The head of the Port Authority has ordered a top-to-bottom internal probe by the agency’s inspector general to investigate claims of corruption in a lawsuit filed by the former No. 2 cop, The Post has learned.
Executive Director Patrick Foye demanded that the probe examine allegations by former PAPD deputy superintendent Jerry Speziale in a suit filed Wednesday in Newark, sources said.
A source said Foye was troubled by the claims and how they portrayed his agency.
“He’s extremely upset about the allegations and wants to take proactive measures to get the bottom of it,” the source said.
Speziale, a former NYPD cop and Passaic County sheriff, said in his lawsuit that he was recruited in 2010 by then-PA official David Wildstein to “root out corruption” and crack down on waste.
During his first week in his $198,500-a-year job, Speziale claims he met with his boss, Superintendent Michael Fedorko, who allegedly ordered him to “not interfere with any operations of the Port Authority and intimated that Speziale should essentially do nothing.”
Speziale’s lawsuit states that he ignored this admonition and uncovered “numerous instances of illegal conduct, improper conduct and abusive conduct.”
He charged Fedorko had PA personnel prepare a “false affidavit” to get him out of vehicle summonses and racked up unpaid summonses outside the home of his girlfriend, a PA subordinate — summonses he paid only when the media began asking questions.
When he brought his findings to senior PA officials, including Foye, Speziale claims a PA executive told him Foye couldn’t assist him due to “New Jersey politics.”
Speziale wound up quitting the PA for a $65,000-a-year position as police chief in Prichard, Ala., and he’s seeking unspecified damages.
When first wooed for the PA post by Republican operatives, he was running as a Democrat for re-election as Passaic County sheriff and considered a shoo-in, due to a campaign war chest of more than $600,000.
Critics said Speziale was tapped for the PAPD post as part of a calculated bid to weaken the Democrats’ chances of keeping the sheriff’s job.
Steve Coleman, a PA spokesman, declined to comment on the probe.
Wildstein, who recruited Speziale, quit the PA as a result of his role in last year’s crippling closure of approach lanes to the George Washington Bridge. He did not return a call Friday.