Robert E. Anthony Historian. What the jury did not know was that Detectives Acera and Robinson had been robbing drug dealers for over a decade with Mulligan allegedly in on the action from time to time. While Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley says he strongly disagrees with the decision to vacate the jurys verdict, he hasn't yet decided to refile charges. Read On for full details-, By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN, Boston Phoenix9/13/2006 BOSTON, MA - MARCH 10: BOSTON, MA - MARCH 10: Retired Boston police Detective Walter Robinson, pursued by the media, leaves Federal Court in downtown Boston after an arraignment on March 10, 1997, next to his lawyer Joseph Jabar, left. Dana Curhan, a Boston defense attorney who specializes in appeals, said that the failure of police to turn over the report until now could lead to a new trial for Ellis, who was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence without parole. See 7(1). I dont think hes fully paid for what he did., Prosecutors at the time also fired back, saying that Balls findings did not present one single piece of evidence that contradicts the strong evidence that proved Ellis guilt at trial., In our judgment, this was a conviction based on direct, reliable, corroborated evidence, Jake Wark, a spokesman for then-Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley, told the Globe. Accordingly, CRAB denied Robinson's application for benefits. The trial evidence and testimony in 1995 proved Mr. Ellis guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The trio helped secure witnesses and physical evidence from Mulligans murder, Ball, the Suffolk Superior Court judge, wrote in 2015. COOK committed suicide when police raided the apartment he was hiding in after he killed a jail guard and escaped. The senior Ellis admitted she had called the police before on her own son. Black Cop Beaten by fellow officers Keeler is the perfect example of the highly decorated cop who is also despicably dirty. On January 7, 1997, PERAC remanded the matter to the board, citing Robinson's potential noncompliance with the notice provisions of 7(1), the lack of incident reports supporting the application, and the board's failure to articulate its reasons for rejecting the ultimate conclusion of its hearing officer. When the board met, it rejected the recommendation of the hearing officer without explanation. Should such an unlikely event occur on some future date, Robinson is not without a remedy. Her aunt had been romantically involved with him. Full story on Detective Keeler from the BOSTONPHOENIX, Read the full story about BPD Drug Dealers. He tweets @WalterVRobinson. Background. **This report was produced in cooperation with the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis. John Mulligan. A forensic examiner initially reported finding Pattersons fingerprints on the vehicle. * Officer Thomas Traynor, who was sent to the ID unit from Area A-1 in December 1996 after a federal drug informant claimed he drank beer with Traynor and his partner in their cruiser outside a downtown after-hours police club just before he got into a fatal accident on Route 128. Keeler was later assigned to a regular homicide squad. The indictments did not, however, end activity related to Robinson's application for accidental disability retirement benefits. Homicide for his remarkable track record of clearing more than 200 murder cases. 2. Hearings on the motion will resume in November. In the Mulligan investigation, Robinson and Acerra were instrumental in getting the key prosecution eyewitness to identify Ellis as the person she saw outside the Walgreens around the time of Mulligans murder. In that flap, Keeler was defending his BPD colleagues use of statements given by Jordan while under a federal-immunity deal, a maneuver that infuriated the US attorneys. Mulligan was killed on Sept. 26, 1993. While sitting in a Ford Explorer during a paid detail in front of a Walgreens store in Roslindale, Mulligan was shot five times in the face with a .25 caliber pistol, and his service pistol was stolen. Sean Ellis was 21 years old when he was convicted for the 1993 murder of Boston Police Det. For people with disabilities needing assistance with the Public Files, contact Glenn Heath at 617-300-3268. A report on the allegation that Detective Walter Robinson and Mulligan robbed a drug dealer at gunpoint in 1991 was prepared by the Police Departments Anti-Corruption Unit in November 1993, but was never provided to the defense lawyers of the man convicted of Mulligans murder. Detective Sgt. This segment aired on November 3, 2015. These communications continued back and forth: PERAC remanded the matter for a second time to the board, the board submitted Robinson's application for a third time, PERAC again remanded the matter for further proceedings, and Robinson appealed the remand order to the Contributory Retirement Appeal Board (CRAB), pursuant to G. L. c. 32, 16(4). The hearing officer recommended that Robinson's application for accidental disability retirement benefits be denied. The 2015 movie about the reporting, "Spotlight," won Oscars. Robinson also stands just off camera from the. In September 1992, authorities were called after her son allegedly left their house with the child of her then-boyfriend following an argument. Walter Robinson, a former Boston police officer, appeals from the denial of his application for accidental disability retirement benefits. Detective Gregory Gallagher in the buttocks with Gallaghers own gun. In addition to the headline-grabbing acquittals, still other issues haunted Keeler. In 2005, following Walter Robinsons release from federal prison, he filed a report to receive accidental disability retirement benefits, the initial application for which he had submitted years before his arrest when he was first diagnosed with PTSD. The eight-part series begins with Ellis out on bail. I cant visualize it, even in his deepest anger, that my son would take somebodys life, she said. Walter Robinson of Belgrade, Maine, joined the Boston Police Department back in 1970, becoming a detective just four years later. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google. You already receive all suggested Justia Opinion Summary Newsletters. cultural appropriation dreadlocks 0 items / $ 0.00. Still, in 2016, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of a new trial for Ellis based on the new evidence of corruption inherent in the case, including that the FBI had heard there was a contract out for Mulligans murder and that he and other detectives robbed a marijuana dealer of over $26,000 weeks before his death, according to theGlobe. 