A Massachusetts man was assaulted earlier this week after a court appearance regarding the death of a teen who drowned at his home.
James Coughlin, a former Massachusetts State Police captain, and his wife Leslie pleaded guilty on Monday, Sept. 11, to furnishing alcohol to a minor. The two did not plead guilty to the additional charge of reckless endangerment of a child but conceded that prosecutors had enough evidence to find them guilty. The court gave each defendant a one-year suspended sentence and a requirement to do 50 hours of community service.
The charges are linked to the death of 17-year-old Alonzo Polk. The teen, a student-athlete at Dedham High School, was celebrating his graduation at a party hosted at the couple’s home in the Boston suburb of Dedham in June 2021.
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While at the event, Polk, who didn’t know how to swim, was pushed into their pool and started drowning. First responders arrived at the scene at around 12:30 a.m., and Polk was transported to a local hospital. He was pronounced dead days later, which prompted demands for accountability from his family.
Brian Kelly, the couple’s attorney told the court that toxicology tests showed Polk had no alcohol in his system on the night of the party, and the friend who pushed him wasn’t unaware that he couldn’t swim.
Days after Polk drowned at the party, hundreds of people, including his family, rallied in Dedham, calling for answers, Boston 25 News reported. At one point, the group even marched in front of Coughlin’s home.
“We need answers. We need people to be charged,” the teen’s brother, Shawn Drane, told the news station in 2021. “We need people to understand the pain that we’re going through.”
The Coughlins successfully petitioned the court earlier this year to ban…
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