Editor’s note: In June 2023, independent journalist Andrew Quemere sued the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office over its refusal to release records of officers credibly accused of misconduct or crimes. In December, nearly four years after Quemere first requested those records, a judge ordered District Attorney David Sullivan — the top law enforcement official in Hampshire and Franklin counties — to release its “Brady” disclosures, as they’re known.
This article is the second in an ongoing series investigating those records and the misconduct allegations they reveal. The series is being co-published by The Shoestring and The Mass Dump, Quemere’s website.
“Somebody crashed into the bridge,” a 911 caller said. “There’s fluid leaking out. There’s a headlight in the middle of the road. … There’s an airbag deployed.”
When Greenfield police responded to the call just after midnight on Dec. 17, 2023, records show, they discovered an injured man sitting in a smashed-up black Infiniti Q50. The car had slammed headfirst into the base of a bridge on Country Club Road. Police later concluded the man had been operating under the influence of alcohol.
The sergeant in charge of the crash scene wrote in her report that she “immediately recognized” the alleged drunk driver’s name and that she knew him “to be a party employed by a local agency whom Officer’s [sic] of the Greenfield Police Department have worked with before.” The report did not identify the agency. But the man in the vehicle, Christopher Cooper, was an off-duty lieutenant for the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.
Cooper is one of at least five employees of the Franklin County and Hampshire County sheriffs’ offices alleged to have committed crimes or other misconduct, according to a cache of disclosures that the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office released in response to a Mass Dump lawsuit. The documents — referred to as “Brady” disclosures after a 1963 US Supreme Court decision — are meant to inform defendants in criminal cases about misconduct allegedly committed by officers testifying against them. Prosecutors are required to make these disclosures so that defendants can challenge the officers’ credibility in court.
The Brady disclosures offer a rare window into the secretive world of sheriffs’ offices, where misconduct is often shielded from outside scrutiny by Massachusetts’ weak public records law. And although the state Legislature passed a law to open up police-misconduct records to greater scrutiny in 2020 following Black Lives Matter protests, sheriffs’ offices have argued that corrections officers aren’t police and, therefore, that their misconduct records aren’t subject to records requests. That’s despite the fact that some corrections officers, including Cooper, are certified to work as law-enforcement officers in Massachusetts.
Franklin County Sheriff Lori Streeter did not respond to a request for comment. Joseph Bernard, an attorney who represented Cooper, did not respond to a request for comment. Efforts to reach Cooper directly were unsuccessful.
In addition to Cooper, two other employees named in the disclosures were charged with operating under the influence. Another was charged with assault and battery. And an internal investigation found another corrections officer, Hampshire County’s John Guertin, to “have been untruthful during an investigation about his August 2020 interaction with a female inmate,” records say.
The Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office also found that Guertin had “violated Rules and Regulations concerning association with inmates; off-duty conduct; and immoral conduct and indecency,” as well as rules concerning “Zero Tolerance for Sexual Abuse, Assault, Harassment, Domestic Violence and Stalking” and “Code of Ethics/Employee Conduct.”
The Brady disclosure for Guertin does not provide any other details about the corrections officer’s alleged misconduct, nor does it specify what disciplinary action the sheriff’s office took against him, if any.
State payroll records indicate that Guertin was still employed by the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office as a full-time corrections officer as of Oct. 17. His total pay for 2025 was $90,105, the records say.
A spokesperson said that the sheriff’s office “does not comment on personnel matters,” and efforts to reach Guertin were unsuccessful.
The sheriff’s office declined to release records from its internal investigation, saying the documents are personnel records that fall under a privacy exemption to the Massachusetts public records law.
When lawmakers updated the public records law in 2020 to make police-misconduct investigations more transparent, they updated that exemption, which now says that it “shall not apply to records related to a law enforcement misconduct investigation.” However, the sheriff’s office argued that this language does not apply to the records because the Hampshire County jail doesn’t perform police functions and therefore isn’t a law-enforcement agency as defined in the 2020 law.
After The Mass Dump and The Shoestring appealed that denial, the state’s supervisor of public records — the transparency watchdog who serves in the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office — agreed in a June decision that the sheriff’s office could withhold the records on this basis.
A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, the oversight agency for policing in the state, said the 2020 law only requires employees of sheriffs’ offices to be certified as law-enforcement officers if they perform police duties and functions.
“The statute did not stipulate other Sheriff’s Office employees who typically do not conduct police duties and functions, like corrections officers, as falling within the scope of the POST Commission,” the spokesperson said.
According to POST Commission records, the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office employs 12 people who are certified as law-enforcement officers as of October 16. Guertin isn’t among them.
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While sheriffs have resisted disclosing information about misconduct by corrections officers, a superior court judge ruled in December that the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office could not black out the names of law-enforcement officers charged of crimes contained in Brady disclosures. And the documents that prosecutors eventually turned over to The Mass Dump reveal alleged misconduct on the part of local corrections officers.
