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The holidays must be a lucrative time for drivers who lure passengers into their unlicensed taxis at airports, but the Port Authority is making it tough for them this year. Yesterday Queens DA Richard Brown announced [pdf] that a crackdown on unlicensed taxi drivers has resulted in 18 arrests at JFK and LaGuardia. The arrests come a month after Governor Paterson signed a bill increasing penalties for unlawfully soliciting ground transportation at an airport, making it a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a fine of up to $1,250.
In June, a group of French tourists got taken on a dangerous, high-speed chase when cops moved in on one of the illegal livery van drivers; the incident underscored the risks of taking a ride from unlicensed drivers, who sometimes charge unsuspecting tourists $120 a pop for a trip from the airports to Manhattan. But the Post notes that there are fewer plainclothes police patrolling JFK for taxi hustlers because of Port Authority budget cuts. And one source tells the tabloid that before yesterday's press conference at JFK to announce the crackdown, Port Authority officials had to call in officers to clear the area of taxi hustlers.
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Port Authority officials fail to curb overtime pay
By JoAnne Sills
April 26, 2008, 11:30PM
Embarrassed by years of perennially high police overtime costs, Port Authority officials called in an international management consultant two years ago.
The agency paid KPMG $435,000 to evaluate its staffing practices and make suggestions to get things under control. Overtime had jumped 12 percent to $42.9 million over the previous year, and KPMG found plenty of problems -- no cap on overtime, difficulties reassigning staff to open posts, "archaic" record keeping and lenient sick time and disciplinary policies.
The results a year later?
Overtime soared even higher in 2007, hitting $48.9 million -- a 14 percent jump over those already elevated 2006 numbers and the second-highest dollar amount in agency history, behind 2001.
Some members of the department continued to work staggering hours -- a top 10 list includes several officers averaging more than 70 hours a week every week of the year.
Port Authority officials say they implemented some of the reforms suggested by KPMG but found others impossible given the agency's existing contract with the police union that runs through January 2010.
"The study provided us with an outside professional opinion that confirms we're contractually handcuffed," said Marc La Vorgna, a Port Authority spokesman. "Significant portions of the contract absolutely need to be revised when the renewal is negotiated."
A KPMG spokesman declined comment, citing confidentiality issues.
The ballooning overtime costs are more than a budget concern, police experts say, arguing officers who work so many hours can become fatigued and prone to making mistakes.
Overall, the roughly 1,600-member force worked nearly 838,000 hours of overtime -- more than 500 hours per officer on average.
Some officers carried more of the load than others. Port Authority Police Officer Morris Cofield, a 14-year veteran stationed mostly at John F. Kennedy International Airport, logged on average a bit more than 80 hours each and every week in 2007.
That workaholic pace brought a bonanza: His $82,909 base pay skyrocketed with $153,461 in overtime and then extra stipends led to a grand total of $263,468.
Cofield, 45, had lots of company behind him on the overtime train -- nine other Port Authority officers, for example, averaged between 62 and 77 hours every week last year.
"That's excessive and is bound at some point to undermine that officer's ability to perform -- out of fatigue, if for no other reason," said Wayne Fisher, director of the Police Institute at Rutgers University in Newark. "Over the period of a year, there has to be a negative effect."
Police Supt. Samuel Plumeri said the overtime is critical to filling shifts in the post-9/11 War Against Terrorism, particularly at the bistate agency's "terrorist-rich targets" like key airport, bridge, tunnel, rail and port facilities.
"It's not Mayberry. It's the Port Authority," said Plumeri, noting he makes no apologies about putting security first at an agency that suffered two devastating attacks on its property at the World Trade Center. "I'm not trying to be cavalier about money ... but I'm more concerned about taking care of those (security) issues."
Since late 2006, Plumeri said there have been publicized threats to agency facilities -- like ones to blow up both the PATH tunnel between Jersey City and Lower Manhattan and the fuel farm near John F. Kennedy International Airport -- and others the public never heard about that have driven up overtime.
