Howie Carr: The Massachusetts State Police is a millionaire’s racket

From the penthouse to the outhouse — that describes the plummeting trajectory of Mass. State Police Capt. Thomas McCarthy’s income over the last year.

A year ago, the crapulous captain was being crowned The World’s Highest Paid State Trooper for a second consecutive year.

Now the Scourge of Saugus plunges from number one with a bullet (a silver bullet, also known as a Coors Light) all the way down to Number 79 on the MSP’s Payroll Patriot Hit Parade.

But he still made $276,134.10, because there are no recessions for hacks, at least not if they’re made men in the MSP Crime Family.

It doesn’t matter how dreadfully a state cop behaves, he always becomes a millionaire, many times over.

Unless his name is Michael Proctor.

So McCarthy is still doing very well indeed for a guy who was once chased down Route 1 in Saugus by a posse of local police, finally cornered in a mall parking lot and charged with drunk driving.

Of course he never had to take a Breathalyzer, and a few days later he did get to blow off his initial court appearance with no consequences whatsoever.

Professional courtesy.

Of all the recent poster boys for appalling misbehavior by the State Police, Michael Proctor would of course rank number one. But I would rate Detective Capt. Thomas McCarthy as the top runner-up, at least until his tumble off the MSP gravy train last year.

In 2024, McCarthy pocketed a breath-taking $584,072, including $349,815.27 in overtime. Altogether in 2023-24, he pocketed $1.085 million.

But last year, his OT dropped to a mere $11,478.32.

It’s almost as if somebody high up in GHQ finally realized what a bad look it was to have someone like the Scourge of Saugus as their top earner.

A lot of the usual suspects, so to speak, remain on the 2025 MSP top earners’ list. Checking in at number five is Det. Lt. William Cederquist, with $372,231.63. But even he’s on the downhill slide lately, from $439,000 in 2023 to $407,100 in 2024.

You’re probably more familiar with his thieving MSP brother, ex-Sgt. Gary Cederquist. He was the longtime street boss of the MSP Crime Family’s CDL crew, which operated out of Stoughton, next door to Canton.

William Cederquist is not connected to his brother’s rackets. Nor is a third Cederquist who’s been collecting a $50,655-a-year tax-free state pension since June 2001 — Deborah. In other words, more than $1.25 million, already. See what I mean about how they’re all millionaires, every last one of them.

Gary Cederquist, age 60, was sentenced to six years in federal prison in October for stealing a hot stove without gloves and then coming back for the smoke. He already has a Bureau of Prisons number — 96873-510 — but is not yet in custody, according to the BOP website.

Neither is his 65-year-old capo in the Stoughton heist crew, Calvin Butner. His BOP number is 12387-506, but he too remains at large as of yesterday.

Despite their felony convictions and impending incarcerations, both former Met police career criminals continue to collect their monthly kisses in the mail — $8,850 a month for Cederquist and $6,020 for Butner.

Every New Year, we get a refresher lesson in just how much these con men are flim-flamming from the taxpayers. We’ll get to ZooMass in due course, but today it’s the Staties’ turn.

Here’s one way to consider just how much the troopers are making. The 200th best paid trooper last year was Sgt. Jonathan Nickles. He pocketed $242,210.07.

And behind these astonishing salaries comes the pension — even in most cases if you’re convicted and sentenced to a federal stretch, wink wink nudge nudge.

None of this will surprise anyone who’s ever driven past the MSP headquarters on Route 9 in Framingham. The parking lot looks like a new luxury car dealership.

Despite his steep falloff in OT last year, Detective Capt. Thomas McCarthy has done very well indeed considering his sorry record. When he was lugged in Saugus in 2011, reeking of cheap domestic lager, he was first told to turn off the engine in his unmarked MSP Crown Vic.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” the captain slurred. “I’m outta here!”

And that’s when he sped off down Route 1, pursued by three local cop vehicles. When he finally staggered out of his cruiser, he was told he was under arrest.

“Are you kidding me?” the captain repeated.

Inside the MSP vehicle, the Saugus cops discovered an empty Miller High Life, the Champagne of Bottled Beers, two full Millers, and a gun. Michael Proctor and Kevin Albert could not be reached for comment.

He was not given a Breathalyzer because… professional courtesy. After blowing off his first court appearance, a hack judge eventually gave McCarthy the traditional CWOF — continued without a finding.

It’s not like that was his first brush with a bad ice cube. In 2000, a motorist complained to Internal Affairs that a during traffic stop she’d smelled alcohol on McCarthy’s breath. The MSP ruled the allegation was “false.”

According to a Channel 25 report in 2014, in 2002 he “crashed into another motorist at 4 a.m. in Reading…”

Witnesses said McCarthy appeared to be throwing beer cans out his window as he fled. Channel 25 reported his name didn’t even appear in the Reading police incident report, even though both the driver he hit and the passenger in the victim’s car had to be taken to the hospital.

In 2005, after another disciplinary issue, McCarthy “forfeited 30 days.”

Check out his payroll chart from the comptroller’s office. In 2012, after all the above, McCarthy finally drew a year’s suspension and was busted back to trooper. No word on whether he was inducted into the MSP Alcohol of Fame.

But neither shame nor accountability exist to any great degree in the MSP. Everybody’s too busy working their own scams. Soon McCarthy was taking the promotional exams again and was back in the gravy, breaking the half-million-dollar mark twice.

To Protect and Serve. Or should I say, To Protect and Overserve. It’s the MSP Way.

Order Howie’s new book, “Mass Corruption: Vol. 1, The Cops,” at amazon.com or howiecarrshow.com/store.