GOPer Involved in Illegal Strip Searches of Teen Girls

According to a civil complaint filed by the 14-year-old’s parents, the girl was with friends near a cranberry bog on May 22, 1991, when Wareham police officers pulled up, Perry among them.

One of the officers under Perry’s command asked the girl if she had any drugs. The officer, Scott Flanagan, then ordered her to unbutton her pants and threatened to arrest her.

“Flanagan then put his hand inside her underpants along her body,’’ the complaint says. He then ordered her to pull up her shirt until her breasts were exposed and turn around.’’ “This search was conducted in the glare of headlights and spotlights from the police cars,’’ the complaint states.

Perry “observed the strip search’’ but “did nothing to protect her,’’ the complaint states. No drugs were found.

On Dec. 31, 1992, Perry was the shift supervisor when Flanagan approached a 16-year-old girl behind a Tedeschi’s store and accused her of having marijuana. After she turned her pockets inside out, Flanagan ordered her to follow him behind a trash bin.

He told her to pull down her pants, lift up her shirt, and turn around, while he shone a light on her. Flanagan ordered her to pull down her underwear and turn around again. “He then said, ‘How do I know it’s not up there?’ ’’ the complaint says.

A civilian witness then intervened and demanded that Flanagan divulge his badge number. Flanagan stopped the search and let the girl go. Later that night, when Perry and Flanagan went to the girl’s house, Perry told her parents that officers had seen their daughter with a substance that looked like oregano on her shirt and that if it had been marijuana she could have gone to jail.

When the girl’s parents asked if officers had found marijuana, Perry said they had not. Perry, as he was headed out the door, said, “Oh, yeah, by the way, [she] pulled her pants down for us,’’ according to her parents’ sworn testimony. The parents said they interpreted the officers’ visit as an attempt to persuade them to keep quiet or risk having their daughter jailed.

Perry, now a state representative, was not charged in the cases, but the officer who searched the girls pleaded guilty to indecent assault and other charges and was sentenced to four years in prison. Perry was named as a defendant in civil cases brought by the girls’ parents against the Town of Wareham and the two officers. The cases were settled out of court, and Perry resigned from the police force.