City cop is fired after his criminal conviction upheld

WOONSOCKET – Now that the Supreme Court has affirmed his conviction for second-degree child abuse, Patrick Cahill’s employment with the Woonsocket Police Department has officially been terminated.

The former patrolman had been on unpaid leave since August 2012, when he was arrested for abusing his 9-yearold half-sister by choking her and dragging her by the hair when she disobeyed him by running outside their father’s home to play with a friend.

Under the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, a policeman accused of a crime may not be terminated until the defendant has exhausted all his appeals. Deputy Police Chief Michael Lemoine said that threshold was satisfied on Nov. 30, when the Supreme Court affirmed Cahill’s conviction. The city sent him a termination letter several days later.

Although Cahill had not served as a policeman for more than six years, the city was unable to hire a replacement officer to fill the position as long as it was carrying him as an employee. The termination means the city may now move to fill the vacancy, Lemoine said.

“Technically we have to hold him on the books,” said Lemonie. “Until his appeals are exhausted we can’t create a spot to replace him because we don’t know if he’s coming back.”

Cahill, 29, was convicted of second-degree child abuse by Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini in a jury-waived trial in 2014. Procaccini sentenced to Cahill to 10 years, with six months to serve and the balance suspended, with probation.

But Procaccini allowed Cahill to remain free on bail pending the resolution of the

appeal. Procaccini is expected to set a date for him to report to the Adult Correctional Institutions to begin serving his sentence next week. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Dec. 19, according to the judiciary’s web site.

This will not be Cahill’s first period of incarceration at the ACI since he was suspended from his job as a policeman. In March 2017, while the appeal in the child abuse charge was pending, Cahill was arrested again on charges of assaulting a ju- venile at Woonsocket High School, where he was working as an assistant football coach.

He was given a year’s probation on the main offense, but sentenced to 40 days at the ACI as a bail violator.

According to the Supreme Court’s decision, Cahill assaulted his half-sister on Aug. 20, 2012, when she ran out of their father’s house in the Park Square neighborhood after he refused to allow her to go outside to play with a friend and she became upset. Cahill ran after the girl, yelling “I’m the boss.”

Cahill caught up to his half-sibling in the driveway, grabbed her by the ponytail and dragged her into the house – a distance of about 30 feet – as the girl sobbed, the decision says. Then he pushed the girl onto a sofa, placed his knee on her chest and squeezed her cheeks with one hand while using the other to hold her by the throat.

The girl coughed and had trouble catching her breath after Cahill released her. She was taken to the hospital the following day when her mother noticed her cheeks swelling up, but otherwise she appeared to suffer no serious injury.

Through criminal defense lawyer Robert B. Mann, Ca- hill argued on appeal that Procaccini erred in refusing to grant him a new trial because he should have considered inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimony of the victim and her older sibling – also a half-sister to Cahill.

The high court concluded otherwise.

“After a thorough review of the record of this case, we are of the opinion that the trial justice has not overlooked or misconceived relevant material evidence, and that he was not otherwise clearly wrong when he denied the defendant’s motion,” the court said in a 24-page decision says. “The trial jus- tice further stated that he remained convinced that (the victim and her sister) were credible witnesses, worthy of belief, while acknowledging some inconsistency in their testimony.”

During the trial, Cahill and his girlfriend – another witness – denied that he had choked the girl, though Cahill admitted to restraining her unruly behavior, including spitting, kicking and headbutting. Procaccini dismissed the defense as “neat, somewhat contrived and carefully scripted,” however.