Two of the disclosures about employees of sheriffs’ offices were about incidents that were more than a decade old at the time The Mass Dump requested the documents. One disclosure concerned assault and battery and trespassing charges brought against an employee of the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office in 2000. Another described a 2010 misdemeanor larceny case involving an employee of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office as well as an OUI charge filed against the same employee in 2011.
But other cases highlighted in the documents were much more recent.
For example, Hampshire County corrections officer Peter Dudas was charged with operating under the influence of alcohol in 2024, according to a Brady disclosure and court records.
A Massachusetts state trooper pulled over Dudas after he allegedly veered his truck partially into the break-down lane on Western Avenue in Westfield on March 4, 2024, records show.
“When the truck was pulling over to the side of the road, the operator struck the curb, [and] as the operator corrected the truck’s location on the side of the road, they braked hard, causing the nose of [the] truck to dip before lurching back to a complete stop,” the state trooper wrote in his report.
Dudas said he had drunk alcohol earlier but did not have that much, and he had bloodshot, glassy eyes, slurred speech, and breath that smelled of alcohol, the report says. He declined to blow into a breathalyzer or take a field sobriety test, according to the document.
The trooper arrested Dudas. He was transported to the Hampden County jail after the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office said it could not accept him, records show.
Prosecutors later amended the OUI charge against Dudas to negligent operation of a motor vehicle, according to court records. A judge continued the charge without a finding in January 2025 and dismissed it after Dudas completed a year of probation, the records say.
Bernard, the attorney who represented Cooper in his OUI case, also represented Dudas. Bernard did not respond to a request for comment. Efforts to reach Dudas were unsuccessful.
Dudas’s arrest was recorded by a state trooper’s body camera, court records say. The Massachusetts State Police did not respond to a June records request for the video even though state law requires government agencies to respond to records requests within 10 business days. (This August, a Suffolk Superior Court judge ruled in an unrelated lawsuit that the state police have engaged in “pervasive” violations of the public records law for years.)
In response to a separate records request, the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office released redacted documents related to Dudas’ OUI arrest and other alleged misconduct. After The Mass Dump and The Shoestring filed an appeal to challenge the redactions, the sheriff’s office said that it had released the documents by mistake and that it later determined they were exempt personnel records.
Unlike Guertin, the POST Commission has certified Dudas to work as a law-enforcement officer in Massachusetts. However, the supervisor of public records sided with the sheriff’s office in a June decision.
“I find that where the Office has explained that the subject of the reports was not a law enforcement officer, nor the Office a law enforcement agency in its operation of the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction, the Office has demonstrated the responsive records are not ‘related to a law enforcement misconduct investigation,’” the supervisor wrote.
The redacted records the sheriff’s office did release included reports from an internal investigation that found Dudas violated rules about firearm safety when his “handling of [his] weapon caused the accidental discharge of a round” in January 2023.
According to the records, an armorer for the sheriff’s office provided a 9mm Glock to Dudas, who loaded the weapon and chambered a round while still in the armory.
“While you attempted to holster the Glock you accidentally depressed the trigger of the Glock and discharged one round which went through the bottom of your holster, struck the floor by your right foot, and ricocheted off the armory floor and landed across the hallway, near the entrance to the records office,” Hampshire County Sheriff Patrick Cahillane said in a written warning to Dudas that summarized the investigation’s findings.
“I am by this written warning providing you with the opportunity to correct your improper conduct,” Cahillane said.
The Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office continues to employ Dudas, according to POST Commission records. His total pay for 2025 was $90,756, state payroll records say.
Under the 2020 police reform statute, law-enforcement agencies must report all credible, non-minor complaints to the POST Commission within two business days. The POST Commission maintains a public disciplinary database that lists sustained allegations of officer misconduct. The database, which the commission last updated on Oct. 13, does not list any sustained findings of misconduct against Dudas.
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When police responded to the crash involving Cooper, the Franklin County lieutenant, in December 2023, Greenfield police officers Victor Placinta and Jedadiah Henry discovered Cooper in the car. Placinta told Cooper to remain in the vehicle after Henry said he was worried about a possible head injury, according to body camera video the police department released.
Placinta observed that Cooper smelled of alcohol and had slurred speech and glassy, bloodshot eyes, according to his report.
Eventually, emergency medical workers arrived and transported Cooper to a hospital, where a sergeant handed him a citation for driving under the influence of alcohol and speeding, police records say.
Asked by Placinta whether he had been drinking, Cooper said “a couple beers,” then added: “I’m being honest,” according to body camera video.
Cooper said he thought he had been driving 35 mph, the video shows. The posted speed limit was 15 mph, police records say.
Henry inventoried Cooper’s vehicle and found two six-packs of Miller High Life in the back, according to his report. There were eight full bottles, three broken or empty bottles, and enough glass to make another bottle, the report says.
Police did not ask Cooper to take a breathalyzer or field sobriety test, nor did they place him under arrest, body camera video and police records show.
Greenfield Police Chief Todd Dodge said via email that Cooper was not afforded special treatment.