"We are an intelligence-driven police department," he said.
Plumeri said the department implemented recommendations from KPMG where possible, such as improved procedures for assigning overtime, but is hamstrung by the existing contract and ongoing need to fill shifts. Nevertheless, he said, the agency is concerned about overworked officers and takes steps to ensure they are ready for duty.
Asked in particular about Officer Cofield's hours, Plumeri defended the officer and said he met him recently at JFK.
"He's as physically fit as you can get -- always on post," said Plumeri, who also said Cofield's commanding officer had spoken highly of him.
"Our executive officers evaluate these people before they work ... seeing if they're mentally able and physically able to work," said Plumeri of officers who log the most overtime. "I think we'd acknowledge the number (of hours) is high, but he's fulfilling a need. He's willing to work and able to work. We had identified posts that we needed to fill and we did."
Critics, though, say the physical toll is too high.
Washington State University Criminal Justice Professor Bryan Vila, who wrote a book "Tired Cops: The Importance of Managing Police Fatigue," said too much time spent on duty results in sharp reductions in officers' vigilance, coordination and alertness.
"We depend on them to use their judgment judiciously," said Vila, a former law-enforcement officer himself. "The idea of putting them on the street impaired and armed -- it's dumb. ... This is a fundamental risk management and human capital issue."
Gus Danese, the department's Police Benevolent Association president, blamed the overtime issue on management, insisting, for example, that they failed to hire enough officers and neglected to train others to fill specialty shifts like K-9 bomb dog units.
"A lot of cops don't like to work those hours, but they (P.A. officials) force them to work those hours," said Danese, noting that working numerous shifts takes a health toll. "It does catch up to you. I'm not going to lie to you."
Plumeri, however, said overtime is voluntary and the agency has worked hard in recent years to beef up its police force and now has an all-time high number of officers.
Overtime pay, meanwhile, is lucrative to Port Authority police officers both in the short- and long-term. Unlike police in New Jersey, the agency's officers are able to use their overtime to increase their pensions, since those checks are based on the three consecutive highest-paid years under the New York State Pension System.
Cofield and other members of the department's 2007 list of top overtime earners did not respond to requests for individual interviews made via e-mail to the officers and verbal requests to the Port Authority's public information office.
Andrew Scott III, former Boca Raton police chief and president of a police consulting firm in Florida called AJS Consulting Inc., said localities and government agencies have one glaring reason for being concerned about such overtime numbers -- legal liability.
"When you get beyond 60 hours, fatigue becomes cumulative," said Scott. "The fatigue factor then comes into affecting reaction time, decision-making, judgment calls ... (a) lawsuit follows."
FBI charges Port Authority police officer from N.J. with fraud scheme
By Brian T. Murray/The Star-Ledger
October 13, 2009, 4:04PM
JACKSON TWP. -- A seasoned detective with the Port Authority Police Department of New York and New Jersey, who also worked with the FBI, was arrested today on charges he lied in a Superior Court lawsuit regarding flood damage to his home in 2007 by trying to collect $10,000 for repairs that he had a federal informant do for free.
Michael Palermo, 50, a detective for more than 16 years, the past 11 of which he spent with an FBI violent crime task force, was arrested on a mail fraud charge by federal agents who said they were tipped off that he had falsified the financial tally for losses the officer suffered when his new home in Jackson Township flooded in April 2007. The officer, according to a federal complaint, convinced a repair contractor -- a convicted criminal and confidential informant who Palermo had worked with since 2003 -- to falsify a $10,000 receipt to bolster the damage claims the officer made in a lawsuit filed against his home builder, real estate broker and a project engineer.
"This is a sad day for everyone involved," said Weysan Dun, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Newark Field Office, contending Palermo appears to have an otherwise unblemished law enforcement career.
"The charges against him have nothing to do with his law enforcement responsibilities. ... It does not reflect his many years of service," Dun added during a press conference held in Newark with Port Authority Police Superintendant Michael Fedorko.
