Prison officer union officials strong-armed the superintendent of MCI-Concord into putting pedophile ex-priest John J. Geoghan - an inmate with no history of violence in prison - on the fast-track to a supermax prison where he was killed, sources said.

``You have a 68-year-old frail, elderly man who had no record of violence toward adults,'' a former longtime Department of Correction employee told the Herald. ``I don't know of anybody ever sent to Level 6 (maximum security) for the (disciplinary) reports this guy had. Violence, that's what you go to a Level 6 for - violence. Why is he going to the highest-security prison in the state?''
Between June and October 2002, Geoghan was disciplined 10 times, mostly for charges of disobeying an order, lying or insolence, violating regulations, misuse of medication, conduct interfering with security, and use of obscene, abusive or threatening language, according to DOC records.
The source said representatives from the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, including acting union President Jack Farrell, met on at least two occasions with MCI-Concord superintendent Michael Grant and badgered him into moving the 68-year-old Geoghan after his correction officer, Cosmo Bisazza, complained about him.
Farrell didn't return a call to the Herald and DOC spokesman Justin Latini, speaking for Grant, declined comment.
Bisazza, 50, of Marlboro was one of the prison officers who allegedly tormented the defrocked pedophile priest at Concord. He had vowed to Geoghan and convicted child murderer Lewis Lent Jr. that he would send them both to Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Lent has charged.
Geoghan was serving time for fondling a 10-year-old boy when Grant, in March, overrode an internal panel's unanimous recommendation to keep him at Concord and instead sent him to Shirley, sources said.
And rather than allowing the paperwork for the transfer to be routinely processed, Grant had the DOC's central classification department phoned to expedite Geoghan's move to Shirley.
Karen Dinardo, the director of classification at Concord, refused to sign off on Geoghan's transfer because she thought it was inappropriate since he had no history of violence, a source said.
Dinardo, recently questioned by state police about her refusal, declined comment.
Officers didn't like Geoghan because while he kept to himself while serving time in Concord, he often chastised inmates for swearing and called officers on what he perceived was unfair treatment.
Geoghan was strangled and beaten to death allegedly by convicted murderer Joseph L. Druce on Aug. 23, one day after Druce got out of solitary confinement for fighting with another inmate.