“The individual was charged with OUI and other motor vehicle infractions but required extrication from his severely damaged vehicle,” Dodge wrote. “ANY person involved in a collision of this magnitude would be handled in the exact same manner this person was. He was immediately placed in a C-Spine Collar and put onto a gurney upon extrication.”
The investigation was led by Emily Rowell-Kanash, who at the time was a sergeant but became the Greenfield Police Department’s first female lieutenant in March. Rowell-Kanash was the officer who said in her report that she “immediately recognized” Cooper’s name.
Dodge said it was within policy for Rowell-Kanash to take charge of the investigation even though she knew Cooper.
“Officers of any agency know many people,” he said. “It seems strange to assume that an officer can’t investigate someone simply because they know them. Sgt. Rowell-Kanash was a Sergeant so she can investigate incidents that occur in Greenfield period.”
After walking away from the ambulance, Rowell-Kanash removed her body camera, placed it down, and walked out of frame, the video shows. She can be heard on the video speaking with someone, but her words are mostly unintelligible. Her report does not mention that she removed her camera nor does it explain why.
Dodge said that Greenfield Police Department policy does not prohibit officers from removing their body cameras. He said officers must document the reason for shutting off a body camera but not for removing one.
“Officers have been found to set their cameras down and walk away from them when sensitive conversations must take place,” he said. “This was a work around to the policy that only required cameras to remain on. We have addressed this issue since then and acknowledge that this technique appears to lack transparency.”
Dodge added: “The policy itself has not yet been formally amended. Officers still need to speak off the record at times. We’ve been discussing the proper protocol moving forward.”
According to Rowell-Kanash’s report, she called her supervisor, Christopher Greene, who at the time was a lieutenant but was promoted to deputy chief in 2025. Rowell-Kanash wrote that Greene was “the liaison between the Greenfield Police Department and Cooper’s agency of employment and [she] believed he should be made immediately aware of the incident.”
“I can’t speak to her intentions at the time of the call to Lt. Greene,” Dodge said. “I assume [Rowell-Kanash] didn’t feel that information was germane to the investigation. She was merely advising her boss of the incident. There is no specific training regulating this.”
Rowell-Kanash said in her report that she went to the hospital to speak with Cooper. The corrections officer said he had been traveling from the home of a friend whom Rowell-Kanash “recognized … to be another employee of the same agency [Cooper] is employed with,” according to her report. Rowell-Kanash wrote that she “had past professional dealings and trainings with [the friend] at this Department.”
A doctor told Rowell-Kanash that blood was drawn from Cooper, according to the report, but the document does not include the toxicology results. The police department’s records access officer said the department does not have the test results, which prosecutors would generally subpoena as part of their investigation.
Cooper pleaded to sufficient facts on May 7, 2025, according to court records. A judge found Cooper not responsible for the speeding charge and continued the OUI charge without a finding, suspending his license for 45 days and ordering him to complete a year of probation, the records say. Less than a year later, on Dec. 17, 2025, the judge agreed to terminate Cooper’s probation and dismissed the OUI charge, the records say.
A continuation without a finding is a common outcome for first-time OUI offenders in Massachusetts.
But it wasn’t the first time Cooper had been charged with driving under the influence. He was also charged with OUI in Southborough in September 2012, according to court records. He pleaded to sufficient facts and a judge continued the case without a finding, records say.
However, Cooper moved to vacate the plea in January 2025 in light of a 2023 Supreme Judicial Court decision, which found that 27,000 OUI cases had been tainted by the Massachusetts State Police’s failure to properly calibrate breathalyzer devices over the course of eight years. In his motion, Cooper argued that he had been coerced into pleading guilty due to the scientifically unreliable breath-test results police obtained.
A judge threw out Cooper’s plea on May 6, 2025, and prosecutors dropped the charges the following day, court records say. As a result, the judge in the second case treated Cooper as a first-time offender, according to courtroom audio of the plea hearing.
In response to a records request for misconduct-investigation records, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office said it was withholding what it described as Cooper’s “personnel file … which contains records of discipline unrelated to ‘law enforcement misconduct’ including discipline stemming from violations of [the] Office’s policies while off-duty and on-duty conduct in the performance of his duties in the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction.”
In a July decision, the supervisor of public records agreed that the records were exempt, even though Cooper is one of 34 employees of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office who are certified as law-enforcement officers by the POST Commission.
The POST Commission’s online disciplinary database shows that the sheriff’s office gave Cooper a 15-day suspension after sustaining an allegation of “conduct unbecoming” related to “criminal conduct.” The POST Commission redacted the details of the alleged conduct. The date listed in the records, Dec. 23, 2023, is one week after Cooper crashed his vehicle in Greenfield.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office continues to employ Cooper, according to POST Commission records. His total pay in 2025 was $122,299, state payroll records show.
Read more from Andrew Quemere at The Mass Dump.
Andrew Quemere is an independent investigative journalist from the Greater Boston area who writes about topics like wrongful convictions, police misconduct, and access to public records. He is the author of The Mass Dump newsletter.
