Cops: Ex-Fairfield County high sheriff charged with taxpayer ripoffs

State Marshal Charles Valentino, Fairfield County’s last high sheriff, was arrested on Monday, June 8, 2015, on 18 counts of second-degree forgery and 18 counts of criminal impersonation. State police said the 67-year-old Valentino confiscated hundreds of cars from city residents during several years through an agreement he had with city officials. But instead of ensuring the cars’ owners paid their back taxes he sold the cars keeping the money for himself. less State Marshal Charles Valentino, Fairfield County’s last high sheriff, was arrested on Monday, June 8, 2015, on 18 counts of second-degree forgery and 18 counts of criminal impersonation. State police said ... more Photo: Brian A. Pounds / Brian A. Pounds Buy photo Photo: Brian A. Pounds / Brian A. Pounds Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Cops: Ex-Fairfield County high sheriff charged with taxpayer ripoffs 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

The arrest of former Fairfield County High Sheriff Charles Valentino has spotlighted the actions of Bridgeport officials who spend thousands of dollars of public money to tow the cars of delinquent taxpayers — without a dime coming back to the city.

On Monday morning, the 67-year-old Valentino surrendered to State Police after learning they had two warrants for his arrest — charging him with 18 counts of second-degree forgery and 21 counts of criminal impersonation — the culmination of a two-year investigation by state police, the FBI and the Bridgeport State’s Attorney Office. He is being held in lieu of $750,000 bond.

Valentino, who is hired by towing companies picked by the city’s Finance Department, does very well for himself, according to the state police arrest warrant affidavit.

While the affidavit does not detail an amount, it recounts that Valentino held auctions for the cars of delinquent taxpayers which no one attended. He then “acquired,” the cars himself and resold them with zero money going back to the city.

The auctions and sales raise questions about the effectiveness of city oversight of the towing program.

City Finance Director Anne Kelly-Lenz acknowledged that the city rarely gets a return on the towed cars.

“The towing companies have to be made whole first for their storage fees, and they get paid first, and then the marshal is entitled to get 15 percent of the sale price,” explained Kelly-Lenz. “But these are usually older, junk cars. If they were any good, the owners would have paid the fees and reclaimed them.”

But that’s no always the case, the investigation by the state police and the FBI shows.

In August 2012, a 2001 Mercedes sedan was reported stolen to the Bridgeport Police Department. In fact, the Mercedes had been towed because the owner was behind in taxes by $537.76, City Tax Collector Veronica Jones told investigators. The car had been towed by Connecticut Mustang, one of three tow operators contracted by the city, and then put up at auction by Valentino, the warrant affidavit indicated. On June 14, 2013, Valentino sold the car for $3,000, the bill of sale states.

“No proceeds from the sale of the Mercedes was ever credited towards (the owner’s) tax bill,” the affidavit states.

Transition from sheriff to marshal

Valentino was in charge of court security and all the paper-serving sheriffs in Fairfield County until 2000, when the elected position of high sheriff was eliminated statewide under Gov. John Rowland. The governor claimed the sheriffs were corrupt.

Valentino once boasted he was making $1 million a year.

The sheriffs were renamed marshals, with the state Judicial Branch taking over courthouse security while the paper servers were put under the auspices of the state Department of Administrative Services. Valentino served as head of the new state marshal’s association.

With his political connections, Valentino — who served as chairman of Bridgeport’s Republican Party as well as on the city’s planning and zoning board and charter revision commission under mayors John Fabrizi and Bill Finch —still took the major paper-serving accounts for himself.

He also handled the lion’s shares of evictions in the city. Valentino is known about town as “Mr. East Main Street,” for the numerous properties he owns near Beardsley Park.

But that all appeared to come tumbling down in early 2013, when Valentino was caught lying on the witness stand about serving papers on the Secretary of the State’s office in a case involving former Bridgeport Superintendent of Schools Paul Vallas.

To avoid prosecution, Valentino resigned as a state marshal on May 23, 2013. But his career as a marshal did not end there, state police said.

City Sheriff David Goodman, who had previously worked with Valentino, complained to police that in 2014 Valentino was still claiming to be a state marshal and doing evictions.

The warrant affidavit states Valentino served a Norman Street couple with eviction papers in which he signed his name as a state marshal, and that on another occasion he served eviction papers on a Summerfield Avenue woman.

Prior to his arrest, Valentino told the Connecticut Post he was set up by Goodman.

“This is all because I let this guy use my office, my phones and office equipment for four years, and then when I tried to get him to pay rent he came up with this stuff,” Valentino said. “I am retired. I am not working as a marshal, I am not signing papers and I am not doing evictions. I am doing moving. When people get evicted, I move their things wherever they want them, but I am not evicting anyone.”

Allegedly fraudulent auctions

In the towing case, Valentino is also accused of continuing to claim he was a state marshal. In fact, by law state, only marshals are allowed to conduct auctions of confiscated property. State police said that in June 2014, Robert Parisi, the owner of Connecticut Mustang, told the FBI that Valentino had just conducted an auction for 18 vehicles that were tax tows for the city of Bridgeport. Valentino signed forms as a state marshal and notarized the forms in the name of his mother, who died in 2010 and whose notary license expired in 1986.

State police said that in an interview in Valentino’s East Main Street office on July 23, 2014, he told them he had been doing the car auctions for 12 years.

“No one has ever purchased a car at any auction that Valentino has conducted,” state police said he told them. Police said he did not check the background of the vehicles, and that said it was possible some had been stolen. Valentino contended the operation was supervised by Peter Keogh, a retired city police officer who is Bridgeport’s parking violation coordinator.

But Keogh told the Connecticut Post he hasn’t been involved in the auctions in four years. He said he was pushed out by the tax collector, and that the city instead hired a Brookfield company, Vio-Alert. Vio-Alert is paid $95 per vehicle towed, according to the city’s tax collector. The company did not return calls for comment.

“The way I understand it, if the city takes a loss it doesn’t matter,” said Keogh. “The tow operator gets paid first, the marshal second, and if there isn’t anything left, the city doesn’t get any money.”

When Vio-Alert, which has special license-plate scanners, finds a car owned by a tax delinquent, the company first puts a boot around the vehicle’s tire. If after 24 hours the owner doesn’t pay the delinquent tax, the car is towed. On Sunday night, 30 cars were booted, Keogh said.

Valentino was the first person in Connecticut to begin the so-called Bootfinder program. In 2005, under Mayor Fabrizi, the city hired Valentino to hunt down tax delinquents and to tow their cars unless they paid the back taxes. He was paid 10 percent of taxes he collected.

"I want the city to prosper, and the only way to do it is to collect taxes," Valentino said at the time. "We will be working seven days a week. But we are not pinpointing anyone special."

It was clearly an uncomfortable moment as Valentino stood handcuffed before Superior Court Judge Robin Pavia Monday afternoon, surrounded by judicial marshals, some who owed him their jobs.

Valentino’s lawyer, John R. Gulash, urged the judge to reduce the bond on his client, pointing out a litany of Valentino’s offices, including the presidency of the lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.

“Everything he has done has demonstrated he is not a flight risk,” Gulash argued.

But Pavia chose to keep the bond at $750,000 and continued the case to June 30.