Arbiter ruling favors officer

By Patricia Meade

Travel communications were ambiguous, the arbiter wrote.

YOUNGSTOWN — A detective sergeant has won her grievance over a 15-day suspension for travel money.

Detective Sgt. Patricia Garcar is “made whole again but how do you restore someone’s integrity,” Capt. Kenneth Centorame, president of Youngstown Police Ranking Officers, said Monday. He said the arbiter’s ruling is final and binding.

Garcar, a 13-year member of the department assigned to the accident investigation unit, served her suspension in late December. The 15 days off meant a loss of roughly $3,350 in wages.

Garcar said Monday that she was vindicated after an unbiased neutral third party reviewed the facts and found the accusations without merit. She said she is exonerated but still has to pay her attorney. The union, she said, will pay $1,000 toward the final bill. She declined to say how much the attorney charged.

Garcar and Linda DeJoe, a litter control worker, used a city litter van to travel to Detroit to a Weed and Seed conference last August. That program targets high-crime areas and strives to improve residents’ quality of life. Each was given $225 to cover the cost of driving their personal vehicles and later returned the money after questions were raised, records show.

DeJoe accepted her 15-day suspension; Garcar filed a grievance.

The arbiter, John T. Meredith, concluded that the city had the burden of proving Garcar intended to keep public money even though she knew she was not entitled to it. He said the evidence showed that she did not obtain the money under false pretenses and, when she accepted the money before the trip, had intended to drive her own car to Detroit.

Communications to Weed and Seed conference participants were somewhat ambiguous and not entirely consistent, Meredith wrote in his report. The travel contract Garcar signed, he said, reads more like a stipend than a travel advance.

Garcar, however, should have taken it upon herself to ask for clarification but failure to do so reflects on judgment, not integrity, the arbiter wrote. “Exercising what, with the benefit of hindsight, appears to be bad judgment does not equate to dishonesty or malfeasance,” he said.

Garcar agreed with the arbiter that she made a bad judgment call. She said she is angry that her good name was smeared.

City Prosecutor Jay Macejko, who testified at the arbitration hearing, said there was probable cause to believe theft in office occurred but he did not have admissible evidence, the arbiter wrote. In particular, Macejko concluded statements Garcar made in her first interview with Lt. Rod Foley, head of the police department Internal Affairs Division, were incriminating but not admissible because she gave no statements under Miranda. The Miranda warning advises that what you say can be used against you in criminal court.

Garcar, during the interview with Foley, was read her Garrity Rights. Under Garrity, police who invoke it may be compelled to give statements under threat of discipline or discharge but those statements may not be used in the criminal prosecution of the individual officer.

Macejko and Foley had no comment Monday on Garcar’s winning her grievance.

Rick George, associate director for Youngstown State University’s Center for Human Services Development, has called the situation miscommunication and said that travel policies for future Weed and Seed trips will be developed. George’s department is fiscal agent for a five-year $875,000 federal Weed and Seed project grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for the North Side.

meade@vindy.com