Lawrence secret recording scandal raises questions about extent of eavesdropping

In a hallway on the third floor of Lawrence City Hall, there’s a camera above the door to Mayor Brian DePeña’s office, pointing at all those who enter. On the wall, a sign says: “Notice: all activities are monitored by video camera.” It says nothing about audio being captured.

But after a local news station posted tape of an encounter in that hallway between two top-level city employees — a video clip with sound — it sparked a political firestorm in Lawrence and a criminal investigation by the state attorney general's office.

Now people in the city have big questions: How many private conversations were recorded in City Hall, over what period of time, and who is responsible?

It’s a felony in Massachusetts to secretly record people without their consent, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Disclosing such content is treated as a misdemeanor.

Lawrence insiders say very little happens in the city without DePeña’s approval — but the mayor denies knowledge of the audio taping.

The controversy began when the recording was published by the radio station Despierta Lawrence. In the video, Lawrence Airport Director Francisco Ureña raised concerns about wages with DePeña’s Chief of Staff William Castro. The conversation got heated, and Castro said it’s the mayor who needs to decide on the wage issue.

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“The same person who appointed me is the same person who appointed you,” Castro says in the video in Spanish, before switching to English: “So we have to have all due respect to the mayor.”

“Chief, I’m giving you background,” Ureña says.

“No no, you're not. You’re not,” Castro responds, adding that he gives respect and earns respect.

Ureña apologizes and the two men shake hands.

“Let’s treat each other like professionals,” Castro concludes. “Let’s do that, because things get out of hand in a second.”

After the encounter, Ureña filed a personnel complaint against Castro with the city, Castro told WBUR. And days later, Castro was out of a job.

Castro knows something about surveillance. He served as Lawrence police chief until his law enforcement certification was suspended by the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, a state oversight group that censured Castro following a car chase incident. The oversight agency found he engaged in a vehicle pursuit, against department policy, and was untruthful about it.

Later, he landed the chief of staff role in the mayor’s office.

Castro told WBUR he only learned that audio was being recorded when the tape surfaced, and he considers himself a victim.

“I know who did it but I have no comment on that,” he said. “You’re going to be surprised with the stuff that’s going to be coming out.”

Castro said he has a lawyer representing him in the matter.

Days after the video came out, Castro said the mayor told him to resign or be fired, citing “political reasons.”

The mayor's office declined an interview request, citing the ongoing investigations. But a spokesperson said the mayor was unaware of any audio recording outside his office.

At a Lawrence City Council meeting on Tuesday, councilors considered a proposal to request an investigation into the alleged wiretapping. That’s when City Attorney Timothy Houten told the council that the city had already been served with a search warrant.

“ A recording device that is the nature of this has been seized by law enforcement,” Houten said. At the time, he did not reveal which agency was investigating, saying only that it was not the Lawrence Police Department.

WBUR confirmed on Wednesday that the attorney general's office was investigating. And state police said that, in collaboration with Lawrence police, troopers took custody “of a recording device previously located within a public area of Lawrence City Hall.”

City Council President Jeovanny Rodriguez said the camera was among four installed in 2023. He said city officials recently told him audio recording on the cameras had been disabled from the start. But now that it turns out one camera was capturing sound, Rodriguez wants to know if others were, too.

“ I want to know if the mayor had access to those recordings, because everybody's blaming the chief of his staff,” Rodriguez said.

He's not the only one in the city who wants to know how much private business has been recorded outside the mayor’s office. Many want to know how many developers, lawyers, politicians, city employees and others could have been recorded without their consent.

Lawrence Police Lt. Jim Raso said he hopes no other audio recordings emerge from the AG’s inquiry, but he’s not optimistic. A three-decade veteran of the department and secretary of the Lawrence Police Superior Officers Association, Raso said he frequently goes into the mayor’s office, and routinely steps out into the hallway to discuss strategy — right where a camera is placed.

“I've been there hundreds of times since 2023. More importantly, probably 15 to 20 times as a negotiator for the union,” Raso said. Those meetings involve union grievances and contract negotiations, he said, often including the union’s attorney and executive board members.

“We'll go outside to caucus. We'll talk about what we want, the demands, what [the city] wants, and if somebody was recording that,” he said, “that's a huge problem.”

Raso said the police union has been negotiating a new contract with the city for months. Now he’s concerned the private hallway conversations were being monitored, and he said that could taint the ongoing negotiations.

The New England Police Benevolent Association, a labor organization that represents Lawrence’s two police unions, is calling for DePeña to resign.

“We know that leadership doesn't happen with the chief of staff — it happens with the mayor himself,” said David Ginisi,  director of external relations for the New England Police Benevolent Association. “We think that there's a lot more to be learned and discovered through this process, and we think that the mayor's at the helm of it.”

A DePeña spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the call for him to step down.

The alleged wiretapping affair could leave the city open to civil lawsuits from people like airport director Ureña. A Lawrence native, Ureña served as veterans affairs secretary under Gov. Charlie Baker. He resigned in 2020 following the deaths of 76 residents at a Holyoke veterans’ home during the peak of the COVID pandemic.

At the airport on Wednesday, Ureña declined to comment. He said he had hired an attorney, who did not respond to phone calls from WBUR.

Veteran civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate said that after nearly six decades practicing law, the Lawrence matter reminds him of a wiretapping scandal that brought down an American president.

“Watergate,” Silverglate said with a chuckle. “That's the mama and the papa of all invasions of privacy.”

He said a lawsuit could fetch Ureña hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in damages. And the scale of the problem for Lawrence could multiply depending on how many people appear on the recording equipment seized by investigators.

“This is not kid's play,” Silverglate said. “This is serious stuff.”

So serious, he said, that it could ultimately result in criminal charges for people in Lawrence City Hall.