ALBANY — Here are your tax dollars at work.
This secretly recorded video shows two state employees sleeping, smoking dope and snorting coke in their “man cave” while they were supposed to be on the job.
The two workers, accused last month in a 22-count indictment that included allegations of drug possession and sales, entered guilty pleas in Albany County Court yesterday to reduced charges of grand larceny and defrauding the government.
The recordings were made earlier this year by a State Police surveillance camera in a hidden room — dubbed a “man cave” — in a state garage. They show Office of General Services workers Gary Pivoda, 48, and his supervisor, Louis Marciano, in various activities, none of which have to do with their official jobs.
Pivoda worked as a janitor, and Marciano was his boss.
On the recording, Pivoda appears to be snorting a line of cocaine off a round table placed inside the man cave.
Both Pivoda and Marciano are also captured seated at the table sharing what appears to be a marijuana joint.
And in another portion of the video, Pivoda, who was working a late-night shift, is observed preparing his “bed” and then getting ready to fall asleep. The partial body of Marciano, apparently already asleep, is in the background.
The videos were recorded by investigators who were working with state Inspector General Joseph Fisch, whose office had received a tip about the man cave.
According to state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office, Pivoda, 48, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government and grand larceny after admitting he had been working on state time when he was actually engaged in illegal conduct. He’ll serve one year in the Albany County Jail.
Pivoda will also reimburse the state $2,076 in pay that he wasn’t entitled to receive.
Marciano, 50, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government and received five years’ probation.
He also was sentenced to perform 250 hours of community service and pay the state $1,504 in salary reimbursement.
Both men also agreed to resign their current positions and to never seek public employment again.
A spokesman for Cuomo said that while drug sale and use underlay the charges against the two men, the final pleas “were in satisfaction of all the original charges.”
When the men were charged last month, Cuomo accused them of using “public property and taxpayer-funded time to nap and party in a den of illicit activities.”