidents of the past served as a prelude to my case and how the successful cover-up of my case led those in positions of authority to believe they could get away with anything such as in the three cases that most recently came to light. Obviously, the facts of my case are more egregious. You were the first one to use the term "radioactive" and I find that absolutely appropriate. The case is so hot that attorneys, reporters and regulatory bodies like the Board of Bar Overseers were afraid to touch it. Everyone involved has just tried to cover it up and hope it goes away.

I quickly came to understand that I would not be able to get proper legal assistance until the case was publicized and that only the alternative media would have the desire and the means to properly investigate and publicize the story. I am currently working with a major Boston-area alternative publication and it has a record of doing the type of deep-digging investigative work that the mainstream press has long-since abandoned. Right now the focus, appropriately, is on the Coronapocalypse and, to a lesser degree, Tom Brady and the Patriots.

In fact, I think it's time to move on from the Tom Brady all day, every day stuff. Current events being what they are, sports are proving to be unimportant and superficial; though they do provide a distraction from daily stressors. It is evident that the Patriots aren't going to be very good for a while so I'd rather not think about THAT.

Q: I have to ask again- Do you still want your job with the State Police back?

A: Let me preface the answer with this: When I took this position at Fort Bragg I was told that our starting pay was more than that of the Fayetteville Police, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department and the North Carolina Highway Patrol. With some extra overtime it's easy to make $50,000 a year, a good income for this area, and that's still about 25% of what I could be making if I was working with the State Police. My focus isn't me, it is my son who is $100,000 in debt for his MBA degree. Now he wants to get a PhD and I'd like to help him. I don't see how the kids coming up can get a start in life when they're hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for college before they even get a career job. A house is inconceivable.

But, to answer the question, I honestly thought I was too old for police work and was shocked to find many of my classmates, fifty-ish men and women, still on the job. I suspect, like me, they have kids they're trying to put through school as they save up to ensure that they don't have to work after retirement like I do. I can't really comment on returning to the job until after I get this case resolved legally. Friends familiar with the story are constantly asking me what I WANT out of the deal. Well, what I DON'T want is an apology from anyone and I don't want anyone involved to lose their job or to be humiliated. In fact I'm willing to only go on the record with enough facts to make my case in a way that allows favorable resolution. Of course, I want an acknowledgement that I was wrongfully terminated and all the back pay and compensation that's applicable. More importantly, I want to make sure no Trooper or any police officer in Massachusetts has to go through what I've gone through. Hopefully my case sets a positive precedent going forward.

Q: So, do you really think the Patriots are going to suck next year?

A: Unfortunately.

(Disclaimer: The proprietor of this blog and Mr. Wilson have an ongoing years-long friendship, in which the former has benefited on several occasions by the generosity of the latter. However, that in no way, shape or form has influenced the blog owner’s decision to post an article about his case nor the content of what is written above.)