FALL RIVER — Convicted former Fall River police officer Nicholas Hoar self-surrendered to the Bureau of Prisons on Wednesday and was assigned to the Federal Correctional Institution Elkton in Ohio to serve a 33-month sentence for assaulting a man in custody and lying on police reports about the incident.
With Hoar’s incarceration, this makes a fourth Fall River official to be sentenced to prison for on-the-job wrongdoing, and the third currently serving time in prison.
Jasiel Correia II, 32, remains in a Kentucky federal prison after his 2021 conviction for defrauding investors in his start-up company SnoOwl and taking bribes from marijuana entrepreneurs while in office as the city’s youngest mayor.
He received a six-year sentence and is currently petitioning the court for early release; federal prosecutors have objected to the request.A federal judge has yet to schedule a hearing or make a ruling.
Two other city officers given prison time
A 20-year veteran of the Fall River Police Department, former patrol officer Michael Pessoa, is currently incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Norfolk. He is serving concurrent sentences in three cases of excessive force on three separate people going back to 2014.
A Bristol County Superior Court judge sentenced Pessoa to 1½ years and no more than three years in state prison.
He was convicted in Bristol County Superior Court last May for the assault on David Lafrance while he was in handcuffs then lying about it in police reports.
The attack was caught on a video surveillance camera.
He later pleaded guilty to two more assaults on men who were in custody and lying about it on police reports.
According to the Bristol House of Correction on Thursday, former city police officer Bryan Custadio has been released from that facility, after he pleaded guilty to three domestic cases involving two separate domestic partners.
Dates to know: Misconduct and inappropriate use of force by Fall River Police
In one case, Custadio was accused of assaulting a family member at their home while the former city patrol officer was on duty, in uniform and driving a marked police car in November 2021.
In December, a judge ordered him to be sentenced to 14 months in the House of Correction but imposed a continuance without a finding for 2½ years. That means if he completes his sentencing and probationary terms, the charges will be dismissed.
One of Custadio's victims, ex-wife Brenna Custadio, filed a lawsuit last November against the city, alleging that his former police colleagues tried to cover up the incidents of domestic assault against her. The case is pending and the parties are set to go back to Superior Court on June 25.
What kind of prison is FCI Elkton?
According to the prison’s website, FCI Elkton is considered an all-men’s low-security federal correctional institution with an adjacent low-security satellite prison in Lisbon, Ohio, It holds 1,581 people in the main prison and 310 prisoners in the satellite facility.
At sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs had made a recommendation from the bench that Hoar, who has two small children, be housed closer to his home in Massachusetts.
FCI Elkton is more than 600 miles away from Fall River.
Hoar is a fifth-generation Fall River police officer.
His father, retired Sgt. Michael Hoar, served on the FRPD for 32 years including being assigned to internal affairs.In retirement, he worked for six months as Correia’s chief of staff.
Hoar’s brother, JT Hoar, was recently promoted to one of the department’s two deputy chiefs.
Hoar, 37, was convicted by a federal jury in February of one count of deprivation of rights under the color of law and two counts of false reports.
In addition to the 33 months sentence in prison, he was ordered to serve one year of supervised probation when he is released.
Unlike the other investigations involving convicted city officers, Hoar’s investigation was taken over from the FRPD by the FBI.
Hoar was on duty in the police department’s booking room in December 2020 when he struck William Harvey in the head with an expandable steel baton as Harvey was handcuffed and being placed in a holding cell.
In two police reports authored by Hoar, he lied, saying Harvey received his injury in a fall.
An internal investigation still in the works
Three other officers were on duty that night in the booking room when Hoar struck Harvey. They allegedly also wrote false police reports regarding the assault.
Fall River Police Sgt. Jeffrey Maher, now retired, testified for prosecutors at trial that a week after he wrote a false narrative on the incident, he told the internal affairs department what happened.
The federal government’s star witness, Maher testified he saw Hoar strike Harvey in the head with the baton.
The two other police officers, Brendan McNerney and Zachary Vorce, were subjects of testimony at Hoar’s trial but did not testify.
The two officers also failed to report the assault in their police reports, according to information presented in court.
Neither McNerney nor Vorce were implicated by the FBI for any wrongdoing in the Hoar case.
According toMassachusettsPeace Officer Standards and Training Commissionregulations, the department still must complete and internal probe despite the FBI’s investigation.
The police department hired the independent firm Comprehensive Investigations and Consulting of Quincy to conduct the investigation.
According to police spokesperson Sgt. Detective Moses Pereira, the probe “remains an active investigation at this time.”
Multimillion-dollar lawsuit for Hoar-related shooting death is pending
Hoar is one of the principal figures in a $34 million lawsuit brought by the family of a man he shot and killed on duty seven years ago, soon after he joined the FRPD.
Hoar fatally shot 19-year-old Larry Ruiz-Barreto of New Bedford at the Fall River Industrial Park in 2017 after he was allegedly called to break up a drag race.
The Bristol County District Attorney's Office determined in a 2018 report that Hoar wasjustified and cleared of any wrongdoing.
Hoar fired six shots at Ruiz-Barreto, hitting him five times, around midnight on Nov. 12, 2017. Ruiz-Barreto sat in his 1997 Acura in the Industrial Park at Airport and Riggenbach roads, a popular site known for drag racing.
Ruiz-Barreto's family filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court in November 2020 against Hoar, a host of police officers and the city,
The attorneys on the case agreed to wait to move on the case until after Hoar’s criminal case was pending. According to federal court dockets, the case is on the move again, with plaintiff lawyers filing a third amended complaint after receiving additional discovery from the city.
Several more officers are added to the lawsuit, including Fall River Police Chief Paul Gauvin, who was a captain at the time.
Former mayor Sam Sutter, an attorney, has joined the plaintiff’s legal team.
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River official heads to prison; former cop Nicholas Hoar in Ohio
