DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - A former Dedham police officer convicted of being an accessory before kidnapping will spend up to nine years in state prison, a judge ordered Thursday.
Michael Schoener, 45, was found guilty Wednesday of being an accessory before the fact in the kidnapping of James Robertson, an Avon father who was taken from his family home on New Year’s Day in 2014 and found murdered in the woods in Upton about two years later, according to Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey.
Schoener was sentenced in Norfolk Superior Court to 6 to 9 years in state prison.
His sentence was ordered stayed pending appeal, as requested by defense attorney John Gibbons.
Robertson was last seen by his family getting into a car with two men posing as constables and claiming that Robertson needed to go with them to comply with a drug testing requirement of his probation on a minor past court case, officials said.
“It was important to this family, to this office and to the law enforcement community that Michael Schoener be held accountable for his part in this awful crime,” Morrissey said in a statement. “He stands convicted of handing over to his drug dealer his police badge, holster, handcuffs and information about James Robertson. It was a shocking betrayal of public trust, with a brutal and shocking outcome.”
Schoener has since resigned from the Dedham Police Department.
Two other men were convicted of Robertson’s kidnapping and murder on Oct. 11, 2018.
“I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the detectives and prosecutors who ensured justice was properly administered in this case,” Dedham Police Chief Michael J. D’Entremont said. “Schoener has been found guilty of abusing the sacred trust placed by the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in police officers and the municipal police badge. His actions jeopardized that trust, and there is no room for individuals who engage in this type of conduct in the profession of policing.”
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