State Police in court this week for contempt hearing over dash cam footage

A Middlesex County Superior Court judge will hear arguments Tuesday over whether the State Police should face a fine for allegedly withholding dash camera footage from the night of a fatal cruiser crash.

The footage, obtained by the Herald last week, showed staties deciding to delay an interview with State Police Sgt. Scott Quigley, the driver of the cruiser, and worrying about the consequences he might face.

“Unless he’s s###-faced, I’m not worried,” one officer was caught saying on the audio. Allegations and hospital records have since surfaced that Quigley may have been intoxicated at the time.

Defense attorneys for brothers Billy, Billoeum, and Channa Phan who were investigated by Quigley and are now on trial for first-degree murder, said they never received that footage.

They received some body camera video from a lawyer for the State Police in early February and were told the agency had performed “a diligent search for all records related to Sgt. Quigley’s crash,” Channa’s counsel William Dolan wrote in a contempt filing Thursday. “That was not accurate.”

Dolan said he was unaware of the additional video until it appeared in the Herald. The MSP has since turned over the video.

“The footage that was withheld from the defendants in this case is HIGHLY suggestive of a cover-up from the MSP,” Dolan wrote. He cited several exchanges caught on the recording, including a conversation between a State Police lieutenant Sgt. Jennifer Penton, the officer who was investigating the crash that night in December 2023.

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“What I’m saying is that right now, it’s not the time for an interview,” the lieutenant says, telling her not to visit Quigley in the hospital that night.

Talking to another officer, Penton complains, “they don’t even want me to come, like I’m not freaking IA,” — an abbreviation that is usually short for internal affairs.

“They’re looking out for him,” she says of the higher ups. “Maybe they know it was his fault, and they’re like, ‘Woah woah woah, let’s just wait.’ ”

(Penton has been charged with manslaughter and perjury for a separate incident involving the death of a trooper trainee at the State Police academy in 2023.)

“Counsel asks that the Court consider that the MSP and/or its attorney be cited for contempt for either failing to do a diligent search when they told a court that one had been done, or for purposefully withholding this information,” Dolan wrote, suggesting a fine of $100. He also an additional search for records.

The accusation that Quigley was drunk at the time of the crash became a fixture of the Phan murder during jury selection last month. A separate wrongful death suit from the family of Angelo Schettino, the man killed in the 2023 crash, brought Quigley’s hospital records to the surface.

Quigley allegedly tested .114 after the crash. The legal limit is .08.

The revelation delayed brother’s trial, which is set to resume in April.

Since the intoxication allegation came to light, the Phan brothers’ attorneys have filed motions to hold an evidentiary hearing to learn more about the crash and to dismiss their case all together for potential prosecutorial misconduct.

They’ve argued that the Middlesex District Attorney, who is prosecuting the Phan case, must have known about the fatal crash and Quigley’s alleged blood alcohol level prior to the end of January, something the DA has denied.

The judge in the case could also have a decision on whether an evidentiary hearing by the time the contempt hearing is held at the Lowell division of the Middlesex Superior Court at 2 p.m. Tuesday.

This is the second trial for the Phan brothers, who are accused of killing 22-year-old Tyrone Phet in September 2020 as he sat in his car outside his apartment on Spring Avenue in Lowell.

The first trial ended in a hung jury.

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