Jury to Probe Police Cover-Up

BOSTON -- Following the indictment of former and current high-ranking police officers in an alleged scheme to steal and sell promotional exams, the grand jury is now expected to focus on alleged criminal activities the officers wanted to protect.

The federal grand jury, in a lengthy indictment unsealed Wednesday, charged that leaders of the reputed test-stealing enterprise set up the ring so they could place favored officers in high-level positions in various police departments.

The indictment said those handpicked officers, in turn, could help the ring leaders cover up "other of their illegal activity [if they] ... come to the attention of those police departments."

The indictment, however, did not discuss what those other criminal enterprises were.

Middlesex County Dist. Atty. L. Scott Harshbarger said one was the $1.5 million robbery of the Depositors Trust Co. of Medford in 1980. The two leaders named in the indictment, former Metropolitan Police Capt. Gerald W. Clemente and former Medford Police Lt. Thomas K. Doherty, are serving sentences for their involvement in that crime.