Former Fall River cop Michael Pessoa will face three trials for using excessive force

FALL RIVER — A Fall River Superior Court judge has ordered that Michael Pessoa, the former Fall River police officer accused of assaulting and violating the civil rights of three men while they were in custody, be afforded three separate trials, one for each alleged victim.

According to court records, one trial is still set to begin on Feb. 27.

In a Dec. 15 ruling, Judge Renee Dupuis agreed with Pessoa’s defense attorney, Frank Camera, who argued that the cases with each victim should be tried separately against the 17-year veteran patrol officer. Dupuis noted in her order that the three alleged incidents were unrelated.

The Bristol County District Attorney's office had requested the cases be joined.

A grand jury indicted Pessoa in June 2019 on 15 counts of assault, civil rights violations and filing false police reports, originally for assaulting four detained men in different instances.

The case involving the alleged fourth victim was dismissed.

Michael Pessoa, the former Fall River police officer accused of assaulting and violating the civil rights of three men while they were in custody will be afforded three separate trials, one for each alleged victim.
Michael Pessoa, the former Fall River police officer accused of assaulting and violating the civil rights of three men while they were in custody will be afforded three separate trials, one for each alleged victim.

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Pessoa is accused of assaulting and injuring Carlos Roldan in October 2014; Aliecer Rodriguez in March 2018; and David Lafrance in February 2019. All were in custody and handcuffed.

The alleged assault on Lafrance by Pessoa was caught on video surveillance camera outside his South Main Street apartment, which was brought to the attention of authorities by his defense attorney the following May.

At the time the video surfaced, Pessoa was placed on paid leave by the Fall River Police Department.

After the indictment, the Bristol County District Attorney Tom Quinn dropped all pending criminal charges against the four men.

Pessoa was fired from the Fall River Police Department in early 2022.

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Civil lawsuits

At the time of his suspension, Fall River had already paid out $237,000 to settle two excessive-force lawsuits involving Pessoa.

In one agreement, the city paid $225,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by Roldan, who accused Pessoa of severely fracturing his leg during an arrest in October 2014, under the leadership of retired Police Chief Daniel Racine.

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Pessoa was named a defendant in a 2009 federal civil rights lawsuit over excessive force for his part in the alleged beating of a 16-year-old boy in April 2006, which landed the teenager in Rhode Island Hospital with a lacerated spleen. The city settled that lawsuit for $12,000.

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In April 2021, the city settled a third lawsuit for $32,000 to Kimberly Viera. Her claim, which was filed in federal court in October 2020, said Pessoa took her into custody and assaulted her in his patrol car after she videotaped him and another officer on her cellphone while they detained two of her friends as they were standing in a check-out line at a local retail store in October 2017.  

Lafrance filed his own civil lawsuit in January 2022, which is pending in federal court.

Pessoa is also named as one of nearly two dozen officers in a $34 million lawsuit related to a police-involved shooting in the Fall River Industrial Park in 2019, where 19-year-old Larry Ruiz-Barreto was killed.

Fall River patrol officer Nicholas Hoar shot Ruiz-Barreto six times while Ruiz-Barreto sat in his car. A Bristol County District Attorney's Office report cleared Hoar of wrongdoing. But Hoar has his own pending criminal trouble. Hoar was recently indicted by a federal grand jury for civil rights violations after an FBI investigation into the assault of William Harvey while he was in custody at police headquarters in December 2020.

Harvey settled a lawsuit for $65,000 with the city for the alleged assault.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Judge: Ex-Fall River police officer Michael Pessoa can separate trials