BishopAccountability.org
	Jailhouse Killing Defendant Says Prison Staff Let Him in Pedophile's Cell By Denise Lavoie Boston Globe [Worcester MA] September 1, 2005 WORCESTER, Mass. --The man accused in the jailhouse killing of John Geoghan said Thursday that a Department of Correction officer allowed him into the pedophile priest's cell before the slaying so he could kill him, and top agency administrators are trying to cover it up. "This ain't about the correction officers," Joseph Druce said after Worcester Superior Court Judge Timothy Hillman granted his repeated requests during a pretrial hearing to speak. "This is about the administration of the Department of Correction." Druce's attorney, John LaChance, also asked in the hearing to be given a copy of a videotape described in a published report this week that purportedly shows Druce re-enacting Geoghan's killing. The defense maintains the tape was released by the Department of Correction to try to sabotage Druce's chances for a fair trial. During Thursday's hearing, Druce said top administrators helped cover up the agency's role in Geoghan's killing in his cell in August 2003 at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. "I was allowed to go into John Geoghan's cell," Druce said. Department of Correction spokeswoman Kelly Nantel declined to comment Thursday on Druce's allegations. After the hearing, LaChance told reporters he does not have any evidence of Druce's claim that a correction officer allowed him into Geoghan's cell for the purpose of killing him. "That has not been a focus of our investigation," LaChance said. LaChance reiterated that the defense plans to use an insanity defense for Druce. Druce is seeking to have the murder charge dismissed, claiming he has been harassed and denied access to his attorney by prison officials retaliating against him for exposing lax security systems. LaChance said prison officials want to get back at Druce for embarrassing them when the news media and politicians criticized security procedures at Souza-Baranowski after Geoghan's killing, which sparked an overhaul of the state prison system. Geoghan, a central figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal, was serving a 9- to 10-year sentence for molesting a 10-year-old boy. He had also been accused of sexual abuse by more than 130 people in civil lawsuits filed against the Archdiocese of Boston. Druce was serving a life sentence for murder in a 1988 killing. Investigators say Druce jammed shut the door of Geoghan's cell so no one could enter, then beat and strangled the 68-year-old defrocked priest. Druce allegedly told investigators initially that he killed Geoghan "to save the children." He later claimed that that statement was coerced from him by state police in violation of his constitutional rights. Druce testified at a hearing in April that guards beat him after Geoghan's killing. He also said he was denied access to his attorney and harassed by prison officials who encouraged him to plead guilty to killing Geoghan so he would be transferred out of Souza-Baranowski. Prison officials have denied his claims and said he was not allowed to meet privately with his attorney as a matter of prison policy. In Thursday's hearing, LaChance said the defense should be given a copy of a videotape that was described in a report this week in the Boston Herald. State corrections officials said the grainy tape was an unauthorized, pirated recording made by a prison employee. After seeing the footage obtained by the Herald, Worcester District Attorney John Conte demanded that prison officials hand it over to prosecutors. But officials at the DOC said they have never had a copy of the tape and are investigating who made it. DOC Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy said investigators have reviewed all surveillance video preserved since Geoghan was slain, and none of their videos match the images published in the Herald. LaChance said he telephoned the Herald reporter who wrote about the tape and was told that she no longer has it. The reporter said Thursday she had returned the tape to the source she obtained it from, LaChance said. LaChance said he planned to subpoena the reporter to testify at a Sept. 8 hearing about the the date the tape was made and how it was made. He said he would not necessarily ask the reporter to reveal the source who provided the tape.