By Alex Gecan, The
Middletown Press
MIDDLETOWN >> The
city has fired its second police officer in as many weeks.
In a letter dated Feb. 7,
the city dismissed former officer Christopher Lavoie, a 16-year veteran of the
department and onetime lieutenant. Mayor Daniel Drew wrote that Lavoie had gone
absent without leave, improperly failed to report for duty, broke city rules on
absences and his collective bargaining agreement.
The mayor also wrote that
Lavoie violated an agreement the former cop had signed in May 2013 as a “last
chance” to remain employed by the city after consenting to a demotion from
lieutenant to patrolman.
Lavoie told the Press that,
sometime in the summer of 2012, he and other officers had been talking at the
front desk of the police department, and the topic had turned to William
McKenna, now chief of police, and some possibly illegal behavior he had gotten
involved in off-duty.
Lavoie said that word got
around to McKenna.
“I think once that
conversation took place, I was targeted and singled out and treated unfairly,”
said Lavoie. “To that point, I had never been written up, had never had any
type of suspensions — no alleged misconduct, no nothing.”
Lavoie said that, at a time
when he himself had been prescribed narcotic painkillers, the chief had asked
him for pills and, on one occasion, Lavoie had obliged.
The city announced in
October that three current or former members of the police department had
accused the chief, either directly or indirectly, of soliciting prescription
drugs.
The chief immediately
requested that the city investigate him. The city hired former federal
prosecutors from Hartford law firm Cowdery, Ecker & Murphy, who are
currently looking into the complaints.
Lavoie’s name did not come
up at that point. City officials did say that now-former Officer Gino
Pulvirenti, with whom Lavoie owns Patriot Discount Oil, had been involved in
the accusations.
The city fired Pulvirenti
in January for worker’s compensation fraud.
The police department
opened an internal investigation into Lavoie in November 2012. The chief
charged the internal affairs division with determining “whether Lavoie had
engaged in inappropriate conduct during a meeting in [Chief McKenna’s] office
on Sept. 25, 2012 and in subsequent meetings with the Personnel Department,”
according to the agreement Lavoie signed in May.
Lavoie said he met with
McKenna and Deputy Chief Michael Timbro in late September, and soon after was
put on administrative leave for months. Lavoie said the chief had asked him
about “personal medical information,” and that the personnel department assured
him that he did not have to discuss it.
Flash forward to the second
half of 2013 and the beginning of 2014. Capt. Patrick Howard wrote up Lavoie
for repeatedly taking sick and personal days without proper documentation.
In a June 13, 2013, letter,
one of several documents the city gave the Press along with Lavoie’s
termination letter, Howard said Lavoie used the department’s Telestaff system
to call out twice, both times improperly, the second time after being told he
had used it improperly the first time. Howard wrote that Lavoie later called
out for a personal day, but not until after the start of his shift.
On Dec. 2, 2013, Timbro
warned Lavoie that he was repeatedly using sick time he no longer had — which,
wrote Timbro, constituted an unauthorized absence.
Howard again warned Lavoie
that he needed to show up to work or be marked for an unauthorized absence.
Just over two weeks later,
on Dec. 19, Lavoie reported slipping while leaving department headquarters,
turning a muscle strain he had sustained six months earlier into a hernia,
putting Lavoie in the emergency room, Howard wrote on Dec. 31.
Howard wrote on Jan. 3 that
Lavoie had called out on a worker’s compensation claim for the hernia—but,
wrote Howard, “He cannot book off Worker’s Comp and the doctor’s note he
provided last week states he can work light-duty.”
Three days later, at 10:48
a.m. — nearly three hours after his shift was scheduled to begin — Lavoie
called the front desk to mark Lavoie down sick, wrote Howard.
Lavoie told the Press that
complications from the hernia had left him with extreme nausea and
uncontrollable vomiting. “I made all attempts to get to the PD,” said Lavoie.
“But there’s no way I could have made it inside the PD and been any type of
productive officer inside.” He said he hadn’t had his cell phone on him, but
called in when he got back to his house.
“I was denied workers’ comp
for claims that other officers have never had any issues with as far as getting
them covered,” said Lavoie. He said the city had deliberately curtailed an advance
on sick time as well.
“I think it will become
obvious that this was something that was orchestrated,” said Lavoie. “The mayor
has recently fired two officers and it just so happened that both of those
officers had recently put in complaints against McKenna.”
Drew wrote in Lavoie’s
termination letter that, at Lavoie’s Loudermill hearing, he and his lawyer had
claimed “that you are being retaliated against because you accused the chief of
police of soliciting or accepting painkillers from yourself and fellow officers
prior to his appointment as chief. This is unavailing, since the chief is not
involved in this decision and because your participation in a lawfully mandated
investigation does not shield you from discipline for unrelated transgressions.”
Drew said that Lavoie, in
fact, violated his duty as an officer by not reporting the chief at the time of
the supposed solicitation.
Lavoie told the Press that
he had been worried that the chief was too well connected to accuse, and Lavoie
did not want to be seen as a rat.
“By failing to report the
alleged solicitation in a timely manner, you have left yourself open to charges
that the claims are being used as a shield to protect you from otherwise proper
discipline,” wrote Drew.
Lavoie said he would not seek
reinstatement, but would continue to pursue a medical pension that he had
applied for months ago.
