Roggio v. Grasmuck

988 F. Supp. 2d 130, 2013 WL 6119324, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164509
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedNovember 19, 2013
DocketCivil Action No. 10-40076-FDS
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 988 F. Supp. 2d 130 (Roggio v. Grasmuck) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Roggio v. Grasmuck, 988 F. Supp. 2d 130, 2013 WL 6119324, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164509 (D. Mass. 2013).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

SAYLOR, District Judge.

This is a civil action involving an .alleged violation of the Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (“CORI”) statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 6 § 172. Plaintiff Vincent Roggio alleges that defendants William Grasmuck and Edward Bacener improperly obtained and disseminated his criminal record from a federal computer database in violation of CORI.1

The case was tried to the Court without a jury from September 28 to 26, 2013. For the reasons set forth below, the Court finds in favor of plaintiff, and will award exemplary, but not actual, damages.

I. Introduction

Plaintiff Vincent Roggio is a resident of Rumson, New Jersey. In 1987, he was convicted on several counts of mail fraud and making false statements in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. He served seven years in prison for these crimes. After his release from prison in 1994, he established several businesses in New Jersey.

Defendant William Grasmuck, a resident of Massachusetts, was a detective in the Gardner, Massachusetts Police Department. Defendant Edward Bacener, a resident of Massachusetts, was employed as a court officer in the Gardner District Court. He was also employed by the Hannaford’s supermarket in Gardner as a security officer.

Roggio alleges that on the morning of January 11, 2006, Grasmuck improperly obtained access to his criminal record at Bacener’s request.

At the time, Roggio was involved in an acrimonious relationship with a former business partner, Zachary Emmanouil, who was preparing to file a lawsuit against him. Roggio alleges that one of the co-defendants in this case sent his criminal record to Emmanouil, who forwarded it to his attorneys.

In March 2006, Roggio’s criminal record appeared in the public filings of a lawsuit filed against him by Emmanouil in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. It also appeared on a [134]*134website, Gibraltar-Granite.com. Roggio found out about the website when his wife viewed it in November 2006.

In 2008, Roggio filed suit against the FBI in New Jersey, alleging improper disclosure of his criminal record. He learned through discovery that his criminal record on the FBI system had been accessed in 2006 by the Gardner Police Department.

Roggio alleges that he incurred substantial attorney’s fees as a result of the dissemination of his criminal record. He also alleges that he suffered emotional distress from a criminal investigation launched because of the unauthorized release of his criminal record.

Roggio filed this action on April 28, 2010. The complaint alleges a claim under the CORI Act. He seeks compensatory and punitive damages and attorney’s fees.

II. Findings of Fact

A.Vincent Roggio

1. Vincent Roggio is a resident of New Jersey. (See Tr. I: 26).

2. In 1987, Roggio was convicted on several counts of mail fraud and making false statements in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (Tr. I: 24-25, Ex. 1).

3. Roggio was released from prison in 1994. (Tr. I: 25).

4. Roggio has been arrested on multiple occasions, for multiple offenses, going back to 1973. (Tr. I: 35-40; Ex. 1). The state jurisdictions involved included Florida, among others. (See Tr. I: 120-21; Ex. 38). None of those charges, other than the 1987 mail fraud conviction, resulted in a criminal conviction. (Tr. I: 35-40; Ex. 1).

5. Roggio owned and operated several companies in New Jersey following his 1994 release from prison, including a granite supply company called Gibraltar Granite. (Tr. I: 28-30).

B. William Grasmuck and Edward Bacener

6. William Grasmuck is a resident of Massachusetts. (See Tr. II: 38-39). At all relevant times, Grasmuck was a detective working for the Gardner Police Department. (Id.).

7. Edward Bacener is a resident of Massachusetts. (See Tr. II: 76-77). At all relevant times, Bacener was working as a court officer at the Gardner District Court and part-time as a security guard at the Hannaford’s supermarket in Gardner. (Tr. II: 76-78).

8. There is no evidence that either Grasmuck or Bacener has ever met or spoken to Roggio, or had any direct dealings with him of any kind. (See Tr. II: 65, 70-71, 82).

C. The FBI Criminal Records Sgstem

9. The Criminal Justice Information Services division of the FBI serves as the nation’s central repository for identification and criminal history record information. (Ex. 4 ¶ 5). It includes, among other things, the National Crime Information Center (“NCIC”). (Id.).

10. The NCIC is a nationwide computerized information system. (Id. ¶ 6). Among other things, it serves as the telecommunications link to an automated system known as the Interstate Identification Index (“Index”). (Id.).

11. Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers can conduct an inquiry of the Index to determine whether a person has a criminal history record, and if so the contents of that record. (See id. ¶¶ 6-7).

[135]*13512. Under some circumstances, it is possible, based on the nature of the information and the formatting, to ascertain whether a particular criminal history record was created from an inquiry to the Index. (See id. ¶¶ 7-11).

13. The FBI computer systems create a record every time a law enforcement official conducts a search of the Index. (See id. ¶¶ 12,14).

D. The Access to Roggio’s Record by the Gardner Police Department

14. At some point on January 11, 2006, Grasmuck received a telephone call from Bacener at the Gardner Police Department. (Tr. II: 81; Ex. 12.1). That call was made to a telephone line that was normally recorded. (Ex. 12.1).

15. In the telephone call, Bacener asked Grasmuck if he could run a criminal history for him on an out-of-state individual. (Id.). Grasmuck told Bacener to hold on and switched the call to an unrecorded telephone line. (Id.).

16. At 7:48 a.m. on January 11, 2006, Grasmuck asked Heather Newton, a dispatcher working at the Gardner Police Department, to run a criminal record for Vincent Roggio. (Ex. 7 at *35).

17. In the Gardner police log, Newton recorded that Roggio was a suspect in a shoplifting at Hannaford’s supermarket. (Id.).

18. Although there is no direct evidence, it is a reasonable inference that Gras- '• muck told Newton that Roggio was a shoplifting suspect. (See id.; Tr. II: 60).

19. Bacener was working at the Gardner District Court on the morning of January 11, 2006. (Tr. II: 48-49). He was not working at the Hannaford supermarket that day. (Tr. II: 82).

20. Grasmuck and Bacener both testified that before 2009, they had never met or heard of Roggio. (Tr. II: 70-71, 82).

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Roggio v. Grasmuck
18 F. Supp. 3d 49 (D. Massachusetts, 2014)

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Bluebook (online)
988 F. Supp. 2d 130, 2013 WL 6119324, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164509, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roggio-v-grasmuck-mad-2013.