Former Fall River police officer asking for separate trials; gets new trial date
FALL RIVER — A new trial date has been set for Michael Pessoa, the former Fall River police officer accused of assaulting and violating the civil rights of three men while they were in custody.
As the more than three-year-old case is set for trial on Feb. 27, during a hearing on Wednesday Fall River Superior Court Judge Renee Dupuis considered a motion made by Pessoa’s defense attorney, Frank Camera, for separate trials on the three cases of excessive force on the alleged victims.
Pessoa's trial has been continued twice.
Pessoa was indicted in June 2019 on 15 counts of assault, civil rights violations and filing false police reports after he was indicted by a grand jury, originally for assaulting four detained men in different instances.
The case involving the alleged fourth victim was dismissed.
Prosecution wants cases joined
The Bristol County District Attorney’s office asked Dupuis to join the three remaining cases for trial.
“The acts themselves would suggest that the defendant was involved in conduct that he was abusing people,” said Bristol County AssistantDistrict Michael Cahillane.
There is other evidence, Cahillane said, that will show Pessoa’s conduct was done under “color of authority.”
“Similar offenses does not equal a pattern of conduct,” Camera told the judge.
Pessoa is accused of assaulting and injuring Carlos Roldan in October 2014; Aliecer Rodriguez in March 2018; and David Lafrance in February 2019, all while in custody and handcuffed.
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Cases 'separate and distinct'
“This is not a single source of conduct,” Camera argued. “These are separate events, evidence derived from each separate event are not going to be questionable. Whatever occurred in each separate event, stays in each of those separate events.”
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“The evidence is separate and distinct,” said Camera.
The defense attorney said joining the cases would be “incredibly and substantially unfair and prejudicial.”
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Camera noted that the alleged victims are not necessarily of the same ethnic background, nor had they committed similar crimes.
After Pessoa’s indictment in 2019, Bristol County District Attorney Tom Quinn dropped criminal charges against the three men and Luke Raffa, the fourth alleged victim named in the indictment that was ultimately dismissed.
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The dismissals were made because during the grand jury, it was discovered that three of Pessoa’s fellow officers had lied on their police reports concerning the arrests.
Pessoa was fired from the Fall River Police Department last January.
The same month, Thomas Roberts who had been fighting his termination from the department since 2019 after it came to light in Herald News reports that he and another officer, Shawn Aguiar, received immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony against Pessoa and admitting to filing false reports.
Aguiar voluntarily left the police department, as did former police officer Andre DeMelo, also accused of filing false police reports. He resigned from the police force on the day of Pessoa’s indictment in June 2019, and did not testify in the grand jury.
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Embattled former city police officer asking for separate trials; gets new trial date
