Deputy fire chief to be arraigned

Charges include kidnap, assault of woman in park

A Boston deputy fire chief is expected to be arraigned today on charges that include kidnapping and assault, after a woman accused him of taking her to a park in Brockton and forcing her to perform sexual acts on him at gunpoint.

Brockton police arrested Peter Pearson, 51, of East Bridgewater Monday while he was driving through the city and charged him with aggravated rape, assault with a deadly weapon, impersonating a police officer, and armed kidnapping, said Bridget Norton Middleton, spokeswoman for the Plymouth district attorney's office.

In early July, after having been detained in Brockton as a "common night walker," a woman reported to police that she had been sexually assaulted by a highway patrol officer two weeks earlier, authorities said.

On Monday evening, a man flagged down an officer and reported he and the woman, his girlfriend, had seen the car involved in the alleged June rape that evening, Middleton said. As the two talked, the car passed by, she said. Brockton police stopped the car and arrested Pearson. While Pearson was detained, the woman came to the police station and identified Pearson as the man who had kidnapped her, said Lieutenant John Crowley, a Brockton police spokesman.

Boston Fire Department officials declined to comment yesterday but may issue a statement after today's arraignment, said Steve MacDonald, a department spokesman. He confirmed that Pearson is a deputy chief for Division 2, which covers areas west of Massachusetts Avenue.

Pearson is being held without bail at the Plymouth County House of Correction pending his arraignment in Brockton. While he is in police custody, he is on administrative leave without pay from the Fire Department, said MacDonald. If he is released, he will be placed on paid administrative leave, MacDonald added.

Pearson is the latest Boston firefighter to either be arrested or face public scrutiny.

In May, a man identified as a Boston firefighter was arrested after he allegedly offered an undercover officer $29 for a sex act near the Dorchester-Roxbury line. In April, a Boston firefighter on disability leave was charged with buying $200 worth of painkillers illegally at an MBTA station. Another firefighter was arrested in March by Boston police, who charged him with smoking marijuana in a department vehicle in Dorchester.

And in August 2007, after two firefighters died in a West Roxbury blaze, one was found to be legally drunk and the other had traces of cocaine in his system.

The department has also come under fire recently for a series of questionable disability claims, most notably that of Albert Arroyo. The firefighter competed in bodybuilding while his disability application was considered.