Ex-volunteer cop named in suit

Tom Colosimo was unfit to serve as a police officer, the suit says.

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — Events surrounding former volunteer police officer Tom Colosimo have led to a lawsuit naming him, the West Farmington mayor and police chief and the village as defendants.

Ted Cornelison of Brookfield, who was fired as West Farmington police chief in January and accused by Colosimo of committing a variety of crimes in the days afterward, filed the suit in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

The lawsuit also names current West Farmington Police Chief Robert Horner, West Farmington Mayor Allen Patchin and the village.

It states the actions of Colosimo, Horner, Patchin and the village caused him to be falsely arrested and improperly charged with several crimes. Those charges were later dropped, the suit says.

The suit, filed by Atty. David Betras of Canfield, seeks damages of more than $25,000. It is assigned to Judge W. Wyatt McKay.

Colosimo worked as a volunteer for the West Farmington Police Department until recently. In June, he wrecked a village police car and pleaded guilty to speeding. Sheriff Thomas Altiere said Colosimo resigned from the department.

A report filed by Trumbull County Sheriff’s Detective Peter Pizzulo, who investigated Colosimo’s charges against Cornelison, says Patchin informed Cornelison on Jan. 30 that his contract with the village was not being renewed, effective 30 days later.

Pizzulo says Colosimo alleged that Cornelison committed the crimes of menacing, telephone harassment, forgery, tampering with evidence and making false allegations against Colosimo and another police officer from Jan. 30 through Feb. 2.

On Feb. 21, Colosimo filed charges in Newton Falls Municipal Court against Cornelison after consulting with Patchin and Horner, the lawsuit said, adding that Colosimo, Patchin and Horner “acted in a concerted effort with a deliberate and/or reckless disregard for truth, to arrest and prosecute ... Cornelison for crimes he did not commit.”

Patchin and Horner did not return a phone message seeking comment. Colosimo, 35, of Newton Falls, said he had no comment on the suit.

The suit refers to the March 24 report of Pizzulo’s investigation into the matter, saying Pizzulo found “no wrongdoing” by Cornelison and “deemed the charges groundless.”

Pizzulo’s report says one of Colosimo’s charges against Cornelison pertains to a conversation Cornelison had with Patchin — regarding Colosimo’s fitness to serve as a police officer. The report said Cornelison found Colosimo to be a liability to the department because of a medical disability he has dating back to his service in the Air Force.

The village is named in the suit because, according to the suit, it had a duty to hire police officers with the proper qualifications, experience, training and character.

Colosimo didn’t have those qualifications because at the time he was hired, he had a history of “delirium, blackouts, violent outbursts, anxiety and depression as a result of anthrax vaccinations he received while serving in the military,” the suit said.

Colosimo is the volunteer Newton Township police officer who claimed to have been shot in his bulletproof vest last month and whose Newton Township police cruiser was destroyed in May when he left it on train tracks.

The sheriff’s department, which investigated the shooting, last week said it could find no evidence to support Colosimo’s claims that an assailant fired the shot.

Colosimo has been on leave from the Newton Township Police Department since sometime after the shooting, which occurred off of Miller-Graber Road.