Methuen Mayor David P. “D.J.” Beauregard Jr. said Friday night he is making public a 2023 police investigation despite a previous court gag order to, in his words, “ensure the truth comes out.”
The March 27, 2023 report into the “Authenticity of a Training Document Belonging to Former Police Officer Sean Fountain” concludes the document is fake and the state Municipal Police Training Committee “intentionally hindered this investigation” by STIRM Group President Lawrence P. Smith.
A second part of the report focusing on who is responsible for any forgeries, Smith concludes Fountain created the fake and is “nearly certain” active participants were former Methuen Police Chief Joseph E. Solomon and Capt. Gregory Gallant. Former Mayor Neil Perry fired Gallant in connection with department pay raises.
“While STIRM was retained to investigate an administrative matter; that led to the discovery of a criminal conspiracy involving two senior members of the police department and Fountain,” according to the report.
As early as April 7, 2023, then-City Councilor Beauregard told WHAV he found the secrecy surrounding the report “extremely frustrating.” The following September, Solomon and former Methuen Police Officer Sean Fountain were indicted by a grand jury convened at the request of Essex County District Attorney Paul F. Tucker’s office.
A Beauregard statement acknowledged “the Court shielded this document from public disclosure,” but said “given recent developments—and the lack of prosecution of several co-conspirators and other serious state and federal crimes…public ownership of the report and citizens’ civil rights take precedence, demanding that the report be released to ensure transparency and that the full measure of justice is served in these cases.”
“For too long, residents have been left in the dark about a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy at multiple levels of government to defraud the taxpayers of Methuen and enable a civilian to impersonate a police officer,” Beauregard added.
The STIRM Report is available on the City of Methuen’s website.