Woburn Police Announce Results Of Investigation Into Former Officer

WOBURN, MA — Former Woburn police officer John Donnelly was involved with extremist groups, which ultimately lead to involvement with the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017, city officials said on Friday, citing an internal investigation.

Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin announced the news alongside Police Chief Robert Rufo Jr. just over a week after saying police had begun an investigation into alleged ties between Donnelly and white supremacist groups.

Officials vowed to complete an internal investigation. That investigation, they said on Friday, has since sustained a number of allegations against Donnelly.

Rufo and Galvin said they will submit the results of the investigation to the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission with the recommendation that Donnelly be decertified under the regulatory body’s authority.

Donnelly, who resigned from the Woburn Police on Monday, would be barred from working as a police officer in Massachusetts if he is decertified.

READ: Woburn Cop Resigns Amid Investigation Into Charlottesville Rally Ties

Writing on Friday, officials said the investigation into Donnelly revealed that he went under the alias of “Johnny O’Malley” in person and online.

The investigation showed Donnelly did in fact “attend, help plan and provide security for leadership of the Charlottesville event,” according to officials.

He associated with the group Identity Evropa, which has been described by the Anti-Defamation Leauge as a white supremacist group, as noted in the statement from Rufo and Galvin on Friday.

Officials said Donnelly used “racist and antisemitic language” and was seen in photographs and video recordings providing security in Charlottesville for white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, who was a prominent figure at the Charlottesville rally.

Events in Charlottesville initially came in response to plans to remove a local Confederate statue. Several people were then injured in clashes between white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups and counter protestors. One person died and still more were injured when a man rammed his car into a crowd of counter protesters.

Two state troopers died when the helicopter they were using to monitor events crashed.

Allegations against Donnelly surfaced last week hours before HuffPost published a lengthy investigation into Donnelly and his links to various extremist groups.

Woburn officials put Donnelly on paid-administrative leave and announced an investigation into his conduct before Donnelly submitted his resignation earlier this week.

Officials said on Friday that Donnelly refused to be interviewed as part of the investigation into him.

Ultimately, officials said, Donnelly was found to have violated “a number of Woburn Police Department rules and regulations including policies governing membership in organizations, outside employment, conduct unbecoming an officer and improper associations, as well as violations of the Woburn Police Department social media policy.”

While his police investigation is now complete, Donnelly is also under review by the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, which is looking into all local cases linked to him over his law enforcement career to identify possible exculpatory evidence that should be passed along to defense attorneys.

District Attorney Marian Ryan announced her office’s review on Friday of last week.

She then convened an emergency meeting of her office’s Anti-Hate Anti-Bias Task Force on Thursday of this week.

While the event focused on a larger trend of white supremacist and neo-Nazi sympathizers entering law enforcement agencies, Ryan said prosecutors with her office have been in touch with defense attorneys regarding cases involving Donnelly. She said Donnelly’s name has additionally been added to a list that her office maintains of officers that potentially represent exculpatory evidence in various cases.

Ryan said officials are moving carefully with their review with a focus on fairness.

“To do that right takes time,” she said. “We don’t want to miss anything.”

As the district attorney’s review progresses, and as the Woburn Police Department’s internal investigation report now heads to state oversight officials, representatives of the Committee for Public Counsel Services on Tuesday said in a letter that they will work to dismiss every case linked to Donnelly, according to WBUR and MassLive.

The news agencies reported the story on Wednesday, with WBUR sharing a copy of the letter, which the Committee for Public Counsel Services sent to Rufo.

The committee represents public defenders in Massachusetts.

In the letter, as shared by WBUR, lawyers said media reports beginning last week regarding Donnelly “caused a wave of disgust” among local public defenders.

The committee requested a batch of records from the Woburn Police Department that they said will help in upcoming efforts and proceedings.

Woburn officials have responded to allegations against Donnelly in recent days.

"There is no place for hate in Woburn or in the ranks of the Woburn Police Department," Galvin said on Monday after Donnelly resigned.

On Tuesday, though, public defenders raised concerns over whether others in the Woburn Police knew about Donnelly’s alleged background before recent reports came to light.

“If, as media outlets reported, Officer Donnelly frequently posted hateful rhetoric online and was sporting controversial clothing in public, certainly, there were and are others in your ranks who were aware of his system of beliefs,” lawyers wrote in their letter.

They called on the Woburn Police to share steps that either have or will be taken “to determine whether other officers have also breached the trust of the Woburn Police Department and, more importantly, the community.

“The Woburn Police Department’s values statement touts a call for maintaining ‘the highest standards of integrity and ethics’ and protecting ‘the constitutional rights of all citizens,’” lawyers wrote. “It is never too late to operate a department that is genuinely intentional about living those values.”

Update: This article has been updated to include information from a meeting of the Middlesex District Attorney's Anti-Hate Anti-Bias Task Force on Thursday. This article has also been updated to include coverage of a letter to the Woburn Police from an organization representing Massachusetts public defenders.