Everyone takes a long lunch to run an errand once in a while. But sanitation worker Neil Puglia pushed the envelope a little too far when he made an unscheduled detour from his normal garbage pickup route for a whirlwind visit to a nearby motel.
According to a settlement with the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board that was released Monday, Puglia was driving his route one day in July when, without authorization, he decided to give his partner, Ariel Torres, a lift to her son's baseball game. After leaving Torres at the game, he then "drove the sanitation truck to a motel to meet someone for approximately one hour."
As part of the settlement with COIB and the Department of Sanitation, Puglia will be suspended from work for five days, which will cost him just under $1200. Torres took a three-day suspension, taking a hit of around $850.
Contacted by the Daily News about the motel incident, Puglia denied that there was an assignation involved.
“That was their story,” he said of the COIB. “At ten o’clock in the morning in my garbage uniform? I looked terrible and I was dirty,” he told the News. “I had to use the bathroom and that was the closest place.”
Allen Cohen of Kirschner and Cohen PC, listed as counsel for Puglia in the COIB filing, said he was not authorized to comment on the settlement.
