Suspended Cop Sues Town for $75M Over ‘public Corruption’

The “corrupt” Westhampton Beach Police Department looked the other way when cops with connections got in trouble, a whistleblower lawsuit charges. Joseph Pesapane Facebook

A sergeant who beat and bloodied his wife was given his gun back and the domestic-violence case dropped. Another cop, a member of a prominent local family, was never disciplined after failing to respond to an emergency where a victim died. A former mayor used an on-duty 911 dispatcher for political work.

These allegations come from a suspended cop, Joseph Pesapane, who just filed a $75 million federal lawsuit against the village.

The village and police department “have a long history rife with public corruption where crimes and serious misconduct are condoned,” Pesapane, 33, charges in his lawsuit, which also names the former mayor and police chief among the defendants.

The tony beachside community has virtually no crime, but it paid its former chief Ray Dean a big-city salary of $226,236 a year. In 2014, Dean raked in a retirement payout of $403,714 for 15 years’ worth of unused sick, vacation and per-sonal time, The Post has reported.

In 2009, Pesapane says, he and another officer responded to a “domestic incident” at the home of a sergeant, Joseph Dolomite, who worked for the police department in the neighboring village of Quogue. Dolomite’s wife was “bloodied, severely beaten about her face with a blunt object,” court papers allege.

Pesapane and his partner confiscated Dolomite’s guns but did not arrest him. A few hours later, Dolomite showed up at the Westhampton Beach police station and spoke with then-chief Dean, who ordered that the domestic-incident report be “voided” and that the weapons be returned, the lawsuit alleges.

In another 2009 incident, an officer “failed to respond” to a call to help someone on the village’s Main Street who later died, according to the suit.

The cop wasn’t disciplined because he was a family member of a former mayor, Pesapane alleges.

Also in 2009, in June, then-Mayor Conrad Teller told an on-duty police dispatcher to “compile names and addresses of eligible voters on the 2009-2010 certified election list using police databases for confirmation to solicit them for votes,” the court papers charge.

“Why the hell would I do that?” Teller said of the allegation. “Christ, I can do my own dirty work. I wouldn’t do that.”

Pesapane was “falsely arrested” in September 2013 for stalking his former fiancée, he claims in the suit — and was suspended without pay in January 2014. The charges against him were dropped in July 2016, but he has not been reinstated.

Mayor Maria Moore said the village had not been served with a complaint. “If the complaint is similar to the notice of claim we previously received, I can tell you that the allegations are without merit and that the village will vigorously defend itself against these baseless claims,” Moore said.

Additional reporting by Susan Edelman

Source: nypost.com nypost.com

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