A district court judge on Monday declined to extend a temporary harassment prevention order that was served to Brockton Mayor Moises Rodrigues two weeks ago.
While an incident in which Rodrigues apparently touched a graduating high school senior at a public event last month was “unwelcome, offensive, and certainly unprofessional,” Judge Scott D. Peterson said in Hingham District Court, it did not meet the criteria to extend the harassment order.
Specifically, the plaintiff did not establish that an incident of indecent assault and battery had occurred, or that she had been the victim of three incidents of willful and malicious conduct.
However, Peterson also described Rodrigues’ accuser as a credible witness and told Rodrigues not to have further contact with the minor, saying she clearly has no desire to receive an apology from the mayor. GBH News is not identifying her because she is a minor.
The initial temporary harassment prevention order was obtained soon after the girl’s mother approached the stage at Brockton High School’s graduation on June 6 as Rodrigues spoke, yelling, “You have to [expletive] get out of here. You know what you did to my daughter. You know what you did to my daughter. You have to [expletive] get out of here.” GBH News later reported that the Brockton Public Schools had told Rodrigues to stay away from the graduation after the girl reported the incident to the school.
In a hearing at Hingham District Court, the student testified that Rodrigues had moved toward her as she played the trombone in an annual Brockton parade in May. “I felt someone approach me from my right ... and pull me by the waist,” she said.
“He was very close to me and made me quite uncomfortable,” the student added. She said Rodrigues pointed at her instrument with his right hand, telling her to play a song the band had just finished playing again, and moved his left hand from his waist to her shoulder. As she tried to move away from him, the mayor pulled her back toward him with his left hand and nudged her with his fingers to move closer, she said.
Afterward, she said, “I was with my friends — I was crying and scared and just wanting my dad.” The student also said her encounter with the mayor “triggered past feelings of a past situation where I felt my space was violated.”
The mayor subsequently came to Brockton High School after the parade’s completion, the student said, but she made a point of avoiding him.
“I was very much in a panic, still crying,” she said. “I locked myself in the girls’ bathroom. ... I just stayed in the stall repeating, ‘I’m not going out there. I can’t go back out there.’”
An attorney for the girl and her family said that on the day of graduation, they were shocked to see the mayor speaking because they’d been sent a letter by the Brockton Public Schools saying the mayor would not attend.
Andrew Fantucchio, the director of Brockton High’s marching band, supported the minor’s account, testifying that he observed the mayor placing his hand on her shoulder and that “watching it in that moment I knew it was something inappropriate.” Fantucchio also said he wished he had intervened at the time, but that he “froze.”
In his testimony, the mayor did not deny receiving the letter, but said Brockton Public Schools lacked the power to compel him not to attend the graduation.
He also said that while he chose not to hand out diplomas to avoid having inadvertent contact with accuser, who he said he couldn’t recognize by sight, he owed it to the other students attending graduation to be present not just as the mayor but as the first mayor of color in Brockton’s history.
“I felt free to make a decision,” Rodrigues said. “I felt this was best for the city of Brockton.”
Rodrigues also said he’d been encouraged to attend the graduation by Brockton Public Schools Superintendent Priya Tahiliani, who he claimed told him she would attend if she were in the same situation.
Tahiliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment from GBH News.
The mayor also said he’d gone to Brockton High School immediately after the incident because he’d been told a student was upset and he wanted to apologize.
“One of the reasons I went to the high school was to make sure that the student was OK, and I’d do it in a heartbeat again,” Rodrigues said.
The mayor said while he said he regretted making the student uncomfortable, familiar touching is the norm in the Cape Verdean culture he comes from.
He added that in his years working as a child protection specialist for the archdiocese of Boston, he’d been trained to place his hands on children’s arms when standing behind them to show that a certain distance was being maintained.
“That’s what protecting adults do,” Rodrigues said. “They take care of children.”
Alex Grant, the attorney for the minor and her family, said that while the outcome was disappointing, “we were pleased that the judge credited our client’s test [and] found her believable.”
”I think it was just a matter of the judge concluding that that we did not meet the legal standard for the harassment order,“ he added. ”It’s a very different matter when you’re looking at civil liability and the Title IX investigation [that] is taking place right now, which again is under another legal standard than the one the judge looked at.“
Brockton Public Schools is investigating the student’s allegations against Rodrigues through a third-party investigator, and Massachusetts State Police connected to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s office are also investigating.
Grant also said he was surprised that Rodrigues admitted in court that he routinely touches students — saying, at one point, ”Appropriate touching is perfectly fine ... Appropriate touching is more than appropriate.“
”I think what he admitted to, in terms of his regular practice of physically touching students, is a real problem, and it’s one that showed itself in this case,“ Grant said.
Mark Lawton, Rodrigues’ attorney, said the judge’s ruling ”was a good result. It’s what should have happened.“ Rodrigues did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, a second minor and her family have accused the mayor of inappropriate touching, GBH News reported last week, and reported an incident to Brockton Public Schools.
