A former NYPD detective tossed from the force for keeping naked photos of a rape victim in 2008 — who happened to be rocker David Bowie’s stepdaughter – is now suing the NYPD for back pay and full retirement benefits.
Richard Vecchio, a married Staten Island father, won a victory last spring when an appeals court found that his termination without a pension would have a “devastating financial impact” on his family.
But the Appellate Division left his reinstatement up to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. The top cop promptly reaffirmed Vecchio’s ouster in March and denied his request for a full pension.
Vechhio had served four years short of the required 20 for full benefits when he was canned in 2008. Kelly also rejected his plea for back pay from 2008, the time that his original wrongful termination suit was winding through the legal process.
In his suit, Vecchio argues that “there was no substantial evidence of his guilt and the penalty imposed of his termination from the NYPD was an abuse of discretion.”
Now he wants his retirement date to coincide with Kelly’s second firing of him — so he’ll qualify for a full pension. He’s due the money “as someone with over 20 years of credible service,” the tarnished cop claims in court papers.
The appeals court only dismissed two of 11 departmental charges against the 19-year veteran, for leaving work early and falsifying records.
But it upheld the most serious violations including his harboring of 15 nude snapshots of Stacia Lipka, the daughter of Bowie’s former wife Angela, which were taken at a city hospital after she’d been raped.
A second sustained infraction also related to a photo—this time it was the bare, pierced nipple of a female suspect.
A spokeswoman with the city’s law department said, “We think this petitioner was correctly fired on both occasions and that his latest claim lacks merit.”