After years of scandals, have the Massachusetts State Police turned a corner? 

Massachusetts State Trooper No. 8 had just been arrested and charged with overtime fraud earlier that morning when the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts sat down for a roundtable interview with reporters.

“It appears necessary, at least from what we’ve seen so far, to clean house a little bit at the State Police,” said Andrew Lelling, the prosecutor at the time.

The Augean stables, which were flushed as one of the 12 labors of Hercules, might have been a more apt idiom than “clean house.” Since the arrest and the interview inside the Moakley Courthouse occurred five years ago, the federal prosecutors at Moakley Courthouse have issued a steady stream of indictments and press releases outlining alleged corruption within the ranks of the statewide law enforcement agency, which has been without a permanent leader for over a year.

That stream includes the former president of the State Police’s union, who was sentenced to 30 months last year for racketeering, obstruction of justice, and tax crimes. Along with the union’s former lobbyist, he was accused of running the union as a “criminal enterprise for their own personal financial benefit.” Earlier this month, a former State Police sergeant was sentenced to three years in prison, days after a former lieutenant and co-conspirator was sentenced to five years. The overtime fraud scheme dated back to 2015, and they and other troopers stole thousands of dollars “by regularly arriving late to, and leaving early from” overtime shifts.

This past January, prosecutors indicated they’d opened up a new front, with troopers allegedly available to be bought off at bargain prices: Four current and former troopers were hit with a 74-count indictment that alleged they conspired to pass some people who applied for commercial driver’s licenses (needed for driving tractor-trailers and school buses) in exchange for bribes, including bottled water, a new driveway, and a snow blower.

Under the State House’s golden dome, there’s been little interest over the years among legislators to take stock of the theft of public funds and abuse of public trust, and whether the agency has been truly reformed. (That’s in contrast to their counterparts in Connecticut, who have raised questions about their own troopers.)

As for the executive branch, the State Police fall under Gov. Maura Healey’s public safety secretariat, whose cabinet chief is Terrence Reidy, a former county-level prosecutor. Asked on Tuesday about the state of the State Police, Reidy, who was leaving an unrelated event on Beacon Hill, skittered towards an elevator while directing inquiries to a spokesperson.

“The vast majority of the nearly 3,000 sworn and civilian members of the MSP perform their jobs with the utmost professionalism and compassion every day,” a statement released later in the day said.

Healey in February 2023 appointed Lt. Col. John Mawn Jr., a member of the State Police since 1993, as its interim colonel, and the search for a permanent leader is in its final stages, according to an administration spokesperson. Candidate interviews are underway, and the search has seen both external and internal contenders, though further details, like Reidy, were unavailable.

To be sure, state officials can tout a host of reforms since 2018, including body cameras, GPS locators in State Police vehicles, routine payroll audits, and a unit of the state inspector general’s office within State Police’s headquarters.

The inspector general’s office filed a report in April and flagged paid details, which are often lucrative for troopers as they watch over roadwork or handle security for a state agency or business. The office found data that “raises concerns that in prior years troopers may have misrepresented the number of hours they worked.” The report said they would continue to monitor data for “costs, accuracy and transparency.”

Lelling, the federal prosecutor whose office launched the State Police investigations, was unable in 2018 to provide an endpoint to the trials of the agency. He noted that when it comes to public corruption cases, “you need the feds,” because state or local prosecutors can have conflicts of interest, relationships that are “too close for comfort,” or there aren’t enough resources. He stepped down from the job in 2021, and prosecutions continue under Joshua Levy, whose office is handling the commercial licenses cases.

When asked the same question as Reidy — whether the State Police had finally cleaned house — a Levy spokesperson wrote simply, “No comment.”

Tom Nolan, a criminologist and former Boston Police officer, said he was skeptical that the State Police are making major headway with reforms. “The State Police, culturally, is an insular organization,” he said.

He acknowledged that the governor, under the 2020 police reform law, now has the authority to appoint as the agency’s leader someone outside the ranks of the State Police. But, he added, “I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone, a high caliber, widely respected candidate who is a CEO of a law enforcement agency who will take that job…That would be a daunting challenge for anyone from the outside.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.