Lawrence, Massachusetts, Mayor Brian De Peña — a Dominican Republic native — requested a Spanish interpreter during a Friday hearing tied to a state police-oversight case, according to The Daily Wire.
The episode lit up social media and renewed questions about how a big-city mayor functions in government and legal settings when he says he needs translation help, the Wire reported. The interpreter flap also landed as De Peña is already feuding with Massachusetts’ top elections office after the state flooded Lawrence polling sites with monitors and police, according to NBC Boston. (RELATED: Bus Driver Fired Over Sign Requesting Students Converse In English Speaks Out)
“Today, I received many complaints, and I see many people, you know, not happy because the state interferes when the people need somebody for support,” De Peña said during the city’s Nov. 4 election, NBC Boston reported.
🚨 HOLY SMOKES. The mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts CAN’T speak English, so he begged for a translator in court.
Anyone seeking public office in America should be REQUIRED to be fluent in English.
This shouldn’t be controversial. At all.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 21, 2025
The interpreter request surfaced in a Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission proceeding listed as a “Hearing in the Matter of William Castro,” a multi-day case scheduled in December. The Daily Wire reported De Peña asked to use his personal assistant as a translator, and the presiding judge rejected that request.
Castro, a former acting Lawrence police chief, has been under scrutiny for a vehicle pursuit and what investigators and state officials described as dishonesty in reporting, according to Boston ABC affiliate WCVB. The city-commissioned investigator said an adviser from De Peña’s office ordered the probe to stop after the investigators had finished their work and moved to draft the final report.
De Peña’s campaign website “About Me” section reads like it was run through a rough translation app, with sentences such as: “Brian DePeña was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. However it was in Miches, that Brian grew up with his parents and siblings,” followed by, “It is here, where Brian interest in entrepreneurship is awakened.”
The mayor has also been battling Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, whose office sent monitors and Massachusetts State Police to all Lawrence polling sites on Election Day and said it had observed campaign tactics that “likely rise to the level of criminal activity,” NBC Boston reported.
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