Sgt. Bukhenik sent to Siberia of the State Police

Now who will run the elite Rubber Ducky Detail out of Norfolk County District Attorney Michael “Meatball” Morrissey’s office?

Farewell, Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik, summarily booted out of Meatball’s morass after the second failed lynching of Karen Read last month.

Now the $211,800-a-year drifter is exiled to MSP headquarters in Framingham, where he will be rubber-roomed in something called the “Division of Standards and Training.”

Yuriy involved in Standards and Training? What could possibly go wrong?

Yuriy Bukhenik assigned to the “Standards and Training” unit. You can’t say the new Col. Noble doesn’t have a wry sense of humor.

To put in terms that an old Red like Bukhenik can understand, Yuriy, you’re being sent to the Siberia of the State Police.

But now that Yuriy’s gone, who will Meatball assign to invert the videotape in the Canton Police Department sally port next time?

Who will angrily hunt down housewives for posting anti-Meatball screeds on Facebook, only to get chased back to his unmarked cruiser by the woman running out of her house and yelling, “You’re going to jail!”

And the next time fellow disgraced Trooper Michael Proctor salivates over Karen Read’s cell-phone photos and laments, “No nudes so far,” if Yuri’s not on the message chain then who will instantly text Proctor back a thumbs-up emoji?

Where will Meatball ever be able to find another crack sleuth who use his body cam to record his attempts to intimidate a young mother who left a tiny rubber ducky on a public bench in Canton, but not bother to turn it on in murder investigations – at least when he’s interviewing townie cops who might be persons of interest?

Now who will head to the courthouse in Dedham to darkly scowl at jurors, while wearing a clown suit with pants cuffs above his ankles and white socks – a full Kyiv?

Meatball Morrissey loved the hulking thug. He had 800 reasons to appreciate Yuriy – and all of them had George Washington’s picture on them.

Think of all the Keystone Kops Meatball has or had on his hack county payroll. Like Trooper Joseph Paul, who said “the crime scene speaks to me.”

Or Trooper Nicholas Guarino, who claimed he couldn’t find 32,000 text messages between a crooked Stoughton cop and the pregnant girlfriend that he’s now accused of murdering.

All Guarino could do was mutter under his breath, “Just kill me!”

You know, just like Yuriy’s good pal Proctor texted about wanting Karen Read to do to herself.

Another Meatball minion: Lt. Brian Tully, who writes a report on a murder in May 2025 and then backdates it to January 2023 and when called on it on the witness stand, stammers, “It’s all very confusing.”

All these shady staties who move their lips when they read — it’s enough to make you lose your faith in Massachusetts’ GED program.

Yuriy Bukhenik likewise has the IQ of a soft-boiled egg. When the numbers go above 10, he has to take off his white socks and count on his toes.

But what made him such a valuable member of Meatball’s detective unit was that whenever he got jammed up under oath, which was often, he had a better alibi than dropping out of the third grade, like the rest of his fellow flatfeet.

English be his turd language. Hit Yuriy with a tough question, and his English fails him, every time.

He really did claim that English was his third language. On cross examination, he even asked defense attorney Alan Jackson to give him a dictionary so he could comprehende the questions about “de evidence.”

Chain of custody – what am that? Can me see de dictionary? KGB never learn me nuttin’ about no stinkin’ Miranda rights.

Yuriy came to civilization at the age of 9. You can take the boy out of the USSR, but you can’t take the USSR out of the boy.

In his opening statement to the jury, Alan Jackson asked the Karen Read jury a rhetorical question:

“Do you know how hard it is to get fired by the State Police?”

Almost impossible. Even if you do federal time for embezzlement, odds are you keep the six-figure pension. Or just go out on disability, like the Foxboro Flasher did, and he wasn’t even 40.

Unless you’re Proctor, the brass can always find somewhere in Framingham for you to count paper clips ‘til you’re 55. It’s a cop thing.

But if you come across in the courtroom as an irredeemably sleazy cop, they can never let you back on the witness stand. This is why Yuriy is now in Standards and Training – wink wink nudge nudge. 

This is why Kelly “False Memory” Dever probably won’t be back either, at least as a prosecution witness for the BPD.

After the end of the Read trial, the lawtube crowd pivoted to the Brian Walshe murder case, also a Norfolk County production. At those pre-trial hearings, it’s the same cast of characters – Guarino, Connor Keefe, Brian Tully and, of course, Yuriy Bukhenik.

It’s like a sequel to a bad horror movie. Remember Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street? And then he came back. He wasn’t dead. Neither was Yuriy – Nightmare in Norfolk County.

Everyone watched horrified as Yuriy Bukhenik lumbered back up onto the stand, lapsing once more into his pidgin English whenever Walshe attorney Larry Tipton asked him those trick questions about capitalist-roader concepts like warrants. 

One of the lawtube hosts was watching it happen all over again, in real time, on her stream, and I saw her jaw drop. So did mine.

So now Yuriy is gone, and all I can do is ask the cops of Norfolk County the most pressing question of the day.

Who will stop the rubber ducky crime wave now?