Four current and former Massachusetts State Police troopers were among six people arrested in connection with a bribery conspiracy scheme to guarantee passing scores for commercial driver’s licenses, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts announced Tuesday.
Sgt. Gary Cederquist, Trooper Joel Rogers and retired Troopers Calvin Butner and Perry Mendes are charged in a 74 count indictment. All four troopers were members of the Massachusetts State Police commercial driver’s license unit, responsible for administering the skills tests for Commercial Drivers Licenses, or CDLs.
The two civilians in the case were identified as Scott Camara and Eric Mathison, a truck-driving school employee and a water company employee, respectively.
From around May 2019 to January 2023, the troopers and others involved conspired to give special treatment “to at least 17 CDL applicants by agreeing to give passing scores on their skills tests whether or not they actually passed, using the code word ‘golden’ to identify these applicants,” according to the charging document.
In return for passing unqualified applicants, Sgt. Cederquist accepted personal bribes, including a $750 granite post and mailbox, a new driveway valued at $10,000 and a $2,000 snow blower.
The indictment alleges that Sgt. Cederquist conspired with Mathison to pass applicants affiliated with the water company, which needed drivers with CDLs. In exchange, Mathison delivered free inventory, such as cases of bottled Fiji water and Arizona Iced Tea, along with coffee and tea products, to an office trailer at a CDL test site. Trooper Butner allegedly assisted in the scheme.
Sgt. Cederquist also gave preferential treatment to four Class A CDL applicants who were state troopers by falsely reporting test results. In reality, the troopers allegedly did not pass and drove vehicles supplied by Camara that did not qualify as Class A.
“The grand jury indictment against these six men includes charges of extortion, honest…
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