Crime & Justice

3 Cops Accused of Inappropriate Relationship With Pregnant Woman Who Killed Herself

‘LIES, DECEIT AND TREACHERY’

The woman, who died at 23, began her relationship with one of the officers when she was just 13, an internal report found.

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Frank Herrmann

A Massachusetts cop had an inappropriate relationship with a woman for nearly a decade, starting when she was a 13-year-old girl and lasting until she killed herself at 23 last year, according to an internal report obtained by the Boston Globe. The woman, Sandra Birchmore, had told friends she was pregnant with the married officer’s child. The officer, 36-year-old Matthew G. Farwell, met Birchmore when she joined a youth program organized by the Stoughton Police Department. Friends of Farwell told the Globe that he began having sex with Birchmore when she was 15, which would be statutory rape under Massachusetts law. Also tied up in the scandal were two other cops: Farwell's twin brother, Matthew, and Robert C. Devine. They are accused of speaking with Birchmore then lying to investigators about it. “Through a sustained and deliberate combination of lies, deceit, and treachery, they violated the policies and the core values of the Stoughton Police Department,” the department’s chief, Donna McNamara, said Friday.

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Read it at Boston Globe