58 , 59-60 (1991). Phillip Martin is a senior investigative reporter for the GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis. But when his request was denied, he took the matter to court, where a judge dismissed it, calling the case moot.. But Boston Police Detective Daniel Keeler, who worked the original murder investigation, said he had no doubt that Ellis was guilty and told Judge Carol Ball as much during the hearing for a new trial. Walter works as Editor-at-Large at The Boston Globe, since May 2014. Walter Robinson, Kenneth Acerra, and John Brazil played pivotal roles in the investigation against Ellis. }Customer Service. SUN/Julia Malakie. Published on : 08:30 PST, Nov 11, 2020 Kenneth Acera (L), Walter Robinson (R) (Getty Images) Netflix's latest docuseries, 'Trial 4' focuses on the story of Sean Ellis, a Black man who was wrongfully convicted of the crime of murdering Boston Police Department's Detective John Mulligan in 1993. Walter Robinson resigned from the Boston Police Department around that same time, and in 1998, he pleaded guilty to reduced federal charges. He was indicted on theft, extortion and conspiracy charges, allegedly stealing more than $250,000 in 56 . Leonard D. Robinson, 22, of Lowell, is arraigned in Lowell District Court, Tuesday, Nov. 30, in connection with the homicide of Dejah Jenkins-Minus, 22, of Boston. An error occurred. Together, we can create a more connected and informed world. A former Boston transit cop and two sergeants were charged Wednesday for allegedly beating up a homeless man and then covering up the attack. Boston Globe editor-at-large Walter Robinson, right, and far left, Michael Keaton playing him in 2015 Academy Award-winning film Spotlight. They knew that the people they had working on the Mulligan task force, in particular, Detective Robinson, was accused of participating in a robbery with Mulligan.. Still, police were shocked that someone would shoot a cop; not once but five times in the face as he slept in his SUV while on a paid detail in Roslindale on September 26, 1993. east lyme police logs. These guilty pleas were the equivalent of final convictions and automatically triggered the pension forfeiture statute. After his death, he was remembered for racking up hundreds of arrests. 2:25 NEW YORK Not many people can say that Michael Keaton is their doppelgnger. It was fear of a new boss that prompted longtime Boston Globe journalist Walter "Robbie" Robinson and his investigative team to get the ball rolling on its Pulitzer Prize-winning series about the Catholic church's cover-up of sexual abuse by priests in the Boston . John R. Ellement can be reached at [email protected]. Boston police allowed a detective to participate in the 1993 investigation into the murder of another detective, John J. Mulligan, though police had been told that the pair had robbed a drug dealer together, newly released Boston police records show. In December 2004, a jury acquitted one of the two men accused of killing 10-year-old Trina Persad in 2002. [Note 1]. Robinson's early lyricist education was enriched by the mentorship of world-renowned Jewish lyricist E.Y. All flags on Boston Police facilities will be lowered to half-staff effective immediately until sunset on the day of interment, in honor of former United States Congressman from Massachusetts, John Walter Olver, who passed away on February 23, 2023. The city paid the beaten officer, Michael A. Cox, $1 million for his injuries. How Old Is Walter Robinson. October 2006 A Boston Police officer is indicted in Suffolk Superior Court in connection with the shooting of a fellow officer that took place while both men were off duty and allegedly drunk after leaving bars this summer. John Mulligan. Robinson joined the Boston police department (department) in 1970. Arrests and acquittals. He was relentless.. On March 4 and March 30, 1998, hearings on the matter were held before an administrative magistrate of the Division of Administrative Law Appeals. Mit unserem einfachen Abonnement erhalten Sie Zugriff auf die besten Inhalte von Getty Images. But his reputation in the department faltered in the years before his death. As part of a plea agreement, the two fired officers pleaded guilty to one count each of civil rights violations, extortion and tax violations. After a few wisecracks about poker games and old age, investigations editor Walter V. "Robby" Robinson, played by Michael Keaton, notes that the Globe's enigmatic new top editor is arriving in. Robinson commenced this action in November, 1998, claiming error in the denial of his application. Five months after Sean Ellis's conviction, the Boston Globe's award-winning investigative Spotlight Team broke the story of major corruption in Boston's Area E-5 station house -- the professional home of victim John Mulligan and task force investigators Kenneth Acerra, Walter Robinson, and John Brazil (until 1992). The family members, who asked not to be identified, also had said Hood and Patterson knew one another, the newspaper reported. Any determination of medical eligibility under 7(1) therefore would be purely academic. 2. PULIDO and PIZARRO have been BPD officers since 1996 and CARRASQUILLO since 1999. In this diversity action, Plaintiff Walter Robinson alleges that Defendants, The Globe Newspaper Co. ("Globe") and reporter Mitchell Zuckoff ("Zuckoff"), defamed him in a series of articles appearing in the Boston Globe and The Boston Sunday Globe between February 10, 1996 and March 6, 1996. (A judge later called the episode deeply troubling: Maloney was suspended for 30 days but Keeler was not disciplined.) The incident started when Behnke tried to convince Durkin that he (Durkin) was too drunk to drive and should remain at Behnkes home. He has since pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Patterson was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and illegal possession of a firearm and sentenced to life in prison in Feb. 1995; however, he was granted a new trial after the. In that same case, the defense attorney forced Keeler to admit to making false statements in an affidavit seeking search warrants which some consider even more damaging to his credibility in future trials. And in 1986, Mulligan was mentioned in a federal corruption probe of the force, in which a drug dealer testified the detective was among many officers who protected his operations in exchange for payoffs, the Globewrote following Mulligans death. Listen Live: Classic and Contemporary Celtic, Listen Live: Cape, Coast and Islands NPR Station, Boston nonprofit Street2Ivy is producing this generation's entrepreneurs. In 1992, he was branded as a problem officer by the department, whose internal audit found he ranked fifth out of its 1,950 officers for having the most complaints filed against him. *Humboldt Shooting Det. By the late 90s he was supervising the late-night squad which put him in charge of hundreds of violent-crime scenes every year.