STAMFORD — Three former city police officers charged with bilking the police department’s extra-duty program of more than $154,000 had their charges dismissed on Wednesday.
Former Stamford officers David Sileo, Paul Pavia and Mark Ligi had charges of first-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny dropped against them after a judge found that they had successfully completed individual pretrial probation programs.
On Feb. 2, Judge Gary White granted the three former officers accelerated rehabilitation, a pretrial program available to people accused of nonviolent crimes. The state did not object to the program, citing their cooperation in providing information against a fourth colleague, Christopher Broems, who is currently awaiting trial on similar charges.
White said if the three committed no other crimes during the six-month program, the original charges against them would be dropped.
In addition, each officer also made a $10,000 contribution to a charity of their choice.
The court’s decision to drop the charges Wednesday marks the close of a chapter in a controversial case that began more than three years ago when Ligi, now 59; Pavia, now 57; Sileo, now 59 and Broems, now 54, were arrested in June 2019 on charges of first-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny.
According to the warrants, all four men allegedly “actively took part in this scheme” by claiming pay for canceled utility project fees they were not owed. Sileo, Pavia and Ligi allegedly falsely completed and signed extra-duty vouchers for each other and for Broems, and failed to record the required paperwork, the warrants state.
The former officers were accused of submitting a total of 643 false payroll vouchers that amount to $187,618, nearly all of it paid by the natural-gas affiliate of Eversource, the utility company that regularly hires a large number of extra-duty officers.
All four officers resigned in May 2019 after the information came to light.
Their arrest warrants describe how the officers, who had worked in the department’s Central Hiring Office, were identified through an in-house audit that showed the four had collected what appeared to be an inordinate amount of cancellation fees.
Police union rules mandate that contractors be billed for four hours of an officer’s time if they cancel a job later than 10 p.m. the previous day. The warrants allege that the former officers filled out the vouchers with their own names after jobs were canceled. Since the jobs were not assigned to an officer before they were canceled, Eversource should not have been charged for the four hours’ pay, the warrants state.
According to the Police Department’s website, officers are paid $68 per hour for extra-duty work, with an additional 16 percent administrative fee going to the city. A memorandum of understanding attached to the city’s contract with the police union stipulates that all jobs controlling traffic at road work sites and providing security at public gatherings shall first be offered to police officers.
The warrants allege that Sileo, who’d been a Stamford police officer for 29 years, was improperly paid $64,976 by Eversource between January 2014 and his reassignment on March 25, 2019.
According to the warrants, Pavia, also with the department for 29 years, falsely charged Eversource $56,000 in cancellation fees for the same period.
Ligi, who was with the department for 33 years, is charged with falsely collecting $33,084 from Eversource.
Broems, 54, who spent 21 years with the department, is charged with collecting $7,680 in false cancellation fees from Eversource and $480 from an upstate contractor, Erland Construction, for a total of $8,160.
The remaining nearly $26,000 of the total was paid to the city as part of its administrative fee.
