City manager: Investigation of Worcester police chief will be reported to state

WORCESTER — City Manager Eric D. Batista acknowledged Thursday that a 2021 investigation of Police Chief Steven M. Sargent should have been reported to the state’s recently created police oversight board, and said the city is in the process of reporting it.

Batista, who became acting city manager in June 2022 and permanent city manager the following November, said on Thursday that he wasn’t aware of the investigation until a public records request for the resulting report was filed this spring. The investigation was conducted under the tenure of prior City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr.

“When I became aware of (the investigation), we took the necessary steps to make sure this was reported,” Batista told the Telegram & Gazette in an interview.

Augustus, now the state’s secretary for housing and living communities, declined an interview request Friday.

As the T&G reported earlier this month, a 2021 investigation by the law firm Mirick O’Connell found that Sargent engaged in a “pattern of inappropriate behavior” toward an officer in the service division.

However, when the state’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission earlier this month published a database of officers who had been the subjects of sustained complaints, Sargent’s name was not included.

Batista said the Police Department, which did not acknowledge a request for comment, is the only entity that can report to POST, something he said it couldn’t have done previously because it didn’t have the report.

Most investigations of police officers are conducted by the Police Department Bureau of Professional Standards, which made the department’s submission to POST.

But the investigation into the chief was handled through the city human resources department because of the chief’s position, Batista said, and the files were maintained there.

In addition to being conducted under a different city manager, the investigation was also overseen by a different human resources director, Batista said.

Janice Thompson, a lawyer who handles public records request for the city and who sat in on Thursday’s interview, said the city has passed the investigation along to the Bureau of Professional Standards within the past several weeks.

Because the report is not written in the same format as other bureau reports, which issue findings differently than Mirick O’Connell did, police and city officials are working, Batista said, to translate the findings into the proper format.

“We’re working directly with BOPS to make sure the right language and information is in the report, so that it’s properly reported to POST,” he said.

In an interview Aug. 24, Enrique Zuniga, executive director of the POST Commission, told the T&G that the commission is continuously working to update its list and would look into all potential omissions.

On Aug. 25, the T&G asked the commission for comment on Sargent’s omission from the newly published database. The commission declined to do so, writing in an email, “At this time, we are not commenting on individual instances.”

Batista said Thursday that the POST Commission has not reached out to the city regarding Sargent’s records.

Allegations of harassment by chief

Robert J. Belsito, the officer who filed the complaint that led to the 2021 probe, is threatening to sue the city over allegations Sargent has been harassing him this year.

Belsito, in written letters to the city, accused Sargent of driving his cruiser toward him aggressively during an April 15 incident.

An outside firm is again investigating, and Sargent has declined interview requests.

Belsito’s lawyer, Timothy M. Burke, has alleged that Sargent has recently retaliated against Belsito, including by looking into the possibility of eliminating the court unit where the officer works.

The T&G recently obtained a memo showing Sargent did ask about the feasibility of eliminating the unit. The memo, written by a deputy chief, noted numerous challenges that would present.

The department told the T&G that the memo had been ordered as part of a process of evaluating efficiencies as a result of staffing issues, and that the idea was rejected after the chief read the memo.

Burke, in a letter to the city in July, wrote that city officials had ample reason to place Sargent on leave pending the pending investigation.

He alleged that Sargent, as a result of the 2021 probe, was threatened with discipline, including possible termination, if he failed to improve.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester Police Chief Steven Sargent case going to POST Commission