Ex-cop’s lawyer fights to block info about Sandra Birchmore from POST commission hearing

STOUGHTON, Mass. — A lawyer for disgraced former Stoughton Police Officer William Farwell said that Sandra Birchmore’s identity and connection to a police youth training program should be hidden from the panel reviewing Farwell’s police certification.

Attorney David M. Bae made that argument to a Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission hearing officer during a Zoom conference Tuesday. POST is seeking to revoke Farwell’s certification to work in law enforcement. Farwell is fighting decertification.

POST has accused William Farwell of using a law enforcement database to conduct unauthorized searches of Birchmore, sexting Birchmore on duty, and lying to state police investigators about his communication with her.

“These are relevant facts that inform upon the level of unprofessionalism that William Farwell engaged in… there’s even references to the fact that William Farwell is aware that his twin brother had a sexual relationship with this individual when she was a minor,” POST Commission attorney Shaun Martinez said at the hearing.

A 2022 internal investigation by Stoughton Police found William Farwell, his twin brother and coworker Matthew, and Robert C. Devine, a former deputy chief in Stoughton had “inappropriate” relationships with Birchmore, who participated in a youth Explorer program offered by the department.

In May 2021, the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled that Birchmore, 23, who was pregnant when she died, hung herself in her Canton apartment, according to her death certificate. Birchmore told friends Matthew Farwell was the father which he denies.

In a wrongful death lawsuit filed in Norfolk Superior Court against the 3 officers, Stoughton Police, and others, Birchmore’s family disputes her death was a suicide. The family hired an independent forensic pathologist who determined her cause of death to be ‘Strangulation’ and the manner of death is ‘Homicide,’” according to the Boston Globe.

The wrongful death suit alleges William Farwell and others were involved in a conspiracy to sexually groom Birchmore when she was as young as 15, but Bae denied his clients involvement during the POST hearing.

“There has never been, not in this case, nor the Norfolk and Norfolk County Superior Court case, a scintilla of evidence that my client had sexual relations with S.B. (Sandra Birchmore) while she was a minor,” Bae said.

Birchmore is identified by her initials “S.B.” in POST commission documents.

Bae has requested that Birchmore’s initials and her connection to the Explorer program be withheld from the POST case calling it unfairly prejudicial to William Farwell.

“The only reason why you would inject S.B.’s name into this is to garner some sympathy or some rage, whatever it may be, from the commission,” Bae said, “they can go ahead and allege that my client, had been sexting with a female. Simple. They don’t have to name S.B.”.

Attorney Martinez said he does not object to removing Birchmore’s initials, but he argued relevant facts about her should not be shielded.

“If the only concern for attorney Bae is that it’s S.B., versus a female individual who happened to be an intern when (William) Farwell met her and who he later developed a sexual relationship, the division doesn’t have an issue with using a female. A female former intern at the Stoughton Police Department,” Martinez added.

POST Hearing Officer, Judge Judith A. Cowin (Ret.) said she will decide what information about Birchmore will be allowed before William Farwell’s scheduled decertification hearing date in November.

In July, the state attorney general’s office confirmed its criminal investigation into the death of Birchmore.

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