But Pulido was not fired for his drug use, and did not seem to come under any special scrutiny.

His marriage was in trouble, however: during a 1999–2000 separation, he moved into public housing near Jackson Square — while at the same time buying a $221,000 house in Dorchester from his future co-defendant, Carlos Pizarro. During this separation, Pulido impregnated his former police-academy classmate, Roslyn Williams — who was living on Walnut Park, in the gang- ridden neighborhood where several of Eddie Bonilla’s partners in crime lived. Not long after suspending Pulido for cocaine use, the department began sending a portion of his check to the woman they had rejected for having ties to the gang community, for child support.

Nevertheless, Pulido soon got back together with his wife, and they had their fourth child together the next year. But there was at least one more girlfriend: Evelyn Reynoso, a Dominican woman who ran an Egleston Square barber shop with Pulido, and who “was fully aware of Pulido’s criminal activities,” federal prosecutors allege.

That barber shop was just one of Pulido’s many ventures, which according to some took more of his time and energy than his BPD job. He plowed parking lots in the winter and did carpentry in the summer. He ran a mechanic shop in Egleston Square, where some residents say he spent much of his time and got into fights with people on the street. He briefly started the E and A Construction company in 2001. All the while, he was forming business connections and partnerships that included, according to federal investigators, a fugitive hiding from US authorities in Greece, who began supplying Pulido with steroids, Viagra, and other drugs for illegal sale.

Amid all this activity, in March 2002, Pulido was shot twice on a covered pedestrian path between Grotto Glen Road and Heath Street, a well-known hot spot for car-stripping and drug-dealing known as “crack alley,” less than two blocks from Pulido’s old Edge Hill Road home. Pulido didn’t call for back-up until after he was shot; gave a vague and, some say, unconvincing explanation of what happened; and never identified the shooter. Fortunately, both bullets struck Pulido’s bullet-proof vest (which he always wore, although it was not required and few regularly did). For this attack in the line of duty, he was hailed by the press and the neighborhood as a hero.

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But today, many in the BPD and the community the incident is evidence that Pulido was already involved in shady business, perhaps with Heath Street gang members. A few months after the shooting, he bought a Hyde Park building where his wife began teaching dance to children — and where once a month for the next several years, according to the federal indictment, Pulido hosted and provided protection for drug-and-sex parties where gang bangers, hookers, and cops mingled.

The federal indictment claims that admittance to these parties ran from $20 to $40, and narcotics were often in open use. Lap dances in the “boom-boom room” cost an additional $20 to $40; oral sex, $35; intercourse, $100. As many as 100 people attended on a given night, including well-known felons, drug dealers, and law-enforcement officers — some in uniform.

By the following year, 2003, Pulido was allegedly waist-deep in an identity-theft ring, buying and selling falsified gift cards — even pulling over expensive cars, in order to steal the drivers’ information, the indictment claims.

In the dark
Remarkably, the BPD was never suspicious of Pulido’s misdeeds. That distinction belongs to the federal government, which busted Pulido’s old high school friend Troy Lozano in Pennsylvania for gun trafficking in 2003. Lozano, widely believed to be the main cooperating witness in the case against Pulido, moved back to Boston later that year, the same time that the government began its investigation into Pulido.

The rest of the story as described by the feds is a dark and sinister one. The two-year federal investigation, with BPD assistance, revealed that Pulido, in cahoots with Carrasquillo (who had family members, including a son, in criminal trouble) and Pizarro (who, the government alleges, was a former heroin supplier to a local gang), were doing dirt of all kinds on a regular basis. Carrasquillo and Pizarro are both out on bail, with severe restrictions. Pulido — who prosecutors claim might flee to the Dominican Republic or Greece — will be held until trial, when he could face more than a decade behind bars.

There are rumors on the street that Pulido is already cooperating with authorities and naming names. One JP activist wonders if the federal agents’ October arrests of 18 alleged Heath Street gang members may be connected to the Pulido investigation. Trials, and more details about the allegations, may be a long time coming. That will make it difficult for the department, and its new commissioner, Ed Davis, to restore faith among its officers — many of whom are not only wondering if more of their comrades are implicated, but are openly bitter about having worked for the past two years alongside officers known by management to be corrupt. (Their bosses explain that to remove the suspect officers from the job would have tipped them off to the investigation.) And that’s not to mention the difficult job of repairing the damage done to an already fragile relationship with the community. Pulido’s story, and its ramifications, is far from over.

On the Web
David Bernstein's continuing coverage of the Boston Police Department: //www.thephoenix.com/homicide