Ex-Norfolk County Jail Official Gets 20 Months for Making Staff Fix His Heat, Then Forging a Letter to Ethics Investigators
Thomas Brady had jail maintenance workers fix his home heat. A fingerprint under a stamp tied him to a forged letter to state ethics investigators.
A former top official at the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts has been sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for ordering jail maintenance workers to repair his home and then trying to derail a state ethics investigation into it.
U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick sentenced Thomas Brady, 55, of Norwood, on Oct. 26, 2026, to 20 months in prison, two years of supervised release and a $5,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said. He had pleaded guilty to one count of witness tampering and one count of using interstate facilities to commit bribery and extortion.
The court docket (No. 1:25-cr-10184) shows Brady waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a charging information on June 5, 2026. His sentencing was continued to Oct. 13, 2026, and then rescheduled for Oct. 26, 2026.
A heating system and a circulator pump
Brady was assistant deputy superintendent for jail operations from 2021 until May 2023, when he was promoted to assistant superintendent, prosecutors said. In October and November 2022, he used that position to order a maintenance officer who worked under him to fix his home heating system during and after work hours.
The officer feared Brady could take away his preferred shift, his position or his job if he said no, according to the office. On about Oct. 6, 2022, he drove to Brady’s home during work hours to troubleshoot the heat. When the heat gave him more trouble, Brady contacted the officer to replace the circulator pump, and on Nov. 1, 2022, and Nov. 2, 2022, the officer returned with a second maintenance officer and installed a new one.
A forged letter, and a fingerprint under the stamp
On about June 16, 2023, a third maintenance officer reported Brady to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission, which opened an investigation. After learning about it, Brady mailed a handwritten letter to the commission on about Oct. 5, 2023, falsely signed in the name of the officer who had reported him, prosecutors said. The letter disclosed details of a confidential internal investigation into one of the maintenance officers and listed Brady himself as a witness.
Investigators found a fingerprint under the postage stamp that belonged to Brady, and male DNA from the envelope flap matched him, according to the office.
At sentencing, the judge also found as relevant conduct that Brady ran a smear campaign against the victims and witnesses, prosecutors said. That included an anonymous letter to a school falsely accusing the officer who reported him of abusing a young relative. The school reported it to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, which opened an emergency investigation based on the false claim.
