By Aaron Leo
Connecticut Post Online (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A city firefighter who officials say was videotaped working for his family’s masonry company while on sick leave last December has been fired.
Joseph Cennamo, an eight-year veteran of the Fire Department, was previously disciplined for abuse of sick leave and a violation of the department’s drug and alcohol policy, said Fire Chief Brian P. Rooney.
“You have blatantly abused the sick leave honor system in the Bridgeport Fire Department and you have committed fraud upon the taxpayers of the city of Bridgeport,” Rooney said in a March 28 letter to Cennamo.
“Be advised that I am turning this file over to the Bridgeport Police Department for your commission of fraud and criminal actions against the city,” he wrote.
Cennamo plans to appeal the action.
“He was being harassed by the chief,” said Cennamo’s lawyer, Lisa Maurer of Ridgefield.
“He wants to be on the line. He wants to do his job,” she said, but the chief had assigned Cennamo to desk duty instead. That compounded an existing stressful condition, she said, that began with disputes he had with superiors over switching shifts so he could work in his father’s masonry business.
Maurer did not dispute that the firefighter was videotaped while on a masonry job, but said his doctor approved the work as a mason.
Cennamo’s union representative, Daniel Hunsberger, a lawyer with the Uniformed Professional Fire Fighters Association of Connecticut, said the evidence would clear him.
Rooney said Cennamo was out of work from last Dec. 5 to Jan. 11, attributing his absence to stress.
During Cennamo’s December leave, the city hired Markle Investigations to check on his sick claim. The firm’s investigators allegedly followed Cennamo on Dec. 14 and 15 from his city home to a home on Bayberrie Drive in Stamford, where he was videotaped performing masonry work, Rooney said.
On both days, he drove a truck bearing the logo of Cennamo and Sons Masonry, whose address is listed at the firefighter’s home, the chief said.
When the tape was given to Cennamo and his lawyers, Rooney said, they did not dispute its validity.
The chief then charged Cennamo with violating departmental policies.
“Your behavior is inappropriate and immoral, by being dishonest and by theft of your paid sick leave,” the chief charged.
Cennamo’s disciplinary record also factored into the termination, the chief said.
He had been suspended for 36 days, from June 7 to July 13, 2005, for a drug and alcohol violation, Rooney noted.
He was also punished for excessive absenteeism, and failed to give the department proper information to explain his lengthy sick leave absences, according to Rooney.