Fairfax County Police Watch: Cop just latest city employee collecting salary while on leave

Richard Weir

A Boston cop is still collecting his paycheck despite being convicted last month of soliciting a prostitute in Lynn, in the latest example of a city employee sent home on paid administrative leave.

Detective Lysander E. Wright, 50, was found guilty Oct. 9 by a Peabody jury of paying for sexual conduct, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to two years probation and fined $5,000.

Wright was armed with a handgun and had only $7 cash on him when Lynn police arrested him in his Toyota for soliciting oral sex from an undercover cop in March 2013 and agreeing to pay her $20, according to court records.

The Herald reported last month that Wright, who has taken home $215,000 while out on paid administrative leave, and district fire Chief Edward A. Scigliano, who has taken home $376,000 while out during his 28-month criminal probe, were among 57 city workers paid a combined $2.5 million while ordered to not report for work pending disciplinary action.

“He has resigned effective 11/28/2014. He remains on Administrative Leave until that date,” Boston police spokesman Lt. Michael McCarthy said in a statement of Wright. “If he refused to resign, a termination hearing would have been scheduled and he would have remained on Administrative Leave until at least that date.”

Meanwhile, Boston fire Commissioner Joseph E. Finn said he has moved to strip Scigliano of his salary immediately after he was indicted Thursday on charges of defrauding the department of nearly $50,000.

Finn, a 30-year Boston Fire Department veteran tapped by Mayor Martin J. Walsh in July to lead the department, said Scigliano acted as an “independent operator” in charge of the training academy on Moon Island.

Scigliano, who was drillmaster of the fire academy from 2005 until May 2012, when he was promoted to district chief, is accused of ordering from one BFD vendor $14,000 worth of items — including a Jenn-Air gas grill, a 52-inch Samsung HD TV and a Sam’s Club living room set — that he took for personal use. The department’s former point man on fire truck purchases, he also allegedly instructed another vendor who owed the city $32,000 in refunds to write the checks to his credit card companies.

Finn called the Scigliano case an “embarrassment” to the department.

“This has been a cloud hanging over us for three years,” he said. “There are no islands here. When I came I made sure the chain of command was strictly adhered ... and there are multiple sets of eyes on what is being purchased.”

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.