Former Mass. State Police Sergeant convicted of extortion in CDL scheme

BOSTON (WWLP) - A former Massachusetts State Police Sergeant was convicted by a federal grand jury on Friday for giving out false passing scores to numerous Commercial Driver's License (CDL) applicants in a years-long conspiracy.

Gary Cederquist, 59, of Stoughton, was charged in a 74-count indictment in January 2024, in addition to three other state troopers and two civilians. Charging documents stated that between February 2019 and January 2023, Cederquist arranged for him and his co-conspirators to give at least three dozen CDL applicants passing scores regardless of whether or not they had passed.

At this time, Cederquist was in charge of MSP's CDL Unit, which included former troopers 64-year-old Calvin Butner of Halifax, 64-year-old Perry Mendes of Wareham, and 56-year-old Joel Rogers of Bridgewater. These troopers conspired to give passing scores to some applicants in exchange for bribes, using the code word "golden handshake" or "golden" to identify those they would give special treatment to regardless of actual performance on the test.

The CDL applicants included six MSP troopers who did not perform actual Class A skills tests but were falsely reported with passing grades. Cederquist was able to accomplish this offense by conspiring with 44-year-old Scott Camara of Rehoboth, who worked for a truck-driving school in Boston.

The charging documents further stated that Cederquist gave false passing scores to applicants affiliated with a water company by accepting bribes of free inventory from the company. This was arranged through 48-year-old Eric Mathison of Boston, who worked for the water company.

Mathison would deliver Cederquist's bribes to an office trailer at the CDL test site in Stoughton. These bribes included cases of bottled Fiji, VOSS, and Essentia water, cases of Arizona Iced Tea, coffee and tea products, and boxes of Twizzlers and Swedish Fish.

Cederquist also accepted much larger bribes from Mathison in exchange for his services with the water company, including a $750 granite post and mailbox, a new driveway costing over $10,000, and a snowblower costing nearly $2,000.

Many of the applicants who were given false passing scores by Cederquist and his co-conspirators were described as poor drivers, using phrases such as "brain dead," "no idea what he's doing," and "should have failed about 10 times already," but were still granted CDLs in exchange for bribes.

Cederquist was convicted of:

• 2 counts of Conspiracy to Commit Extortion
• 1 count of Extortion
• 6 counts of Honest Services Mail Fraud
• 3 counts of Conspiracy to Falsify Records
• 19 Counts of Falsification of Records
• 17 counts of False Statements

Butner, Mendes, Camara, and Mathison have all pleaded guilty to their roles in the conspiracy and are awaiting sentencing. Cederquist is scheduled to be sentenced on July 24.