---
title: "A Boston Schools Security Official Is Charged With Rape at a State Police Barracks"
description: "Two months passed between an August assault report on Martha’s Vineyard and an arrest; bail was set at a fifth of what prosecutors asked for."
author: "Luis Goa"
published: 2026-10-14T16:28:02.962Z
modified: 2026-10-15T04:32:43Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/a-boston-schools-security-official-is-charged-with-rape-at-a-f694d1
language: en
tags: ["police", "rape", "boston", "barracks", "security", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# A Boston Schools Security Official Is Charged With Rape at a State Police Barracks

*Two months passed between an August assault report on Martha’s Vineyard and an arrest; bail was set at a fifth of what prosecutors asked for.*

By Luis Goa · October 14, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/a-boston-schools-security-official-is-charged-with-rape-at-a-f694d1

## In brief

- Edward J. Brown, 27, a Boston Public Schools assistant security director, was charged with rape over an alleged Aug. 15 assault at a State Police barracks in Oak Bluffs
- Bail was set at $10,000, a fifth of the $50,000 with GPS monitoring that prosecutors had requested
- Two months passed between the 911 calls on Aug. 15 and Brown’s arrest at Boston Latin Academy on Oct. 9
- Prosecutors cited restraining orders from two ex-girlfriends, one still active, in seeking higher bail
- Boston Public Schools put Brown on leave pending a termination hearing; State Police opened an internal affairs review

Edward J. Brown, 27, an assistant director of security for Boston Public Schools, was arraigned on Oct. 13 in Edgartown District Court on one count of rape, two months after a woman was found naked on a street outside a Massachusetts State Police barracks in Oak Bluffs, according to the Cape and Islands district attorney’s office, led by Robert J. Galibois. Brown pleaded not guilty. A judge, Benjamin Barnes, set bail at $10,000 cash, a fifth of the $50,000 prosecutors had requested, and declined their request for a GPS monitor, as [the Vineyard Gazette reported](https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2026/10/14/boston-man-charged-in-alleged-rape-at-state-police-barracks/). Brown’s family raised the $10,000; prosecutors wanted five times that.

The county’s regional dispatch center logged two 911 calls at 12:57 a.m. on Aug. 15 reporting a distressed, naked woman on the side of Temahigan Road, the street that runs past the Oak Bluffs barracks. One caller stayed with her and drove her, at police direction, to Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. That timeline, and the address, come from the district attorney’s office’s account of the case, as reported by [NBC Boston](https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/marthas-vineyard-sex-assault-arrest/4031283/).

The account prosecutors gave in court, as [the Boston Globe reported](https://bostonglobe.com/2026/10/14/metro/boston-public-schools-security-official-charged-with-rape/), runs like this: the woman had been at the Ritz Cafe, a bar in Oak Bluffs, when a man patted her on the buttocks and bought her a drink. She told investigators she next remembered waking up naked, face down, in an unfamiliar bed, and that the man forced himself on her, held her by the neck, while she kicked and screamed. She asked for water to get him out of the room, then ran down two flights of stairs and into the street. At the hospital, officers recorded bruising on her legs and a red mark on her neck; a sexual-assault kit was collected. None of this has been tested in front of a jury, and Brown’s lawyer, Anthony R. Ellison, told the court the defense has not been given forensic evidence tying his client to the kit.

![A warmly lit open doorway overlooks a dark coastal road, windswept grasses, rocky shoreline, and moonlit sea beneath cloudy skies.](https://rews.cc/img/85ba2bf5723e3b89ec26f06bf894371dff088d6b.webp)

## A guest in a trooper’s bedroom

Brown was not a State Police employee. He was on the island as the houseguest of Ryan Costello, a trooper assigned that summer to the Oak Bluffs barracks, which doubles as housing for troopers posted to the Vineyard, the Gazette reported. Whether the barracks’ housing rules permit overnight guests from outside the department is not established in the public record; a State Police spokesperson declined to say, citing the pending case, and the department said only that it is cooperating with the investigation and has opened its own internal affairs review. What that review covers, and whether Costello faces any discipline for the night, has not been disclosed.

