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Press Release

Boston Police Detective Sentenced for Conspiracy to Obstruct a Gang Investigation

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts

BOSTON – A Boston Police detective was sentenced today in connection with a conspiracy to obstruct an FBI investigation related to the Academy Homes Street Gang (AHSG), a violent narcotics trafficking gang that operated out of the Academy Homes housing development in Roxbury. 

Brian Smigielski, 43, of Norton, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper to one year of probation and a fine of $5,000.  In September 2015, Smigielski pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States during the course of a federal investigation. 

From early 2009 to 2011, the FBI and Boston Police Department (BPD) were conducting a joint investigation into AHSG.  During the initial stages of that investigation Smigielski was the lead investigator.  In late 2009, Smigielski, became upset after being ordered to turn over the investigation to the FBI and other BPD units, and thereafter, in 2010 and 2011, conspired with a fellow BPD officer and AHSG gang members to impede the FBI in its investigation of AHSG.  Smigielski assisted the AHSG gang members by, among other things, informing the gang members of the FBI’s pending investigation and warning them that their arrests were imminent. 

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Superintendent Frank Mancini of the Boston Police Department’s Anti-Corruption Division, made the announcement today.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Chao of Ortiz’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.  

Updated January 29, 2016

Topic
Public Corruption