Ex-Boston Cop Pleads Guilty To Child Rape Charges

BOSTON — A former Boston Police Department officer and ex-head of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association is now pleading guilty to several charges of child rape after originally maintaining his innocence.

On Monday in Suffolk Superior Court, Patrick Rose Sr., 68, pleaded guilty to 33 charges in connection with the rape and abuse of at least six children, spanning across decades that first started in the 1990s.

Two years ago, Rose pleaded not guilty to those charges after being arrested on child sex charges in August 2020 when a young relative claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was just 7 years old.

Later that month, prosecutors said Rose was arraigned on 16 additional charges involving four more children, adding that all five of the children were under 14 at the time of the assaults, and the accusations cover incidents as far back as the 1990s and as recently as four years ago.

The city originally confirmed that Rose faced a child abuse allegation in 1995, but he was allowed to keep his badge for another 20 years. Stationed in Dorchester, Rose was reinstated to full duty in 1997 before being voted in as the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association's president in December 2014.

In an email to family members, Rose wrote that he was "mentally all effed up" and that he "should have left you all years ago when this started," the Boston Herald reported.

"I know there's not enough love in this world for you to forgive the monster I truly am," Rose reportedly wrote. Rose's attorney said the email does not amount to a confession and does not contain references to the specific crimes he is accused of.

Rose retired from the Boston Police Department in 2018. After the allegations came forward in 2020, then-Boston Mayor Kim Janey released 14 redacted pages of documents related to the internal affairs investigations against Rose. She also issued a statement calling the department's handling of the situation "deeply unsettling."

"Based on a review of former Officer Rose's internal affairs file conducted by the City's Law Department, it is clear that previous leaders of the police department neglected their duty to protect and serve," she wrote.

"He actually swore an oath to protect victims from harm, instead he was preying on and harming our most vulnerable and innocent, young children," U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said of Rose. "This behavior is unconscionable."