The former No. 2 cop at the Port Authority is suing the agency and an ex-honcho implicated in the “Bridgegate” scandal — claiming he was hired to clean up corruption and then told to look the other way when he found “illegal conduct.”
Jerry Speziale, also a former NYPD cop and Passaic County sheriff, says in the suit that he was recruited in 2010 by then-PA official David Wildstein, who has since quit over his role in last year’s crippling closure of approach lanes to the George Washington Bridge.
Speziale says Wildstein told him to “root out corruption” and crack down on waste so he could one day take over the PA’s 1,700-member police force.
But in his first week on the $198,500-a-year job, Speziale met with his boss, Superintendent Michael Fedorko, who allegedly ordered Speziale to “not interfere with any operations of the Port Authority and intimated that Speziale should essentially do nothing.”
Speziale claims he ignored that warning and immediately uncovered “numerous instances of illegal conduct, improper conduct and abusive conduct.”
Among the examples cited in the Newark federal court filing are allegations that Fedorko had PA personnel prepare a “false affidavit” to get him out of a vehicle summons.
Fedorko also racked up “numerous unpaid parking tickets” near the home of his “purported girlfriend,” an unidentified PA subordinate, and sent on-duty PA cops to court in Brooklyn to help her get a ticket dismissed, the suit says.
Speziale says he took his findings to PA Executive Director Pat Foye, who allegedly told a colleague “that he was unable to assist Speziale because of ‘New Jersey politics.’ ”
Speziale says he then suffered retaliation that included revocation of his official vehicle, denial of security credentials and cancelation of medical benefits for his terminally ill wife, Maggie, who died of breast cancer last month on Easter Sunday.
Last year, Speziale quit the PA and took a $65,000-a-year job as police chief in Prichard, Ala.
His suit seeks unspecified damages. Wildstein’s lawyer and a PA spokesman both declined to comment.