After months of maintaining he doesn’t even remember the interaction at issue, Brockton Mayor Moises Rodrigues will be arraigned on Sept. 28 on a charge of assault and battery of a then-high school student.
A clerk-magistrate with the Wrentham District Court found last month that probable cause exists that Rodrigues committed the crime in question.
Rodrigues did not immediately respond to a request from GBH News for comment.
The incident burst into the public eye when the girl’s mother interrupted Brockton High School’s graduation ceremony in June, yelling at Rodrigues as he spoke from the podium.
The alleged assault and battery occurred while the girl was playing in Brockton High School’s marching band during a parade this spring. She accused Rodrigues of touching her inappropriately, grabbing her and drawing her close to him in a manner she found highly upsetting.
At an Aug. 7 hearing with Clerk-Magistrate Pamela Gauvin-Fernandes, a Massachusetts State Police captain who had investigated the allegation against Rodrigues described in detail his findings, which he said showed a charge against Rodrigues would be warranted.
Rodrigues said that he did nothing wrong during the parade, which he described as an exuberant celebration of his election as the first mayor of color in New England’s only majority-Black city.
“This parade turned into a celebratory event where I couldn’t tell you how many interactions I actually had in that day,” Rodrigues said at the hearing.
“Politicians are usually all over the crowd, responding to people that attend this parade,” Rodrigues added. “And you’re out there taking pictures with young kids, taking pictures with parents, people putting their arms around you, you putting your arms around people, because that’s what people do usually at a celebration.”
Rodrigues said that he’s regularly worked in the community for decades.
“I have mentored hundreds, hundreds of young kids, and not once in my lifetime one person has come forward and said, ‘You have done something inappropriate,’” he said. “Not once, in my 40-plus years in this community.”
At the June high school graduation, the girl’s mother approached the podium as Rodrigues addressed graduates and their families, shouting, “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 subsequently reported that Brockton Public School officials had urged Rodrigues not to attend the graduation. He has said that he had an obligation to be present and that he chose not to hand out diplomas to avoid making inadvertent contact with accuser, whose identity Rodrigues said he didn’t know at the time.
State Police assigned to the Plymouth County district attorney’s office were investigating the incident and, in July, brought the potential charge of assault and battery against Rodrigues.
The teenager obtained a two-week temporary harassment prevention order against Rodrigues shortly after graduation.
In June, a judge declined to extend that restraining order, saying that while Rodrigues’ conduct had been “unwelcome, offensive and certainly unprofessional,” it didn’t meet the criteria for the restraining order to be continued. Specifically, the judge said, the student 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.
GBH News is not identifying the girl, who was underage at the time of her interactions with Rodrigues.
The Sept. 28 arraignment will take place in Hingham District Court.
Material from previous GBH News reports was used in this story.
