State police officers accused of commercial driver's license fraud suspended without pay

The Massachusetts State Police are revealing more details into an alleged conspiracy and bribery investigation involving six people including both former and current Massachusetts state troopers.

The agency said Wednesday that Sgt. Gary Cederquist and Trooper Joel Rogers have been suspended without pay indefinitely.

Cederquist, of Stoughton, and Rogers, of Bridgewater, were among the six indicted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts on charges of extortion, mail fraud, conspiracy, making false statements and falsification of records.

Retired troopers Calvin Butner, of Halifax, and Perry Mendes, of Wareham, were both taken into custody in Florida. Two civilians were also indicted, Scott Camara of Rehoboth, an instructor at a truck driving school in Brockton; and Eric Mathison of Boston, a water supply company employee.

The 74-page indictment alleges the defendants gave passing commercial driver's license scores to at least two dozen drivers who had, in reality, failed the test. The indictment also accuses the defendants of overlooking violations that would otherwise produce an immediate failure including vehicle inspections.

Wednesday, the state police said "the Department continues to cooperate with federal prosecutors in the investigation and prosecution of the alleged offenses."

In a press release, the agency said it was made aware of the federal investigation into the members of the commercial driver's license unit in late 2022 and immediately took action, launching an internal investigation. The department also launched an internal audit of the unit, which revealed "multiple processes requiring modernization, greater internal controls, and increased accountability."

In 2023, the state police implemented a number of reforms to the unit that, the press release said, would "significantly improve efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability," including:

• Required use of body-worn cameras for all commercial driver's license exams

• Increased frequency of unannounced visits by unit supervisors to examiners at training sites

• Modernized unit record-keeping with required electronic documentation and the use of an online case management system, allowing for enhanced accountability, accuracy and supervision

• Added two new sergeants to the unit with prior experience, who have instituted operational changes that increased efficiency and supervision

• Created a new position responsible for supervising and coordinating all aspects of commercial driver's license unit training including scheduling, curriculum, procedures, vehicle acquisition and maintenance, and record keeping

• Developed new training procedures that establish acceptable time frames for training, standards for instructors and accountability standards for students and instructors

• Developed a new curriculum that establishes learning benchmarks for each day and each phase of training

• Modified existing monthly in-service training and ongoing development of new annual in-service training for commercial driver's license unit examiners

• Added new troopers to the unit and reassigned staff to high-demand training sites, resulting in improved service to the public, significantly reduced scheduling wait times for test takers and increased oversight over the sites

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Mass. State Police troopers accused of CDL fraud suspended without pay