Cronin v. Town of Amesbury

Citation895 F. Supp. 375
Decision Date25 July 1995
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 93-11890-PBS.
PartiesMichael A. CRONIN, Gail A. Cronin, and Angel A. Cronin, p.p.a. Michael A. Cronin, Plaintiffs, v. The TOWN OF AMESBURY; The Amesbury Police Department; The Board of Selectmen of the Town of Amesbury; Daniel F. Cleary; R. Claude Gonthier; John M. Koelsch; Joseph E. Leary; William R. McAdams; George A. Motsis; Donna L. Stuart; and Charles B. Wright, the Last Ten Both Individually and as Agents of the Town of Amesbury, Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

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Peter Antell, James D. Lindley, Antell & Associates, Boston, MA, for Michael A. Cronin, Gail A. Cronin, Angel A. Cronin.

Everett J. Marder, Kopelman and Paige, Boston, MA, Joseph L. Tehan, Jr., Kopelman & Paige, P.C., Boston, MA, for Town of Amesbury, The Amesbury Police Department, Board of Selectmen of the Town of Amesbury, Daniel F. Cleary, Nancy Gonthier, John M. Koelsch, Joseph E. Leary, William R. McAdams, George A. Motsis, Donna L. Stuart, Charles B. Wright.

Maura L. Sheehan, Espinosa & Associates, Boston, MA, Stephen J. Kiely, Boston, MA, Maura L. Sheehan, Law Office of Maura Sheehan, Boston, MA, for Daniel L. Bartley, Nancy Gonthier.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

SARIS, District Judge.

Plaintiff Michael A. Cronin ("Cronin") alleges that the Town of Amesbury Board of Selectmen, the Town Manager, and certain police officers conspired to terminate him from his position as the town's police chief, in violation of his right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Town Manager terminated Cronin on the ground that he lied when he denied under oath writing a pornographic letter. Cronin asserts violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, § 1985(3) and state law,1 and seeks compensatory and punitive damages and injunctive relief. Defendants have moved for summary judgment on the grounds, inter alia, that they did not violate plaintiff's procedural due process rights, and that they are protected under the doctrine of qualified immunity. After hearing, the Court ALLOWS defendants' motion for summary judgment on the federal civil rights claims and dismisses the pendent state claims without prejudice.

BACKGROUND

The Court treats the following facts as undisputed for purposes of this motion only.

a. The Letter

On January 9, 1988, Inspector Charles B. Wright, a defendant, was looking for petty cash as a flower donation for the funeral of the fire chief's mother in Chief Cronin's desk drawer at the Amesbury Police Department, while Cronin was on vacation. Wright found a sexually explicit, handwritten letter, written on yellow lined paper in response to an advertisement in a pornographic magazine. According to Wright, the letter was stuck in the petty cash location where funds were stored by the union to pay bills, although another officer who had looked in Cronin's desk earlier in the week did not remember seeing a letter there. Wright believed the writing to be that of Chief Cronin, and the letter was signed "Mike." He read it.

With some reluctance, the court repeats the first sentence of the letter, without which the reader cannot fully appreciate the context of this controversy. The letter, dated October 21, 1987, begins: "Hi, you sexy slut! I just saw your ad in the Looking Glass # 13 on page 14. My prick is stiff looking at you with that fat dildo ready to plunge into your pussy." The letter continues with similarly graphic language about consensual sexual activities the writer states he had with a girlfriend. The writer also stated that although he was white he liked seeing his "slut fucked by white and black." The letter concluded by asking the recipient to write "Mike" at I.M.S. at P.O. Box 741, Salisbury, MA 01952. The ad depicted a nude woman with ropes wrapped around her body.

The listed P.O. box was registered to International Marketing Services c/o Michael Cronin. The letter was never sent.

Wright showed the letter to colleagues: Sgt. McAdams, Officer Daniel F. Cleary, Inspector Joseph E. Leary, Officer Gary Wright, and Sergeant Ronald Fournier, who was then Acting Chief while Cronin was on vacation. The six officers made copies and then confronted Cronin on January 19, 1988. According to the defendant police officers, Cronin admitted that he had written the letter, that he had opened a post office box to respond to the advertisement, and that he had made a "serious mistake." He also said he had written the letter to assist a friend, then deceased, in the letter writing because the friend was being blackmailed. Cronin claimed he wrote the letter to get the blackmailer out in the open. Leary and Wright showed the letter to a police psychiatrist, Dr. John Berry, on February 23.

