Jen Penton: Perjury Charge, Defense, and Case Status

Jennifer Penton is a Massachusetts State Police lieutenant charged with involuntary manslaughter, causing serious bodily injury to a person in a training program, and perjury in connection with the September 2024 death of recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia at the State Police Academy in New Braintree. She ran the academy’s defensive tactics unit at the time. She was indicted in February 2026, arraigned in the spring of 2026, and has pleaded not guilty to every count.¹

What Prosecutors Say She Did

Delgado-Garcia, a 25-year-old recruit and former victim-witness advocate for the Worcester District Attorney’s Office, died on September 13, 2024, from intracranial hemorrhages caused by blunt-impact head injuries sustained during academy training.² On September 11 he had taken part in what investigators later called “unauthorized, unapproved and unsupervised” sparring and developed concussion-like symptoms, including memory loss and headaches. The next day he was put into a competitive boxing match against the most experienced boxer in his class and was knocked out.³

Penton was indicted alongside three troopers from the defensive tactics unit — Edwin Rodriguez, David Montanez, and Casey LaMonte. Prosecutors filed a 12-page statement of the case alleging the four failed to follow safety protocols, failed to medically evaluate recruits before and after sparring, and used an unlicensed president of the state police boxing team as a referee.⁴

As the supervising lieutenant, Penton is specifically accused of failing to relay information about Delgado-Garcia’s concussion-like symptoms from the September 11 session to the emergency medical personnel who responded when he collapsed on September 12.⁵ Special prosecutor David Meier, who ran the 17-month independent investigation appointed by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, concluded that the defendants “committed a series of wanton and reckless acts and omissions” that led to the death. Investigators found no evidence Delgado-Garcia had been targeted or that the conduct was premeditated.¹

Penton, Rodriguez, and Montanez were arraigned on April 2, 2026, in Worcester Superior Court and released on personal recognizance with orders to avoid contact with witnesses.⁶

The Perjury Charge Against Her Alone

Of the four defendants, only Penton faces a perjury charge. It stems from her testimony before a special statewide grand jury during Meier’s investigation. According to a filing in Middlesex Superior Court, she was asked “directly, specifically, and repeatedly” whether she had been informed of Delgado-Garcia’s concussion-like symptoms, and she “repeatedly denied being told any such information.”⁷

Prosecutors say she was in fact told “very shortly after Delgado-Garcia’s collapse” that he had experienced concussion-like symptoms the day before, and that she never passed that on to medical staff or to state police investigators who interviewed her a week later.⁴ She was arraigned on the perjury count on April 15, 2026, in Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, pleaded not guilty, and was released without bail.⁸

Her Background in Law Enforcement

Penton began her policing career at the New Bedford Police Department, where she worked for three years, then made a lateral transfer to the Boston Police Department.⁹ By early 2013 she had served about five and a half years in Boston.¹⁰

Boston Police internal affairs records show six complaints filed against her during her time there, with sustained findings in three covering neglect of duty, unreasonable judgment, and respectful treatment. Two of those cases resulted in settlement agreements, and charges were still pending when she resigned from the department in December 2015.¹¹ She later joined the Massachusetts State Police, rose to lieutenant, and took over the academy’s defensive tactics unit, which oversaw the boxing program at the center of the case.

Her Defense

Penton is represented by attorney Brad Bailey. On the perjury count, Bailey has emphasized that she testified voluntarily before the grand jury for more than four hours without invoking her Fifth Amendment right. “She came forward because she had absolutely nothing to hide and because she did nothing wrong here,” he told reporters after the arraignment.¹²

On the manslaughter case, Bailey has called Delgado-Garcia’s death a “tragic accident” rather than criminal conduct, said the troopers “were just doing their jobs,” and attacked the prosecution’s theory. “The Commonwealth’s effort to apply … convoluted legal theory to the underlying facts will not change them. Nor will it transform this tragedy into criminal conduct,” he said.¹³ The state medical examiner’s office ruled the manner of death accidental.²

Bailey has also fought on procedure. He has opposed a proposed no-contact order covering roughly 60 witnesses as overbroad, and has said he will oppose the prosecution’s motion to move the perjury indictment out of Middlesex County and consolidate it with the Worcester case.⁸

Where the Case Stands

Meier has moved to transfer the Middlesex perjury indictment to Worcester Superior Court for a “single trial on all the indictments related to Delgado-Garcia’s death.”¹⁴ The court had not ruled on that motion as of the most recent reporting. A scheduling conference on the perjury charge was set for May 13, 2026, and a pretrial hearing for June 17, 2026.⁵ The Delgado-Garcia family’s attorney, Michael Wilcox, has said a trial is likely a year or two away absent a plea.¹⁵

Penton was suspended with pay in February 2026, along with the three other charged troopers. All four were scheduled for a July 1, 2026, review by the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission, the independent body created in 2020 with authority to suspend or permanently revoke a law enforcement certification. A revocation would bar her from serving in any policing capacity in Massachusetts.⁵

1
WGBH. Four Charged With Manslaughter in Death of State Police Recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia
2
MassLive. New Details Shared on What Happened Days Before Enrique Delgado-Garcia’s Death
3
The New York Times. Massachusetts State Troopers Charged in Boxing Match Death
4
Telegram & Gazette. Jennifer Penton Enrique Delgado-Garcia Perjury
5
NBC Boston. Massachusetts State Police Jennifer Penton Perjury Charge
6
WBUR. State Trooper Training Academy Death Suspects Arraigned
7
Mass Lawyers Weekly. State Police Lieutenant Pleads Not Guilty to Perjury in Recruit Death
8
MassLive. Mass. State Police Lieutenant Facing Perjury Charge in Recruit’s Death Released Without Bail
9
New Bedford Guide. Former New Bedford Officer Jennifer Penton to Face Arraignment in State Police Recruit Death Case
10
SouthCoast Today. A Finest Example, New Bedford
11
Woke Windows. Jennifer J. Penton
12
WHDH. State Police Sergeant Pleads Not Guilty to Perjury Charge in Connection to Death of Recruit
13
WHSV. 3 State Troopers Plead Not Guilty to Charges Connected to Death of Recruit After Boxing Match
14
Boston Herald. State Police Lt. Jennifer Penton Pleads Not Guilty to Perjury in Trooper Trainee Death Case
15
WGBH. Delgado-Garcia’s Family Seeks Meaningful Change After Four Troopers Charged in His Death