Announcement Detail
By Lisa Backus STAFF WRITER
February 11, 2023
Thirty Connecticut police officers are under review for decertification whose alleged wrongdoing includes “serial burglar” accusations, charges of cruelty to people and animals and a cop who officials say appeared in porn videos, documents show.
The state Police Officer Standards and Training Council decertified 10 officers in 2023 — the most since the same amount were decertified in 2014. Most of those who were decertified in 2014 were convicted of felony offenses. But in 2023, eight of the decertified officers were not convicted of a crime and were instead accused of misconduct defined by police accountability laws passed in recent years.
Public policy has changed how police officers are expected to conduct themselves, said Michael Lawlor, the former undersecretary of criminal justice for the state Office of Policy and Management and a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven.
As a New Haven police commissioner and a member of POST, Lawlor could not speak to any of the specific allegations regarding the list of officers slated to be reviewed for decertification. But Lawlor said public policy regarding officer conduct has been reshaped by the police accountability laws passed in 2015, 2019 and 2020.
“Public policy has changed. The standards under which officers are expected to conduct themselves are higher,” he said. “It is very interesting how difficult it has been for some people to adjust to that. They need to understand that they can’t say things in an official investigation as if they are true when, in fact, they aren’t actually true.”
Officers who have been submitted by their police chief to be decertified are entitled to a hearing process before a recommendation is made for the entire POST Council to vote whether to decertify them. An officer’s length of decertification depends on what the hearing process finds, but generally is not more than two years. None of the decertified officers have requested to be reinstated in Connecticut, POST officials said.
Officers who are decertified in Connecticut are placed in a national database so law enforcement agencies in other states are aware of their history.
There are 30 officers in the pipeline to be decertified, but at least two notable cases of suspected wrongdoing haven’t been added to the list.
One of them is Connecticut State Police Trooper Brian North, who is facing a manslaughter charge in the fatal shooting of a suspect who was sitting in his car in 2020. State police said they are waiting for the outcome of his criminal trial to determine whether North will be submitted for decertification.
Other state police troopers who were arrested or were accused of violations of conduct have been submitted for decertification, documents show. But in those cases, the troopers resigned before the investigation into their conduct was completed. North has not resigned and has been on paid leave since the 2020 shooting.
In another case, Old Say-brook Police Chief Michael Spera declined to submit an officer for decertification who resigned during an investigation into claims he had sex while on duty. In documents, Spera pointed out that according to state law, the officer is “banned for life” from working for another law enforcement agency in Connecticut because he resigned amid an investigation.
But Spera declined to submit the officer for decertification on the grounds he was concerned the process could open the possibility of the person getting their job back. The officer would not go in the national database of decertified officers, but Spera said other departments could “Google” his name to find out his history.
The list of people who are in the pipeline to be decertified includes several who have been arrested, including former Glastonbury police officer Patrick Hemingway, who has been charged with several commercial burglaries and is a suspect in dozens more.
Former state police trooper Mitchell Paz is also on the list. Paz, who resigned from the state police, was charged with using the agency’s computer system to help his girlfriend access confidential information associated with a case involving the father of her child, an arrest warrant said. Paz has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is due in court next month.
The list also includes five former New Haven police officers fired, arrested and sued in connection with the 2022 incident that left Richard “Randy” Cox paralyzed. The criminal cases filed against former officers Oscar Diaz, Jocelyn Lavandier, Luis Rivera and Ronald Pressley and Sgt. Betsy Segui on charges of cruelty to persons and reckless endangerment are pending.
Diaz, Lavandier, Rivera and Segui were fired in 2023 after an internal affairs investigation into their interactions with Cox. Pressley retired during the investigation. The four others have appealed their termination through a state labor board. Diaz won his appeal, but city officials said they are not allowing him to return to work and are seeking to have his appeal overturned.
Cox’s family won a $45 million settlement with the city after filing a federal lawsuit.
The list of officers to be decertified also includes Joshua Zarbo, who was arrested and fired after he asked a dispatcher to look up information on a woman he was interested in dating, according to information provided by Old Saybrook police. Zarbo was granted a program that will allow the charge to be dropped if he stays out of trouble for a year, a judge ruled in 2023.
The list also includes Paul Cavalier, who was placed on leave from the East Haven Police Department in 2022 after he was accused of appearing in a porn videos, and David Rivera, a former New Canaan K-9 officer who is facing animal cruelty and explosives charges.
Rivera, who is accused of killing and burying dogs at an animal training facility he operated in Naugatuck, rejected a plea deal last month in a separate case involving explosives police said were found at his Stratford home.
Connecticut police officers facing decertification
• Jonathan Martin, Seymour Police Department, submitted in 2021
• Francisco Iacono, East Hartford Police Department, submitted in 2021
• Robert Jones, East Hartford Police Department, submitted in 2021
• Maxwell Bernstein, Stratford Police Department, submitted in 2022
• Christopher Troche, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2022
• Kendall Shayna, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2022
• Peter Zavickas, UConn Police Department, submitted in 2022
• David Rivera, New Canaan Police Department, submitted in 2022
• Gianni Capozziello, Bridgeport Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Paul Cavalier, East Haven Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Joshua Zarbo, Old Say-brook Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Cliff Maestri, Mashantucket Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Jordan Knight, Meriden Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Paz Mitchell, Connecticut State Police, submitted in 2023
• Shariff Fair, Norwich Police Department, submitted in 2023
• James Hinkle, Waterbury Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Monique Moore, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Ronald Pressley, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Segui Betsy, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Jocelyn Lavandier, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Luis Rivera, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Oscar Diaz, New Haven Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Michael Fallon, Hartford Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Christine Burns, Bridgeport Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Matthew Lima, Wood-bridge Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Catherine Koeppel, Connecticut State Police, submitted in 2023
• Patrick Hemingway, Glastonbury Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Danielle Visconti, Stamford Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Stephane Smarth, Stamford Police Department, submitted in 2023
• Emmanuel Cordero, Southern Connecticut State University Police Department, submitted in 2023