Cronin denies that he admitted authorship of the letter at that January meeting, and continues to do so.2 The original of the letter is missing, and there is a hotly disputed fact question as to whether Cronin, Wright, or another had destroyed or lost it.

Cronin met individually with each of the officers about the letter. The officers urged him to get counseling and to "lighten up" with the other police officers. Cronin informed Joseph Leary that he wrote the letter to protect a prominent person, Arthur Motsis, the father of defendant Selectman George Motsis, now a defendant.

More than two years later, on October 4, 1990, Cleary showed his copy of the letter to Reserve Officer Mark A. Valli because he felt Cronin was acting unfairly to Valli and wanted to give Valli "leverage" over Cronin. In a fight over his request for a night off to see a play with Cleary, Valli made clear to Cronin that he was aware of the letter's existence, and intimated that the other officers were prepared to "back" him. Valli testified that Cronin admitted writing the letter, that Cronin began crying, gave Valli the night off, and offered him $1,000 for Christmas gifts for his children. Other than Valli, no other officer requested anything of value in exchange for withholding disclosure of the document.

b. Dispute Over Connor

In October 1990, Wright, Cleary, Leary and McAdams complained to Chief Cronin that David Connor, newly elevated to the rank of sergeant, acted improperly in his behavior on four occasions. After investigation, Cronin declined to act on this complaint because he believed the complaining officers were having a personality conflict with Connor.

On February 1, 1991, Wright, Cleary, Leary and McAdams, and two others, complained to Town Manager Michael Basque about Cronin's handling of the Connor investigation. Basque also declined to act on the complaint. When Cleary, and others, returned to Basque to ask him about the investigation, he said: "I'm not working for you guys." Cronin was in Basque's office at the time Basque made this statement. Cronin and Basque had a longstanding professional relationship and their wives were co-investors in a local travel agency.

On February 6, 1991, the four police officers brought their complaints to defendant Selectman R. Claude Gonthier at Gonthier's house. Selectman Motsis was also present. In addition to reviving their complaint regarding Connor, they raised a new and volatile charge. They produced a photocopy of the sexually explicit letter that was discovered in Cronin's desk drawer and claimed it was written by Cronin. The officers expressed concern that the letter was demeaning to women and blacks, and might reflect a mental imbalance that would hinder Cronin in the performance of his duties. The officers told the Selectmen that Cronin had explained to them that he wrote the letter to assist a deceased Amesbury citizen who was the subject of blackmail — Motsis' father.

At Gonthier's urging, another meeting about Cronin and the letter was held at the Pow Wow Villa between the five selectmen and seven police officers: Cleary, Leary, the Wright brothers, Richard Pulin, McAdams and Valli. On February 12, 1991, Gonthier held another meeting with Leary, Cleary and Wright to discuss a conversation with Dr. Berry about Cronin's mental health.

On February 13, 1991, at the initiative of Gonthier, the full Board of Selectmen (including defendant George A. Motsis), the Town Manager, Town Counsel and Donna Stuart, as administrative assistant, convened in a closed-door executive session to hear the complaints made by the defendant officers. Cronin was not notified, called to testify, or allowed to confront witnesses.

c. The Termination of Cronin

On March 1, 1991, the Board placed Chief Cronin and Sergeant Connor on paid leave, pending an investigation into the police department. At the recommendation of the Board, Manager Basque later appointed McAdams to the position of Acting Chief, and Cleary to the position of Acting Sergeant. On July 23, 1991, after investigation, the state Attorney General's Office declined to prosecute either Connor or Cronin. Shortly thereafter, defendant Gonthier unsuccessfully tried to pressure Cronin into resigning because he believed Cronin had written a pornographic letter and the "chief of police cannot hold the position in town with that letter attached to him." Cronin refused.

In October 1991, after public hearings concerning the charges against Connor, at which new allegations of brutality came to light, Connor was terminated by Manager Basque.

d. The Demotion of Cronin

Between January and April, 1992, Acting Town Manager Joseph Fahey investigated the charges against Cronin, who was still on administrative leave. At the end of the investigation, Fahey reported to the Board that he would bring only three charges against Cronin, and recommend at most a 60-day suspension. On April 27, 1992, the Board fired Fahey, and Defendant Donna Stuart, a former administrative assistant to the Board, was appointed as Acting Town Manager to replace him. On April 28, 1992, one day following her appointment, without conducting an...

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