Brian Gladu’s career with the Massachusetts State Police reads like a police blotter.
In 2009, internal affairs investigators determined that Gladu, then a trooper, falsely accused a woman of carrying drugs, inappropriately touched her, and then tried to influence witnesses to cover it up.
In 2016, another internal investigation found that Gladu — by then a sergeant — misused a confidential police database to look up information about dozens of women and female high school athletes.
There were other complaints along the way, but by 2020, he’d risen through the ranks to captain.
When Gladu, 55, retired from the State Police in 2023, he was facing new allegations that he groped a Springfield resident during an unlawful search. Three months later, he was charged with felony indecent assault; his trial is scheduled for December.
In the meantime, he’s collecting a pension of $133,000 per year.
Gladu’s rise up the ranks underscores the lack of accountability in a police force with a history of scandals and misconduct that the department’s new leader, Colonel Geoffrey Noble, will have to address as he attempts to restore public confidence in the agency, according to legal analysts.
Of the approximately 300 superior officers — lieutenants, captains, and majors — throughout the State Police, at least 34 have some history of substantiated misconduct, according to a Globe review of a statewide police accountability database. In most cases, the misconduct occurred years before their promotions. And while the severity of the charges vary, some were suspended for more than one month — including two troopers who were suspended for falsifying time sheets related to the notorious Troop E overtime scandal and who went on to become lieutenants.
It’s a problem that has been baked into the State Police system for decades, according to Dennis Galvin, president of the Massachusetts Association for Professional Law Enforcement and a retired State Police major.
Until this year, Massachusetts law barred the State Police from factoring disciplinary history into promotion decisions, which were strictly based on exam scores and seniority. That can be a “big issue” when a candidate has a record of serious misconduct or dishonesty, Galvin said.
“Your disciplinary record is basically apart and separate from your promotional considerations,” Galvin said.
This summer, legislators authorized a provision to allow the State Police colonel for the first time to consider disciplinary history in promotions to captain. The agency has proposed regulations to implement that change, with a public hearing scheduled for December.
“The new skills-based promotional system allows for a comprehensive assessment of candidates beyond written exams, enabling the department to advance those within our ranks who not only possess the necessary skills and experience but also uphold the values essential to delivering excellent police services,” Noble said in a statement.
The law does not apply to sergeants and lieutenants, whose promotions are governed by a labor contract with the State Police Association of Massachusetts. State Police spokesman Tim McGuirk said the agency hopes to negotiate with the union to expand the reform to those ranks. The union did not return requests for comment.
A.J. O’Donald, Gladu’s attorney, told the Globe his client maintains his innocence in the criminal case and described the accusations as fabricated. He did not respond to additional questions about Gladu’s internal affairs record.
Gladu’s history of offenses were unaccounted for in other ways: Until he was criminally charged, he was never listed on the police accountability database run by the state Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission, even though that database is supposed to report substantiated cases of police misconduct, including those that are not criminal.
Gladu had three sustained complaints in his career, and another three cases pending when he resigned. Agencywide, there are 335 State Police troopers and superior officers listed in the database.
And until the most recent allegations, Gladu was not listed on the Hampden district attorney’s list of unreliable officers, known as a Brady list, which is meant to flag the credibility of officers who are called to court to testify about their cases.
The agency has been beset by high-profile scandals in recent years — including the convictions of troopers in an overtime scheme and the federal indictment of others in a bribery conspiracy involving commercial driver’s license applicants. The agency has been the subject of multiple probes, including one related to the recent death of an academy recruit during self-defense training.
Gladu’s work history is based on court records and internal investigation reports the Globe obtained through a public records request.
Daniel S. Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University who researches police accountability and who reviewed Gladu’s internal affairs records at the Globe’s request, said it was “troubling” he was promoted despite his history of offenses.
“It may indicate some type of breakdown in communication within the organization or, perhaps worse, a lack of concern for this type of conduct,” Medwed concluded.
The criminal case involves a West Springfield resident who accused Gladu of randomly showing up at their home in February 2023, showing his badge, asking sexual questions, and reaching inside their robe to touch their chest.
Gladu said he was there for an investigation, but acknowledged he did not take any notes, did not report it to State Police, and said his body camera was “dead,” according to court records. The resident filed a criminal complaint in March 2023 and Gladu retired the same month, which allowed him to collect his pension despite an ongoing internal investigation. Gladu was then charged in June 2023 with indecent assault and battery. The resident declined to comment, and the Globe does not identify victims of alleged sexual assault.
In 2000, a woman alleged that Gladu had called her son a racial slur, which he denied. An internal investigation did not weigh in on exactly what Gladu said but sustained the complaint, ruling he had used inappropriate language.
Nine years later, he was the target of another complaint — this one severe enough it should have made him noncredible in court, Medwed told the Globe.
On June 20, 2009, a woman who was shopping at a corner store in Holyoke said she exited the store to find Gladu waiting for her on the sidewalk. He allegedly asked her what “such a pretty woman” was doing there and demanded to search her shopping bag for drugs. She started crying as he allegedly threatened her with his police dog, reached inside her pants, and suggested they buy alcohol and have fun, according to a civil suit she later filed against the State Police.
When internal affairs began investigating, the story only got more troubling.
Gladu provided the names of witnesses he claimed could exonerate him. But one witness failed to back up his story, and another witness said Gladu issued her a citation and told her he’d take care of it if she spoke to internal investigators on his behalf.
To the investigators, that seemed like witness tampering. Internal affairs Captain Anthony E. Thomas Jr. sustained the complaint against Gladu, and the woman later reached a $49,000 settlement with State Police. Gladu was suspended for seven days without pay.
“There is overwhelming evidence that Trooper Gladu’s conduct and actions were deliberate,” Thomas wrote. “Trooper Gladu used the power of his position to criminally charge another in a scheme to retard the investigative process.”
Medwed, the Northeastern University law professor, described the case as “very troubling.”
“This strikes me as powerful impeachment material against Trooper Gladu if he were called as a government witness in a criminal case, especially as it refers to ‘his deception and deceit,’“ Medwed wrote in an email. “For that matter, so much of the report calls into question his credibility and competency.”
But the case did not end Gladu’s career. Instead, he was promoted to sergeant. In 2016, to lieutenant. And four years after that, he made captain.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that State Police did not respond to questions about Trooper Gladu’s record.