The two active members of the Massachusetts State Police charged with trading commercial driver’s licenses for favors have been “suspended without pay indefinitely,” the agency has announced.
“Following duty status hearings this morning at General Headquarters, the Massachusetts State Police ordered Sgt. Gary Cederquist and Trooper Joel Rogers suspended without pay indefinitely,” MSP spokesman David Procopio wrote in a statement.
Cederquist and Rogers, along with retired Troopers Calvin Butner, 63, of Halifax, and Perry Mendes, 63, of Wareham, were the subject of a 74-count federal indictment handed down yesterday alleging major fraud within the MSP Commercial Driver Licensing Unit, where they worked.
Cederquist, 58, of Stoughton, and Rogers, 54, of Bridgewater — as well as civilian defendants Scott Camara, 42, of Rehoboth, and Eric Mathison, 47, of Boston — pleaded not guilty in federal court in Boston’s Seaport yesterday. Butner, who retired in 2022, and Mendes, who retired in 2021, were arrested Monday in Florida and have yet to be arraigned.
The MSP says that not only has it cooperated with federal prosecutors in the investigation and prosecution but “immediately launched its internal investigation and additionally initiated an internal audit of the unit’s operations and procedures” when it became aware of the alleged crimes within the CDL unit in late 2022.