The federal charges stem from a legal battle Palermo initiated against a home construction contractor in February 2007 after buying his Jackson Township home in 2006 and claiming there were problems with the construction. When the home’s basement subsequently flooded in April of that same year, Palermo amended his lawsuit to add a Realtor, a project engineer and claim he spent $10,000 to have a Jackson Township company called New Day Construction repair the flood damage, according to a federal complaint.
"He had never been charged for those repairs," Dun explained, contending the company owner, a federal informant, never charged Palermo.
According to the FBI complaint against Palermo, he admitted to lying about paying $10,000 in cash for repairs and to submitting a false receipt when confronted about the case by agents on July 12 in Newark.
Palermo had lied once in a signed and sworn statement in September 2007 and again in sworn testimony in December 2008 as the officer’s lawsuit against the contractor proceeded through the legal system, according to the charges.
The lawsuit settled for $50,000 in January. But authorities contend they subsequently learned through a "tip from a citizen" that the flood repair bill was phony and that Palermo had many favors done for him over the past several years by the federal informant.
"Officer Palermo unfortunately developed a personal relationship with this cooperating witness," Dun explained.
The informant, who has a criminal record, was not identified by the FBI or Ralph Marra, deputy U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, at the press conference. Authorities said only that the informant had worked with Palermo from 2003 through 2008 while the officer was with the FBI task force and that the informant pleaded guilty in August 2008 to a federal charge of rolling back the odometers of cars. The informant also cooperated with the probe of Palermo, said Dun, confirming that the flood repair work was done for free and that the officer asked him to submit a phony receipt for $10,000. The informant, who has not been charged in the case, also told the FBI he did other favors for Palermo, including getting the officer favorable prices on high-end automobiles, repairing his car for free and getting him price breaks on landscaping work at the Jackson Township home.
But Dun and Marra said there is no indication that any investigations Palermo was working on were ever compromised or that the informant was extorted for the favors.
"There is no indication of anything like that at this point," said Dun, although the probe continues.
"We are undertaking an internal review of all of the cases in which Officer Palermo and the cooperating witness worked together," Marra added.
ALLOWED TO RITIRE WHILE INDICTED AND IS NOW GETTING A FULL PENSION JUST RELEASED FROM PRISON AFTER ONLY 18 MONTHS AFTER GETTING 7 YEARS. PORT AUTHORITY OF NYNJ WENT TO BAT FOR HIM AT HIS SENTENCING. SITING HE WAS A GOOD POLICEMAN BEFORE HE STARTED SHAKING TRUCKERS DOWN FOR MONEY.
Ex-Port Authority cop accused of shaking down truckers
By Joseph R. Ryan
November 16, 2007, 7:37AM
Monmouth County grand jurors have indicted a retired Port Authority police office on charges of shaking down truckers for money for a youth baseball team that he coached.
Prosecutors say the 53-year-old netted $60,000 by stopping truckers on the Goethals Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing and let them go if they donated to the North Howell Stingrays. Robert Nanni coached the traveling baseball team for 12-year-olds.
Authorities say Nanni, who retired in from the Port Authority in 2006, eventually approached trucking companies in Union, Middlesex, Ocean and Monmouth counties and said they wouldn't get tickets if they made donations.
He is charged with official misconduct, receiving stolen property, theft of services and theft by deception.
Ex-Port Authority cop gets 7 years for shaking down truckers
April 18, 2008, 5:04PM
Robert Nanni A former Port Authority police officer gets a seven-year prison term for shaking down over $37,000 from truckers on Staten Island bridges instead of writing tickets.
Monmouth County prosecutors say Robert Nanni told truckers the money was for a youth baseball team he managed in Howell Township. But authorities say Nanni used the money for personal expenses, including furniture and mortgage payments.
The 53-year-old pleaded guilty last month to official misconduct and theft charges. He has agreed to repay the money.
Nanni had been an officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for 20 years until 2006. He checked trucks entering New York on the Goethals Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing.
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