Cambridge police will not probe Galluccio ride home

Also today, Williams explained how it took the department 25 days after the event – and 24 days after police cited Galluccio for fleeing the scene – to learn that Galluccio had contact with police on the same day as the crash.

Williams said that police do not believe learning about the interaction sooner would have had any bearing on the outcome of the department’s investigation. Galluccio has pleaded not guilty to charges of leaving the scene after causing property damage and to leaving the scene after causing personal injury.

“It would not have had any (impact) regarding the criminal case,’’ Williams said in a telephone interview. “It would not have had a direct link to it…[because] of the lapse of 13 hours.’’

Galluccio’s actions on the evening of Oct. 4 – when he allegedly rear-ended the minivan carrying a Cambridge family around 5:30 p.m. – were publicly known shortly after the incident. But only on Monday did the department release the report about the 4:30 a.m. ride home after being asked about it by the Globe and, apparently, other media.

Williams said the ride home was discovered on Oct. 29 as the department was pulling together reports and other evidence underpinning the case so the information could be provided to Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz’s office, which is prosecuting to avoid a conflict of interest with Middlesex prosecutors.

“Some of our technicians were just searching through the CAD (computer-aided dispatch) system,’’ Williams said. “We weren’t looking for something specific..We were just doing a general search and that’s when it popped up.’’

He said the department superiors then ordered the officers to write a report about the event. Galluccio was found in the parking lot of the Sunoco gas station in the Fresh Pond area located around the corner from the Café Basha on New Street where police were told Galluccio had parked his car.

“We just wanted to get it documented and provide it to the DA so they could do with it what they wish.’’ Williams said when asked why it had no evidentiary value but was still provided to Cruz’s office. “The DA will have to (determine) its value…The value of it is to be determined by the courts.’’

The department also said today that a key piece of the information included in the police report was inaccurate. The report stated that a 911 dispatcher sent police to the gas station on Concord Avenue to investigate a report that a man was being detained by a gas station employee "because they felt he was too intoxicated to drive away.’’

Police now say the caller was not a gas station employee. Instead, they now say, it was a friend of Galluccio’s who had already tried to drive Galluccio home. Frustrated that Galluccio was unable to tell him where he lived, the friend called police for help. Police are withholding the man’s name, citing the man’s privacy rights and state law shielding information that may be part of a criminal case.

Meanwhile, a city official said today that the nightspot linked to Galluccio was investigated for hosting after-hours drinking within the past three weeks – and passed the test.

Elizabeth Lint, executive officer of the Cambridge License Commission, said commission investigators checked out Café Basha on a recent weekend, and found no violation of its license, which requires it to stop serving alcohol to the public by 1 a.m.

“My investigators went there and nobody was there,’’ Lint said in a telephone interview today.

Lint said Café Basha is one of about 250 nightspots in Cambridge with full liquor licenses and that it opened about a year ago when property owner Jack Markarian built it on property he owns on New Street. Pending before the board is a Nov. 24 hearing on a request by Jack Markarian to allow his son, Daniel Markarian, to replace him as full-time manager, Lint said.

Lint said the bar has not been a problem for the regulatory board, and has not been the subject of a citizen complaint of any type, since the Markarians opened Café Basha about a year ago.

“We have no complaints about it. We have no after-hour issues,’’ said Lint. “It’s been quiet. It’s just, to us, kind of there.’’

On the evening of Oct. 4 on Garden Street in Cambridge, Galluccio hit the rear of the minivan with a family of four inside. The 42-year-old Cambridge resident hit the family's car at 5:30 p.m. with enough force that he left an imprint of his license plate on their van, which helped police track and cite him with leaving the scene of an accident.

"It was very poor judgment, and I have to accept responsibility for it," Galluccio, a former Cambridge mayor and city councilor, said in a nine-minute interview at his State House office last month after the crash.

The senator has had repeated driving problems, including at least two previous accidents involving alcohol.