Cop gets prison for perjury

A Boston police officer has been sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison after being convicted in federal court for perjury and obstruction of justice — even as defenders of President Clinton were suggesting impeachment was too serious a punishment for his apparent lies under oath.

United States Attorney Donald K. Stern and Bill Lann Lee, acting assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, announced last month that Kenneth M. Conley, 29, of South Boston, a seven-year veteran of the Boston Police Department, was ordered to serve his sentence, which includes two years of supervised release and payment of a $6,000 fine. After a six-day jury trial in June, Conley was convicted of one count of perjury before a federal grand jury and one count of obstruction of justice. The jury acquitted Conley on one count of perjury.

“This sentence stands as an important message to those who would come before any grand jury and lie or attempt to obstruct the investigation,” said Stern. “In this case, it is even more troubling that the grand jury witness who lied was a police officer. However, the grand jury’s investigation of this deplorable incident will continue.”

According to evidence presented at the trial, the grand jury was conducting a criminal civil rights investigation into an incident which occurred on Woodruff Way in Mattapan on Jan. 25, 1995. The investigation was focused on whether members of the Boston Police Department had unlawfully assaulted and failed to provide medical care to an individual, later determined to be Officer Michael Cox, who was attempting to capture a fleeing suspect when the unlawful assault occurred.

The evidence showed Cox, who was in plainclothes, chased a suspect to a
fence as the suspect jumped over the fence. Before Cox could go after him, he
was mistaken for a suspect, struck on the head with a flashlight by a uniformed Boston police officer and then kicked repeatedly by other Boston police officers. When Cox’s identity as a police officer was revealed, the police officers left him bleeding and injured.

The evidence showed that Conley was in one of the first few responding police cars on the scene. When called to testify before the grand jury and compelled to testify by a court order of immunity, the jury found that Conley gave false testimony about what he observed in the moments preceding the beating when he denied seeing Cox pursue and grab hold of a suspect as that suspect ran toward and climbed a fence in his attempt to get away from police.

Although Conley was found not guilty on the perjury count which charged him with falsely denying that he saw police officers beat Cox, the jury convicted him of obstructing justice by giving evasive and misleading testimony and withholding information from the grand jury.

At the sentencing before U.S. District Judge Robert E. Keeton Sept. 29, the court stated that, “[Conley] put his loyalty to fellow police officers ahead of his responsibility to the public interest to tell the truth.”

The case is still being investigated by special agents of the FBI and officers from the anti-corruption division of the Boston Police Department. The prosecution was conducted by Assistant U.S. Attorney S. Theodore Merritt of Stern’s public corruption and special prosecutions unit and attorney Sheryl L. Robinson of the criminal section.

More than 100 persons are currently serving time in jail for committing perjury in the United States.