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Hampden Superior Court Judge Edward J. McDonough

(dave roback)

SPRINGFIELD -- A Hampden Superior Court judge has ordered the Springfield police commissioner to provide a defense lawyer with witness statements from an internal investigation into the conduct of two city police officers.

Judge Edward J. McDonough on Friday issued a summons to the office of Police Commissioner John Barbieri to release to lawyer Tracy Duncan certain statements from the department's investigation of Detective Gregg Bigda's February interrogation of two juvenile suspects as Officer Luke Cournoyer stood by.

Duncan made the request on behalf of Maurice Young, 42, of Springfield, who is charged with trafficking 18 to 36 grams of cocaine and other counts. Bigda and Cournoyer were among the officers who participated in a raid of Young's Reed Street home on June 27, 2015.

The case is one of a number of drug prosecutions potentially jeopardized by videos that show Bigda making threats to two teens accused of stealing an unmarked police vehicle outside a Springfield pizza shop, following the teens' arrest in Palmer after a car chase.

Officer Luke Cournoyer was in the room at the Palmer police station as Bigda terrorized the juveniles, telling one of the boys he would plant a kilo of cocaine on him to ensure a long jail sentence.

"Whatever I put in the police report is the truth," Bigda told one of the teens, according to court documents.

Bigda received a 60-day suspension for the incident, and his credibility as a witness in drug cases has been called into question in a number of recent court hearings.

Assistant District Attorney Kerry Beattie said Bigda and Cournoyer only handled marijuana seized during the raid of Young's home. Because of the officers' roles, Beattie said, a charge against Young of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute was dropped several days ago.

McDonough said the percipient witness statements included in the Springfield department's Internal Investigation Unit's probe of the Palmer interrogation are relevant because Bigda and Cournoyer "are the subject of an internal investigation which concerns the issue ... of planting controlled substances for the purpose of issuing criminal process."

Percipient witness statements are usually eyewitness statements.

In relation to the records regarding Bigda's interrogation of the teens, McDonough wrote in his ruling on Young's case: "I find that defendant has demonstrated that 'there is a specific, good faith reason for believing that the information is relevant to a material issue in the criminal proceedings and could be of real benefit to the defense.'"

The judge limited the release of the statements to Young and Duncan.

He said he ordered the limited release because a city lawyer told him the U.S. Department of Justice has asked the city not to make public the videos or related internal affairs records until a federal probe of the Palmer incident is complete.

Duncan had asked for internal investigation records from any complaints against any of the officers involved in the raid on her client's home. McDonough ruled information about the other officers was not relevant.

Judge McDonough ruling in Maurice Young case by The Republican/MassLive.com on Scribd