SPRINGFIELD — A police officer who was fired last March for alleged misconduct — his second dismissal in 12 years — had the latest dismissal overturned in arbitration, the city announced Wednesday.

The firing was overturned for Police Officer Anthony Bedinelli, said Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, in a prepared release.

Police Commissioner John Barbieri, along with the Department and our civilian Community Police Hearing Board (CPHB) "investigated this citizen’s complaint and found that rules and regulations of the Department were violated and Commissioner Barbieri, as the appointing authority reviewed the decision of the CPHB and imposed the dismissal of the officer,” Sarno said.

The decision was overturned under a process through the American Arbitration Association, Sarno said, citing information provided by William Mahoney, the city’s director of Human Resources and Labor Relations.

Bedinelli has been fired from the Springfield police twice and each time he has had the dismissal overturned on appeal.

He was hired in 1996.

In 2007, he was fired by then-Police Commissioner Edward Flynn for his role in an 2 a.m. off-duty brawl the night after Christmas inside the Ale House, a Worthington Street bar not far from the police station.

Two women reported that Bedinelli attacked them while they were arguing with the bartender.

He appealed the decision and won an arbitration case. He was reinstated in 2009 and collected two years in back pay, totaling $65,000.

In this most recent case, Bedinelli was fired by Commissioner Barbieri in March of last year following two separate internal investigations into his conduct while on duty and off.

One of the complaints was filed by a woman in November 2017 who reported Bedinelli had hit her twice in the chest and used pepper spray on her.

The other case concerned a report involving domestic violence from February 2018 that left a woman with injuries. Details of that case were limited.

At the time of his dismissal last year, police spokesman Ryan Walsh issued a statement that said the dismissal was the result of a review by the Community Police Hearing Board review: “The city’s civilian review board sustained charges against Officer Bedinelli involving an on-duty incident. Officer Bedinelli has the right to appeal this decision, but his termination was effective Thursday afternoon."

Bedinelli has a long history of discipline problems during his career.

He was suspended for six months as a result of a 1997 incident where he left his post on the dispatch desk without permission to go to his house after learning his two Rottweilers had escaped his yard and attacked an 8-year-old girl.

In all, Bedinelli has been the subject of 18 separate internal investigations over his career. These include a 2008 complaint when he reported his gun had been stolen, and a 2004 complaint from a free-lance female photographer, who identified Bedinelli as the officer who slapped his badge on her windshield and repeatedly called her “bitch” during a parking dispute in the Worthington Street club quarter.