‘Egregious police misconduct’: New Bedford drug case dismissed due to intimate relationship of detective, informant

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (WLNE) — The narcotics case against four suspects stemming from a 2017 wiretap investigation has been dismissed due to “egregious police misconduct” by a former New Bedford police detective, according to the Bristol County District Attorney’s office.

The narcotics case against co-defendants Steven Ortiz, Tommy Ortiz, Jason Darosa and Katherine Espinal Parades was dismissed by the Commonwealth on Friday.

This was due to the finding that former New Bedford Police Detective Jared Lucas had been in a sexual relationship with an informant in the case named Carly Medeiros.

The Bristol County DA’s office noted that Medeiros was also an informant in a previous case in which Lucas was involved, Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Miguel Martinez.

That case was dismissed in 2024 due to Lucas and Medeiros’ “on again, off again 7-year intimate sexual relationship,” which was described as “gross misconduct” on Lucas’ part.

The Bristol County DA said of the Martinez conclusion:

That time frame established by the Court covers the 2017 wiretap investigation and co-defendants listed above (Steven Ortiz, Tommy Ortiz, Jason Darosa and Katherine Espinal Parades).

Lucas, now retired, presented Medeiros as a “reliable confidential informant” to support warrant applications in the Ortiz case without disclosing the relationship.

Lucas invoked the fifth amendment during the current motion hearing in 2024.

The statement from the Bristol County DA said:

Witness testimony in the current cases also established that the warrants could not stand on their own if Ms. Medeiros’s information was excluded from them. The evidence concluded that the sexual relationship between former Detective Jared Lucas and Carly Medeiros was inextricably intertwined in these cases and that the failure to disclose the relationship tainted the investigation and dismissal was appropriate. 

Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III said, “The conduct of Lucas clearly compromised the integrity of the investigation which continues to undermine the public’s confidence in law enforcement despite the good work done by most officers in a very difficult job.”

Reached for comment, New Bedford Police Chief Paul Oliveira said, “It’s unfortunate that former Officer Jared Lucas’s gross misconduct compromised this case, and as a result, the District Attorney’s Office had no other choice but to drop it. I am incredibly disappointed in Lucas’s behavior, and I sympathize with all of the other law enforcement officers involved with this investigation whose hard work was negatively impacted by it.”