2018: Charges Dropped
2016: Plea deal offered
Suffolk County prosecutors offered Sean Ellis the same plea deal they gave Patterson ten years earlier (see 2006: Co-defendant freed under “Case Details”).
Ellis refused it, choosing to place his fate in the hands of yet a fourth jury panel rather than “plead guilty to a crime I didn’t commit.”
2018: Murder and robbery charges dropped
On Dec. 17, 2018, D.A. John Pappas and Boston Police Commissioner William Gross held an unusual afternoon, live-streaming press conference to announce the Commonwealth would formally drop all charges against Sean Ellis for the 1993 murder and robbery of Boston Police Detective John Mulligan the following day, Dec. 18. Yet the officials did not exonerate Ellis. They emphasized their belief, shared by the victim’s family, that he had a role in the murder, but said they’ve concluded a retrial would be unlikely to result in conviction due to the “fading memories” of witnesses and the corruption of three investigating detectives that was “inextricably intertwined with the investigation and critical witnesses in the case.”
The following day, Sean’s GPS device was removed.
The DA’s spin
Interim D.A. John Pappas’s 12.17.18 statement announcing dropped charges against Sean Ellis
On December 17, 2018, in announcing that the Commonwealth would drop charges against Sean Ellis for the 1993 murder and robbery of Boston Police Detective John Mulligan, Suffolk County D.A. John Pappas and Boston Police Commissioner Gross did not exonerate Sean. Instead, they stated their belief that he had a role in the murder, but that a retrial was unlikely to succeed due to the fading memories of some witnesses and the unwillingness of other witnesses to testify, and also because "... the involvement of three corrupt police detectives to varying degrees in the [Mulligan homicide] investigation has further compromised our ability to put the best possible case before a jury."
A critique: Two untruths in the Commonwealth’s statements on the Sean Ellis case
As a longtime advocate for Sean Ellis, I do not believe he was Det. Mulligan's assassin. or that he assisted the shooter in the robbery and murder. My opinions are based on facts I have learned over 23 years of dedicated research into the Ellis case. Below, I take issue with two outright untruths expressed by the Suffolk County D.A. in his Dec. 17, 2018 press conference and press release.
UNTRUTH # 1:
The Suffolk County D.A. said the extent of [Det. Acerra, Robinson, and Brazil’s] criminal conduct was “unknown to prosecutors or defense counsel in 1995."
THE FACTS:
The three detectives’ criminal scheme of falsifying warrants to rob drug dealers of drugs and money was in full swing at the time of Mulligan's murder (see “1996-98: Corrupt Investigators”). Robinson and Mulligan’s activities were being investigated by the department’s Anti-Corruption Unit in 1993 – specifically, allegations that the two of them, working together, robbed drug dealers at gunpoint in two separate incidents, pocketing large sums of money.
Attorney Scapicchio insists the Anti-Corruption investigation had to be known by the BPD’S top brass. Still, Robinson was put on the “best and brightest” task force convened to investigate Mulligan’s murder.
D.A. Pappas went on to say, "Based on the facts and circumstances known to us, we don't believe Det. Mulligan was involved in [Acerra, Robinson, and Brazil’s] schemes."
THE FACTS:
Attorney Scapicchio brought forward new documentary evidence showing that victim John Mulligan was an active member of the men's perjury-and-robbery enterprise:
· 1996 federal grand jury testimony of Boston drug dealer Robert Martin, who described in detail how Mulligan, Acerra, Robinson, and two other Area E-5 detectives robbed his two apartments of large amounts of drugs and money on September 19, 1993 - seventeen days before Mulligan's murder
· A Boston Police Internal Affairs investigation, ongoing at the time of Mulligan's 1993 death, into credible allegations that Mulligan and Walter Robinson robbed two drug dealers together in separate 1991 incidents.
Pappas ignored documentary evidence before the courts of Mulligan’s robberies, committed with his corrupt associates.
The co-mingling in crimes of perjury and robbery by victim John Mulligan and three members of his homicide investigation presented a conflict of interest for the men. Note: Acerra, Robinson, and Brazil marshaled virtually all the key evidence used against Ellis.
UNTRUTH #2
Pappas stated, "The trial prosecutors, Phyllis Broker and Jill Furman, were the model of professionalism at every stage of the proceedings. They hid nothing from the jury or the defense.”
THE FACTS:
Both Suffolk Superior Court Justice Carol Ball (2015) and the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court (2016) found prosecutorial misconduct in Sean Ellis's 1995 trial – specifically, that Chief Prosecutor Phyllis Broker withheld from Ellis's trial lawyers multiple, detailed police hotline tips as well as a tip conveyed by Mulligan task force Det. George Foley that Boston officer Ray Armstead, Sr. (now deceased) killed Mulligan because of a “beef.”
This withholding of discovery materials was a secondary reason the courts overturned Ellis's convictions.
In stating that prosecutors did NOT withhold information from trial lawyers, Pappas ignored the findings of two Massachusetts courts.
Attorney Rosemary Scapicchio takes on D.A. Pappas in a fiery press conference following the hearing at which Sean Ellis’s murder charge was formally dropped.
This video was taken after the 12.18.18 hearing in Boston’s Suffolk Superior Court at which charges were formally dropped against Sean Ellis and the removal of his GPS monitoring device was authorized. Sean’s attorney, Rosemary Scapicchio, answers reporters’ questions as he holds tight to his mother, Jackie Ellis.; Sean’s other appellate attorney, Jillise McDonough, is to his right.
In the video:
Sean Ellis expresses his elation over now being free and not having to face a fourth trial.
Attorney Rosemary Scapiccio slams Suffolk County DA John Pappas for the “politically motivated” timing and manner of Ellis’s release, three weeks before DA-elect Rachael Rollins takes office, “so he could put his own spin on it.”
Scapicchio also contests Pappas’ positive appraisal of police and prosecutors’ conduct (in his press conference the previous day) as unwarranted and untrue.
Scapicchio told the press:
“The District Attorney’s office held that press conference yesterday to get out ahead of what we think Rachael Rollins would have done when she took over on this case. We think Rachael Rollins would not have praised the District Attorney’s office for their work on this case. Rachael Rollins would not have praised the Boston Police Department for their work on this case. And by issuing this press release yesterday, three weeks before Rachael Rollins takes office, they were able to get their version of the story out there. And their version of the story conflicts absolutely with what Judge Ball found and what the SJC found.”
Dorchester Reporter Publisher/Editor Bill Forry’s take on Ellis’s dropped charges, “The long-lasting impacts of corruption”
2021: On May 3, Judge Robert Ullman dismissed Sean’s 1995 firearms convictions due to the taint of corrupt Boston detectives in the case.
“I decide today that justice was not done at Mr. Ellis’s January 1995 trial, and on that basis a motion for a new trial is allowed … This whole case is a very sad chapter in the history of our criminal justice system. Thankfully, this chapter seems to be nearing its conclusion.” - Judge Robert Ullman
2021: On May 4, Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins filed a nolle prosequi, officially dropping the firearms charges against Sean.
Sean Ellis’s record is now completely clean.