Scott Quigley now a defendant in family’s lawsuit over fatal crash

Already facing a vehicular homicide charge, the suspended Massachusetts State Police sergeant now also faces a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of the man accused of killing him while driving drunk in Woburn in 2023.

The family of Angelo Schettino, 37, filed an amended complaint last week that named Sgt. Scott Quigley and the state police as defendants in the wrongful death suit, seeking $25 million in damages. Combined with Quigley’s recent indictment, the updated civil lawsuit represents an important development in a case that has long been stagnant.

Quigley initially received only a ticket for the Dec. 12, 2023, accident that fatally injured Schettino, who was developmentally disabled and used a wheelchair. More details about the incident did not emerge until earlier this year after concerns about Quigley’s past upended the Lowell murder case in which he served as lead investigator.

An independent investigation released by the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office this spring determined that state police omitted key information from its crash reports and failed to formally notify prosecutors of Quigley’s alleged drunken driving.

Quigley pleaded not guilty last month to a charge of vehicular homicide while operating under the influence, with prosecutors alleging he was drunk behind the wheel when his unmarked car crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with a truck carrying Schettino back to his group home in Lynn. Schettino died of his injuries about a month later.

His family filed the initial wrongful death lawsuit last year, naming only the truck’s owner and operator as defendants. However, they eventually dismissed these claims as new information emerged; In court documents, Schettino’s family explained that they only learned in January that Quigley’s blood alcohol level was 0.11 at the time of the accident (the legal limit for driving in Massachusetts is 0.08).

“Quigley explained that he had no recollection of the accident occurring, that it appeared that I may have fallen asleep at the wheel, and that immediately prior to the accident, he felt ‘extremely fatigued and dizzy,’” the family wrote in a filing, referring to a report the trooper filed just over a week after the collision.

The attorney representing Quigley in the civil case did not respond to a request for comment.

talking to Boston Herald After Quigley’s arraignment in April, Schettino’s mother noted the difficulty her family had in gathering basic information about the fatal crash.

“If it had been you or me, I mean… all of this would have been set up two years ago,” Len Schettino told the newspaper. Herald.

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work covers public transportation, crime, health, and everything in between.