Pelham Manor chief lost $25K over racist emails





PELHAM MANOR – Police Chief Alfred Mosiello was suspended without pay for two weeks and stripped of 25 vacation days — costing him more than $25,000 — for sending racist emails, the mayor said Wednesday.

But he gets to keep his $187,000-a-year job and returns from suspension Monday.

In announcing this week that the board had disciplined but not fired the chief, Mayor Bertrand Sellier refused to say what the discipline was, only that it was "significant," involved a "significant loss of pay" and required the chief to undergo unspecified counseling.

He reversed course Wednesday, detailing the suspension and reduction in vacation.

Sellier said this week that the board chose not to fire Mosiello because doing so could involve costly, lengthy litigation, and that the chief was a "long-time village employee who immediately acknowledged what he had done and apologized for his poor judgement."

Despite repeated questions by The Journal News about the chief's status beginning Jan. 16, when the newspaper reported on the emails, officials had refused to reveal any details, with Village Manager John Pierpont insisting no action had been taken.

But Sellier said the board acted Jan. 12 and that the chief agreed to the discipline that day.

Mosiello, 59, a 34-year veteran of the department, refused to discuss the emails with The Journal News on Jan. 16, saying only that he was on medical leave. He did not answer the door at his Putnam County home the following week and could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Sellier said that the medical leave on Jan. 16 was for a previously scheduled procedure and that the unpaid suspension was from Jan. 18 through Saturday. The chief was entitled to 35 paid vacation days this year and cash payments for any not used. The mayor said Mosiello will have only 10 days and has forfeited the right to cash in any beyond that.

The board hired Brian Nugent, a lawyer and retired police officer, to investigate the chief in late October after retired Officer Marc Lenci and Officer Kenneth Campion went to the mayor with complaints about ticket-fixing and other misconduct by the chief. Lenci showed copies of the emails to the mayor in December.

The mayor said Nugent determined the ticket-fixing allegations were unfounded.

The mayor said the chief had received the racist emails in his personal account and forwarded them to members of the Police Department. Lenci said he was first shown the emails last month and that the four he saw had been sent by the chief between 2010 and 2012.

The scandal surrounding Mosiello may have taken a toll on Campion, who was reassigned from detective by the chief more than a year ago but became president of the Westchester County Detectives Association last month.

On Thursday night, Campion was shot while off duty by a Yonkers patrol officer in a city park. The bullet grazed his chest and struck his arm, but he was not critically injured. Police said Campion appeared suicidal, refused their commands and made a threatening movement just before the officer fired.

While Sellier expressed the village's wishes for a speedy recovery for Campion, much of his statement earlier in the week sought to suggest a motivation for Lenci and another retired officer, Greg Paci, to bring the emails to light.

Lenci and Paci retired under fire last year rather than face disciplinary charges related to a 2013 arrest of a black man from Long Island who was leading a group of young people fundraising in the village. Both lost some financial benefits due to the timing of their retirements and the village refused their requests to have the benefits restored, the mayor said.

The man, Jamainne Hall, sued the village and the officers in federal court, claiming he was wrongfully arrested. The charges included a felony assault charge that was dismissed early on in the case. Misdemeanor charges were also later dismissed and Hall pleaded guilty to traffic violations.

When a video of the incident surfaced, the chief told the officers he was considering disciplinary charges because they had made false statements in the supporting depositions backing up the charges, Sellier said.

The village settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount in the fall. Sellier said the village's insurance covered the settlement.

Paci said he still believes he was made a scapegoat, that the village was looking for a way to get rid of him, but he declined to comment on the board's decision not to fire the chief.

Lenci, who confronted Mosiello with the emails in late December and urged him to resign, criticized the board's response.

"The idea that an act of professional misconduct or a violation of the public trust is lessened in some way by the cost of conducting a trial or the length of one's employment is ludicrous," Lenci wrote in an email. "Shouldn't there be an inverse relationship between an individual's stupidity and ignorance, and the period of time they have been a member of law enforcement?"

He added with some sarcasm that he was glad village officials were showing "some semblance of compassion for the shortcomings of one of their employees." He said there have been several police union officials who were forced from their village jobs and that he thought they "would have been eager to keep their long-term careers at the cost of an apology."

Twitter: @jonbandler