DEDHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - A former Dedham police officer was convicted Wednesday of being an accessory before kidnapping, officials say.
Michael Schoener, 45, was found guilty of accessory before the fact to the kidnapping of James Robertson, an Avon father kidnapped from his family home on New Year’s Day in 2014 and found murdered in the woods of Upton about two years later, according to Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey.
Schoener will be sentenced Thursday in Norfolk Superior Court and faces up to 10 years in jail.
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 say.
“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. “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 men were convicted on Oct. 11, 2018, in the kidnapping and murder of Robertson.
“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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