Charges against former Massachusetts State Trooper Terence Kent, accused of bribery and sexual assault stemming from a 2024 traffic stop in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood, were dropped just days before he was set to go on trial. Prosecutors filed the dismissal days before jury selection was scheduled to begin in Middlesex Superior Court, ending a case that had stretched on for nearly two years.
The allegations dated back to August 24, 2024, when Kent allegedly used his marked State Police cruiser to block a vehicle parked near Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office. He allegedly told the driver his registration had expired, then directed him to meet at a state facility in Lexington, roughly 25 minutes away, where Kent allegedly solicited a sexual favor in exchange for not towing the car.
A Middlesex County Grand Jury indicted Kent on March 11, 2025, on charges of bribery by a public official and indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 years old, per the same office. Under Massachusetts law, bribery by a public official carries a maximum of up to 10 years in state prison, while indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 carries up to 20 years, according to reporting cited by Note My Objection. Both charges also carried alternative lower sentences of up to two and a half years in a county house of correction.
A Trooper’s Record Before the Allegations
Kent graduated from the Massachusetts State Police Academy in August 2017. He had previously been suspended for eight days in 2023 for abandoning an assigned post and submitting a false time sheet, as reported by MassLive. State Police relieved Kent of duty and suspended him without pay on November 21, 2024, following an internal affairs review of the sexual misconduct allegations, according to Boston 25 News. That administrative action came months before the criminal indictment…