Retired cop urged Pelham Manor chief to resign over emails

The retired Pelham Manor police officer who spurred an investigation into police Chief Alfred Mosiello said he confronted Mosiello in late December with racist emails the chief had sent and urged him to resign, worried that if he remained at the helm the rising criticism of police departments across the nation would descend on the village.

“He started cursing at me. ... He dismissed (the emails) as no big deal,” Marc Lenci said.

Mosiello, who has been out of work for the past week, has declined to comment on the investigation but told The Journal News on Friday that he was on medical leave. He did not answer the door at his home on Tuesday.

Village officials have also refused to discuss the investigation or Mosiello’s work status.

Lenci said he contacted Mayor Bertrand Sellier during the summer about possible misconduct by the chief, including allegations of ticket-fixing and inappropriate discipline. He told the mayor he was aware of the emails but had not seen them.

In late October, the village board hired Brian Nugent, a retired NYPD lieutenant who is a lawyer in Rockland County, to conduct an investigation.

Critics of the chief were upset about the slow pace of the probe and Lenci said he was given copies of four of the offending emails — which Mosiello forwarded to multiple people from his personal account between 2010 and 2012 — the weekend before Christmas.

“I was appalled and disgusted with them,” Lenci said.

That Monday, he said, he confronted Mosiello in the parking lot of Village Hall, placing the emails on the hood of a car and telling him he should resign for the good of the department.

Following the chief’s explosive reaction, Lenci said he provided copies of the emails to Sellier.

Lenci said the emails were offensive to blacks, Latinos, gays and women. He said he saw little distinction between whether Mosiello had written them himself or just forwarded them, insisting either scenario was inappropriate, especially for a police chief.

He would not make the emails public, saying he was fearful police in the village could become targets.

Lenci, a former police union president, and Officer Gregory Paci were forced to retire last year after being threatened with disciplinary charges over a 2013 arrest of a man who claimed the officers were harassing him and a group of teenagers fundraising in the village. Both men contend they were scapegoated by Mosiello and Village Manager John Pierpont, who wanted them out because of their union activities.

Paci, who said he has been interviewed by Nugent, said it wasn’t important who was criticizing the chief now, only that village officials got the message: that Mosiello shouldn’t be running the department anymore. He said he has heard the chief make racials slurs and other offensive comments in the past.

The chief, a 34-year veteran of the department, is the brother of Louis Mosiello, a retired Mamaroneck police sergeant and former county legislator and state assemblyman. Louis Mosiello declined to comment on the investigation, but said his brother had been going through health problems — which he would not identify — before the probe began.

Twitter: @jonbandler