Charges fly at meet over cop’s bias claim

MARBLEHEAD – Selectmen unanimously denied a discrimination claim Monday night by Police Sgt. Marion Keating, a 31-year-officer – and Sgt. Keating is now taking her case to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.Keating filed a grievance against Police Chief Robert Picariello, claiming that he reassigned her from head of the detective bureau to the post of patrol supervisor because of gender – she is one of two women in a 30-member uniform police force – and age.That claim had been previously denied by the chief and Town Administrator Tony Sasso.Keating’s lawyer, Attorney David Belfort, said Chief Picariello worked to "exclude and marginalize" Keating from the time he took office as chief last year, that he didn’t consult her before assigning a new detective, barred her from swapping shifts, excluded her from management meetings and demoted her to patrol assignment last July because she violated a rule of his by speaking with a reporter."She says he told her she didn’t fit in with the younger division he was headed for," Belfort said. He said her replacement was less experienced than she was.However, union lawyer Rachel Munoz said the contract allowed the chief to make personnel assignments and an arbitrator could not order the chief to reassign her to the detective bureau.Town Counsel Marc Miller accused Keating of "playing the woman card", generating a chorus of gasps and groans from a larger-than-usual selectman’s meeting audience.Chief Picariello said he did not consult Keating on the detective appointment because one candidate was her son and another was someone with an active complaint against her.He said he met only with lieutenants and the police captain because those meetings were more productive, gave her four days to make the transfer rather than 24 hours as she said and took the police prosecutor to a Jewish Federation conference on hate crimes because the prosecutor dealt with them."I may have told her I was going in a different direction," he said, referring to her claims about age discrimination as "just fiction."Selectman William Woodfin was left wondering: "How do we connect the dots, to say that discrimination occurred?"Miller mentioned a problem that a superintendent of schools had with Keating, referring to an unidentified two-year investigation of a school matter in which no reports were found.Belfort questioned why the chief hadn’t gone to Keating to discuss the problem, instead of simply reassigning her. "That’s how you deal with someone you loathe," he said.Selectman Jackie Belf-Becker prodded Belfort to let Keating speak to the board.Conrad finally told the board that Picariello had not discriminated against her before he became chief "because we did not have that kind of working relationship."Later she said he held meetings with sergeants behind closed doors and later new equipment would appear at the station, things other people knew about and she did not. "People sort of forget that I’m there," she said. "I’m not part of the closed door meetings."Picariello listed five meetings with the department staff and said all police officers were invited.