Brooklyn DA-elect Ken Thompson is hell-bent on stopping outgoing District Attorney Charles Hynes from paying his controversial rackets chief $285,000 for unused vacation days – but Hynes plans to go ahead with the payment anyway, The Post has learned.
Thompson sent Hynes a letter Thursday demanding that no outgoing DA employees be paid for more than 52 weeks of unused vacation time, law-enforcement sources said.
“He says there is one ADA who is getting $285,623.01 and he doesn’t want that to be paid,” said a source who viewed the letter. “The tone is very stern and demanding.”
As The Post previously reported, Hynes right-hand man Michael Vecchione, the rackets bureau chief, plans to cash in over a year of unused vacation days – totaling some $285,000. He is the only Hynes staffer with over a year’s unused vacation time, the sources said.
“We got the letter [Thursday] night and we are reviewing it and we will respond [this] week,” DA spokesman Jerry Schmetterer said.
Vecchione makes about $190,000 a year – so Thompson’s demand would cut him out of almost $100,000.
Sources close to Hynes said Vecchione would get the full $285,000.
“Hynes is paying it,” said a source close to the lame duck DA.
A Thompson spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The Post first reported the conflict of Vecchione’s payout and how Thompson transition team member Arnie Kriss specifically asked only for Vecchione’s time sheets earlier this month – though law-enforcement sources said then the total amount was $230,000.
“It’s a vendetta that doesn’t belong in the transition,” said a source close to Hynes, explaining that Kriss has long held a grudge against Vecchione since the two lawyers were in private practice together.
Kriss also tried to unseat Hynes in the 2005 DA race, but only won seven percent of the vote.
Vecchione spent over two decades in the DA’s office and has a long record of convicting corrupt politicians, judges, and murderers – but he has also been criticized twice by federal judges for prosecutorial misconduct.
Thompson knocked Hynes out of office twice – first in the Democratic primary in September and again when Hynes switched parties and ran as a Republican in the general election in November.
About 40 Hynes staffers plan to leave the office in advance of Thompson’s January 1 arrival, a law-enforcement source said.