Why Are Massachusetts State Police and a Quincy Developer in the Epstein Files?
The Massachusetts Story Buried in the Epstein Files
The Jeffrey Epstein story has always seemed to belong somewhere else: Palm Beach, Manhattan, private islands, private jets and circles of wealth most people never enter.
But there is a Massachusetts story buried inside the newly released federal records, and some of it runs surprisingly close to Boston.
It involves Ghislaine Maxwell living on the North Shore. It involves an active Massachusetts driver's license. It involves a Massachusetts State Police database search. It involves a prominent Quincy real-estate developer who had been charged with statutory rape and cocaine trafficking. And it includes allegations sent to federal investigators in 2020 involving wealthy Massachusetts businessmen and what the sender described as rogue police officers who catered to them.
The important word is allegations.
The federal files establish that the information was sent to investigators. They do not establish that the FBI proved those allegations to be true.
But the underlying Massachusetts connections are real enough to deserve a closer look.
Ghislaine Maxwell Had a Massachusetts Life
Long before federal agents arrested Maxwell in New Hampshire in July 2020, there had already been reporting that she had lived quietly in Manchester-by-the-Sea.
Neighbors told The Washington Post in 2019 that Maxwell had apparently lived at a secluded property on Summer Street with Scott Borgerson, a technology executive and former Coast Guard officer. The North Shore residence was not merely an internet rumor; Maxwell's Massachusetts ties also turn up in federal investigative records.
One particularly striking document is dated December 10, 2019.
A Massachusetts State Police CJIS system record shows a search for Ghislaine Noelle Maxwell. The returned driver's-license record listed her Massachusetts license as active, issued September 27, 2018, with an expiration date of December 25, 2022. Another federal record from the same day says investigators queried multiple databases and obtained Maxwell's Massachusetts license and driving information.
That does not indicate wrongdoing by Massachusetts State Police. Law-enforcement agencies run database searches as part of legitimate investigations every day.
It does, however, establish something that can easily be forgotten when the Epstein story is told as an exotic story of New York and Florida: Ghislaine Maxwell had a documented Massachusetts footprint.
Then There Is William O'Connell
William O'Connell was a prominent Massachusetts real-estate developer associated with Quincy and Marina Bay.
His name appeared years before the latest Epstein document releases in an extraordinary Massachusetts criminal case.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court described O'Connell in a 2012 opinion as a prominent real-estate developer facing criminal charges that included statutory rape. The case before the SJC concerned whether a search-warrant affidavit describing the allegations should remain impounded. The court ruled that a redacted version could be made public.
Contemporaneous reporting from WCVB provides another disturbing piece of the history.
The girl at the center of the statutory-rape case had been 14 at the time of the alleged conduct. In December 2012, when she was 17, she died in a fiery automobile crash in Malden. Police said speed was a factor and reported no evidence at that point that drugs or alcohol had contributed to the crash. She had been a key witness against O'Connell.
Three months later, WCVB reported that prosecutors were preparing a plea agreement under which the statutory-rape charges would be dropped. O'Connell had also faced a cocaine-trafficking charge connected to substances police said were found in his Marina Bay condominium.
Nothing in the records I reviewed establishes that the young woman's death was anything other than a crash.
That distinction matters.
So does what happened next.
A Massachusetts Allegation Reaches Federal Investigators
On July 6, 2020, just days after federal authorities arrested Maxwell in New Hampshire, an email reached federal investigators with the subject line:
“Corruption and Ghislaine.”
The sender identified herself as Lisa Kenney and said she had spent years reporting a group of wealthy Massachusetts real-estate developers, nightclub and restaurant owners and what she described as rogue police officers.
She specifically mentioned O'Connell.
She alleged that one Massachusetts trooper was closely connected to nightclub owners and to O'Connell, and she told investigators that information she had gathered led her to believe the Massachusetts group had connections to Epstein and Maxwell, including through properties and LLCs.
Again, this is crucial: the released document demonstrates that Kenney made those allegations. It does not demonstrate that the FBI verified them.
Some of the theories contained in the materials appear to depend on associations, company names, property records and personal relationships that would need much more reporting before anyone could responsibly present them as established connections.
But the email itself is now part of the federal Epstein records.
And that makes it a Massachusetts story.
Why Marian Ryan's Police-Endorsement Position Suddenly Feels Relevant
There is another Massachusetts story from only a few weeks ago that deserves to be placed beside these records.
During her 2026 campaign for Middlesex district attorney, incumbent Marian Ryan publicly explained why she does not seek police-union endorsements.
After the national reckoning that followed George Floyd's murder, Ryan said she signed a pledge never to seek or accept endorsements from police unions.
Her explanation was simple:
“I work closely with the police, but I do not work for them.”
Her opponent, former Middlesex prosecutor David Solet, took a very different path. More than 28 public-safety unions and associations backed him, including police unions in Waltham and Newton.
Ryan won the September 1 Democratic primary decisively, receiving about 77 percent of the vote to Solet's roughly 23 percent.
There is no evidence that the Epstein documents had anything to do with that election result.
But Ryan's reasoning deserves renewed attention.
A district attorney works with police constantly. A district attorney may also someday have to investigate or prosecute a police officer.
Those two responsibilities can collide.
The question is not whether accepting a police-union endorsement automatically corrupts a prosecutor. It does not.
The question is whether prosecutors who may be required to investigate police should maintain political independence from the organizations representing those same officers.
That was Ryan's argument.
Who Watches the People We Trust to Watch Everyone Else?
There is a temptation with the Epstein files to look for one enormous revelation that explains everything.
That is usually where reporting goes wrong.
Sometimes the important story is smaller.
A woman makes allegations to the FBI about wealthy Massachusetts businessmen and police relationships.
A Quincy developer facing serious criminal charges loses the prosecution's essential witness when she dies before trial.
Ghislaine Maxwell quietly maintains Massachusetts ties while living on the North Shore.
A Massachusetts State Police system contains a search of her active Massachusetts driver's license.
Years later, a sitting district attorney tells voters that she will not accept police-union endorsements because she works with police but does not work for them.
None of those facts, standing alone, proves a conspiracy.
Together, they raise a legitimate question about institutions:
When wealth, law enforcement and political power overlap, who is independent enough to investigate whom?
That question does not require a conspiracy theory.
It requires records, transparency and people willing to keep asking.
Join the GoBoston Community
GoBoston is about more than telling you where to eat or what to do this weekend. Boston history is still being written every day, and sometimes understanding today's Massachusetts requires going back through court records, old news reports, neighborhoods, politics and the institutions that have shaped this place for generations.
If that is the Boston you are interested in, join me at GoBoston on Substack. It is where readers can share memories, add local knowledge, point us toward records and stories we may have missed, and talk with other people who care about Boston's history, news, neighborhoods and future.
And keep coming back to GoBoston.com. There are a lot more Boston stories hiding in plain sight.
Sources
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Commonwealth & William O'Connell v. George W. Prescott Publishing Company; WCVB reporting from 2012 and 2013 on the O'Connell prosecution; U.S. Department of Justice Epstein-file records concerning Maxwell's Massachusetts driver's license; federal record EFTA00021170, dated July 6, 2020; The Washington Post reporting on Maxwell in Manchester-by-the-Sea; Massachusetts 2026 election statistics; Waltham Times and Newton Record reporting on the Ryan-Solet race.