The bouncer who connected the woman’s account to Brown told police Brown was a friend of a trooper stationed on the island, according to the Globe’s account of the arraignment. Investigators interviewed Costello roughly two weeks after the alleged assault; he confirmed going to the Ritz with Brown that night but said they left separately and that Brown got back to the barracks first. An Uber driver told police he had dropped off a man matching Brown’s description with a woman who seemed heavily intoxicated while the man appeared sober. It took until Sept. 11, nearly four weeks after the alleged assault, for Costello to turn over text messages in which Brown told him he was bringing a woman back and asked where the condoms were, prosecutors said. Costello told investigators that when he returned to the barracks around 1:30 a.m. he found Brown unusually quiet, and that Brown gave three different, inconsistent accounts of whether and how the woman had come back with him.

**Two months from report to arrest** Steps in the Oak Bluffs investigation, per prosecutors' account at arraignment

| From | To | How |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 911 calls, 12:57 a.m. Aug. 15 | Hospital exam and rape kit |  |
| Hospital exam and rape kit | Bouncer names Brown |  |
| Bouncer names Brown | Trooper interviewed *(~2 weeks later)* |  |
| Trooper interviewed *(~2 weeks later)* | Uber record matches account |  |
| Uber record matches account | Trooper discloses texts *(Sept. 11)* |  |
| Trooper discloses texts *(Sept. 11)* | Search warrant issued *(Oct. 8)* |  |
| Search warrant issued *(Oct. 8)* | Brown arrested at work *(Oct. 9)* |  |
| Brown arrested at work *(Oct. 9)* | Arraignment, not guilty *(Oct. 13)* |  |

![Two months from report to arrest. Steps in the Oak Bluffs investigation, per prosecutors' account at arraignment](https://rews.cc/img/7a0f4f79416b64719e4cac59df80bd96c75a481a.webp)

Based on [Cape and Islands district attorney's office, via arraignment testimony](https://bostonglobe.com/2026/10/14/metro/boston-public-schools-security-official-charged-with-rape/)

Investigators later got a warrant to search the barracks for the woman’s clothes and phone and have not found either, prosecutors said. Brown was arrested on Oct. 9 at Boston Latin Academy, where he worked, by Oak Bluffs police with assistance from the Boston Police Department’s anti-corruption division, Oak Bluffs Police Chief Jonathan Searle said. He was also carrying what police suspect was cocaine; that charge has not yet been arraigned.

## The case for and against bail

Prosecutors told the court two of Brown’s ex-girlfriends had sought restraining orders against him, one of them still active, and that Boston police had seized his licensed firearms as a result. That record is why they asked for $50,000 bail and a GPS monitor rather than the $10,000 the judge ultimately set with no monitor. Ellison argued his client was not a flight risk: Brown kept going to work through weeks of a known investigation, and was at his desk at Boston Latin Academy when police came for him.

> He went to work every day, and in fact, when the police came looking for him, he was right where they thought he was going to be: at work at the Boston Latin Academy, where he works daily.

![A dark suit jacket hangs over an office chair beside a desk holding a brass balance scale and a closed folder in a sunlit room.](https://rews.cc/img/f69339d0bb1fc60e3bbe14cf11482efdf9323b75.webp)

Ellison also told the court the woman had said she did not want to pursue criminal charges, and described Brown’s encounter with her as a private matter that began with a friendly conversation at the bar. The Gazette separately reported the woman is from Ireland and has returned there. Massachusetts prosecutors, like those in most states, can and routinely do pursue sexual-assault charges without a complaining witness’s continued cooperation; nothing in the public record indicates the district attorney’s office has dropped or intends to drop the case over her stated wishes.

## The school district’s position

Boston Public Schools placed Brown on leave pending a termination hearing, spokesperson Sujata Wycoff said. He had worked for the district for two years, holds a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement from Fitchburg State University and a master’s from Lasell University, according to his attorney. The district said it completed all required background checks before hiring him, that his assistant-security-director post was not student-facing, and that the allegations do not involve any BPS student. None of those statements addresses what, if anything, a background check would have surfaced about the two restraining-order petitions filed by his ex-girlfriends, since civil protective orders do not always appear in the criminal-history checks school districts typically run.

Brown is due back in Edgartown District Court on Dec. 3 for a pretrial hearing. The open items by then: whether the Massachusetts State Police internal affairs review produces any findings on who is permitted to stay overnight in a trooper’s barracks room, whether Costello faces discipline for sitting on the text messages for nearly four weeks, and whether the missing phone and clothing ever turn up.

## See also

- [Cape and Islands DA, MA - News Flash page](https://capeandislandsda.gov/m/newsflash?cat=7) — capeandislandsda.gov · The district attorney's office's own press releases on pending cases