Ex-city cop serving sentence for police brutality heading to trial in second of three cases

FALL RIVER — Convicted former Fall River police officer Michael Pessoa is set to return to the court room for the second of three excessive force criminal trials, this time nearly 10 years after he allegedly severely injured a city man while in custody.

A veteran city police officer before he was fired, Pessoa’s second trial is set to begin on Dec. 4 in Bristol County Superior Court for severely injuring former city resident Carlos Roldan in October 2014 during an arrest.

Roldan settled a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city for $225,000 in 2019 that named Pessoa and another former Fall River police officer, Andrew DeMelo.

In May, Pessoa, who testified in his own defense at trial, was found guilty of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, witness intimidation, civil rights violations and filing false reports in the case involving city resident David Lafrance. 

Civil rights lawsuit: Man gets $225K to settle suit over excessive force during arrest in Fall River

He is currently serving a minimum sentence of 1 ½ years in state prison, and to serve no more than three years for the assault on Lafrance that was captured on a security camera at the South Main Street apartment building where the incident occurred.

A check of the state prison system indicates Pessoa is currently housed at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk, or MCI-Norfolk, the state's largest medium security prison.

Allegations against Pessoa in latest case

Pessoa was indicted in June 2019 on 15 counts of assault, civil rights violations and filing false police reports after he was indicted by a state grand jury, originally for assaulting four detained men in different instances.

Pessoa is accused of assaulting and injuring Roldan in October 2014; Aliecer Rodriguez in March 2018; and Lafrance in February 2019, all while in custody and handcuffed. 

Bristol Country District Attorney Thomas Quinn III dropped one of the criminal cases against Pessoa after the fourth alleged victim died.

The cases went to grand jury after the FRPD conducted an internal investigation into the complaints against Pessoa and after the video tape of the Lafrance assault surfaced.

Sentencing: Former Fall River officer Michael Pessoa gets state prison time in brutality case

During the investigation, it was discovered that three of Pessoa’s former fellow officers, Demelo, Thomas Roberts and Shaun Aguiar, lied in their police reports to cover up his actions against the alleged victims.

In the Roldan lawsuit, he alleged that Pessoa and DeMelo had responded to a complaint of a disturbance involving Roldan’s sister and a neighbor in October 2014. After the officers arrested Roldan's sister, Roldan claims when he walked out of his parents’ apartment, he asked officers why they were arresting her.

That’s when the alleged victim said Pessoa apparently grabbed his arm and used a leg sweep to bring him to the ground. Roldan claimed that one of the officers kicked him several times, fracturing his right tibia near the knee while the other officer stood nearby and watched.

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In his civil complaint, Roldan claimed he didn’t know at the time which officer had assaulted him. Roldan required surgery for his injury.

Pessoa was fired from the police department in January 2022 while he awaited trial. DeMelo and Aguiar resigned from the department and Roberts was also fired from the department after fighting his termination.

There is no court date set for the case involving Rodriguez, who Pessoa allegedly beat and destroyed his cellphone during an arrest.

All four alleged victims had been criminally charged, but the district attorney’s office dropped charges against them.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Cop in prison for brutality heading to trial in second of three cases