Apropos the story about secret videotaping of the police in Massachusetts, check out this incident:
A teenage suspect who secretly recorded his interrogation on an MP3 player has landed a veteran detective in the middle of perjury charges, authorities said Thursday.
Unaware of the recording, Detective Christopher Perino testified in April that the suspect “wasn’t questioned” about a shooting in the Bronx, a criminal complaint said. But then the defense confronted the detective with a transcript it said proved he had spent more than an hour unsuccessfully trying to persuade Erik Crespo to confess — at times with vulgar tactics….
Perino, 42, was arraigned Thursday on 12 counts of first-degree perjury ….
Perino had arrested Crespo on New Year’s Eve 2005 while investigating the shooting of a man in an elevator. While in an interrogation room at a station house, Crespo, then 17, stealthily pressed the record button on the MP3 player, a Christmas gift, DeMarco said….
[After the disclosure, p]rosecutors then offered Crespo, who had faced as many as 25 years if convicted, seven years if he pleaded guilty to a weapons charge. He accepted.
Thanks to Wade Glover and Prof. Arnold Lowey for the pointer.
UPDATE: For a transcript of portions of the recording, see this Village Voice piece.