Councilor Infante joined three other councilors back in April calling for an independent investigation into the blatant wire tapping of city hall.
Fourteen counts accuse mayor of distributing a secretly recorded City Hall conversation; one alleges witness intimidation
9-25-26
Four members of the Lawrence City Council called for a thorough and independent investigation by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office after allegations surfaced earlier this year that conversations were being secretly recorded inside Lawrence City Hall.
Now, five months later, a statewide grand jury has returned 15 new criminal charges against Lawrence Mayor Brian DePeña stemming from that investigation.
Council President Jeovanny Rodriguez and Councilors Vivian Marmol, Franklin Miguel and Stephany Infante formally sought the independent investigation in April as questions mounted over who authorized the audio surveillance, how long it had been operating and what conversations may have been recorded.
District E Councilor Infante called Thursday’s indictments “a significant development in a matter that has concerned City employees and residents for several months.”
“When allegations of unauthorized audio surveillance inside Lawrence City Hall first came to light earlier this year, I joined three of my City Council colleagues in formally requesting a thorough and independent investigation by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office,” Infante said in a written statement.
“At the time, I said that our community deserved legal and factual clarity and that we needed to allow the investigation to establish the facts.”
Infante stressed that the return of indictments does not establish DePeña’s guilt.
“What is happening is serious and concerning,” she said. “At the same time, an indictment is NOT a conviction, and Mayor DePeña is entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence as this matter proceeds through the judicial system.”
WHAT THE 15 NEW CHARGES ACTUALLY ARE
Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office announced Thursday that DePeña was charged with 14 counts of distributing a wiretapped communication and one count of witness intimidation.
The 14 wiretap counts do not represent 14 different secretly recorded conversations.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, one conversation between two Lawrence municipal employees was secretly captured on audio and video. Prosecutors allege that DePeña knew the conversation had been secretly recorded and distributed copies of that recording to 14 different people.
Each alleged distribution resulted in a separate criminal count.
The fifteenth charge—witness intimidation—is separate. The Attorney General’s Office alleges that DePeña intimidated a witness involved in the investigation in August.
However, the state has not publicly identified the witness or disclosed exactly what DePeña allegedly did that resulted in the witness-intimidation charge.
DePeña’s arraignment on the new state charges will be scheduled at a later date.
Under Massachusetts law, intentionally disclosing the contents of a communication while knowing it was obtained through an illegal interception is a misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in a jail or house of correction, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.
The separate witness-intimidation charge is considerably more serious and can carry a state-prison sentence of up to ten years.
PRIVATE CAMERAS INSIDE CITY HALL
According to the Attorney General’s Office, DePeña requested and had a private security system installed for his office beginning in 2023.
That system was separate from the security cameras already installed and maintained by the City of Lawrence.
Prosecutors allege that in March of this year, one of the private cameras recorded a hallway conversation outside the mayor’s office between two public employees. The camera captured both audio and video without the knowledge of at least one of the employees.
City-owned security cameras do not record audio, according to the Attorney General’s Office, and there was no public notice warning employees or visitors that DePeña’s private camera system was recording their conversations.
The recording that triggered the public controversy reportedly captured a heated confrontation between then-mayoral Chief of Staff William Castro and Lawrence Airport Manager.
After the recording became public, State Police investigators working with the Attorney General’s Office executed a search warrant at DePeña’s City Hall office and seized recording equipment.
COUNCILORS DEMANDED AN OUTSIDE INVESTIGATION
When the recording controversy first surfaced, the four councilors said an investigation controlled by the mayor or City Hall would not be enough to restore public confidence.
Infante said Thursday that her concern from the beginning has been protecting “the integrity of our municipal government, the rights of our employees, and the confidence of the residents we were elected to serve.”
“Those principles remain unchanged today,” she said.
Infante said she remains confident in the independent investigative process the four councilors requested and thanked Attorney General Andrea Campbell and her office for continuing their work on the case.
“In the meantime, my responsibility remains where it has always been: serving the residents of District E and ensuring that the work of our city continues.”
26 CHARGES IN TWO SEPARATE CRIMINAL CASES
The 15 state charges are entirely separate from the 11-count federal indictment DePeña was already facing.
A federal grand jury indicted DePeña in August on four counts of wire fraud and seven counts of money laundering involving more than $1.5 million in federal pandemic-era small-business loans.
Federal prosecutors allege that DePeña obtained the money through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program for Tenares Tire Services but diverted portions of the money to his mayoral campaign, personal tax debts and more than $880,000 in high-interest mortgages on properties he owned.
DePeña has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.
With Thursday’s indictments, DePeña now faces a combined 26 criminal counts in two separate cases—11 in federal court and 15 in state court.
All of the charges are allegations. DePeña is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
