(
)
Gov. Cuomo continued to shake up the scandal-scarred Division of State Police last week with the unannounced appointment of a career prosecutor, surprisingly not a police officer, as its first deputy superintendent, The Post has learned.
Called unprecedented by long-timers, the appointment of Kevin Gagan — who was an assistant attorney general under Cuomo — to the agency’s $159,000-a-year, second-highest spot has “angered and infuriated” many senior officers.
“They’re mad. They wanted one of their own,” said a former top State Police official.
Gagan, 46, is a former Manhattan homicide prosecutor and has served as a State Police chief counsel for the past few months.
A Cornell Law School grad and Utica native, Gagan replaces former acting State Police Superintendent John Melville, who had been appointed by Gov. David Paterson and was bounced by Cuomo in January after the new governor questioned his loyalty.
Cuomo named former NYPD Deputy Chief Joseph D’Amico, another veteran of the Attorney General’s Office, as State Police superintendent in January, and until last week, Melville had served as his first deputy.
Melville, whose secret approval of huge pay hikes for 28 of the State Police’s top brass was rescinded by Cuomo shortly after The Post made them public, has returned to an old job as “field commander.”
“There was a concern that the State Police not have as the No. 2 person someone who was wired into the old guard, the old Dan Wiese network,” a Cuomo administration source said, referring to a former State Police official and close political ally of Govs. George Pataki and Eliot Spitzer.
“This sends a message that the State Police is not a club, that this is about professionalism.”
The State Police, a once highly regarded statewide agency, has been wracked by scandal over the past four years, including Troopergate, during which Spitzer was found to have used investigators to gather information on a GOP foe, and alleged efforts by Paterson’s top bodyguard to persuade a Bronx woman not to file assault charges against a top gubernatorial aide.
Steven Cohen, Cuomo’s secretary, said the selection of Gagan “shows a commitment to pure professionalism and to doing what’s right for the State Police and the state of New York.”
*
The fate of embattled Power Authority President Richard Kessel, under investigation by the state inspector general for possible misuse of funds, may be decided tomorrow when he meets with state Operations Director Howard Glaser, a top Cuomo aide.
Kessel, who was a one-time political operative for Gov. Mario Cuomo and took on the same role for Pataki and former US Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, “is on thin ice in his current job,” a source familiar with the situation told The Post.