As Bethlehem town officials continue to look into an alleged audiotape of Police Chief Louis Corsi making racist remarks during a telephone conversation, the man at the center of an internal police department investigation made his first public plea to town officials.
Bethlehem police officer Christopher Hughes attended the Wednesday, June 24, Town Board meeting and read a letter regarding a 2008 investigation into workplace violence allegations made against him. He handed board members a four-page letter asking for answers to a number of questions, including the whereabouts of the missing incident report that he said Corsi and Supervisor Jack Cunningham may be involved in.
Hughes, who told Cunningham in May about the alleged recording of Corsi, said he has requested a report of the 2008 incident, in which Hughes was involved in a verbal altercation with another officer, but is getting conflicting accounts on whether it exists.
Considering Chief Corsi thinks nothing of asking one of his staff members to destroy evidence highlighting his racist mentality, can anyone honestly expect me to believe he would hesitate to order such an incident report destroyed, Hughes said in the letter. `Why won’t Jack allow me to face my accuser? Where is this report? I hope it’s not hidden somewhere in Chief Corsi’s woodpile.`
Cunningham said he has no idea why Hughes continues to speak out against him and the chief and said he was in no way involved with the workplace violence investigation.
`No, it’s not true at all. I was made aware of what was going on then, but I’m not involved in any way,` Cunningham said of Hughes claim. `Apparently the report doesn’t exist.`
Hughes sent several FOIL requests for the initial complaint against him. He was granted partial disclosure of the `incident maintenance` computer log on Dec. 18, 2008.
`I’m fighting for my reputation here,` Hughes said. `I’m fighting for my job.`
According to documents obtained by The Spotlight, the log merely states a violent incident occurred and was being reviewed by Deputy Police Chief Timothy Beebe. It does state a report is required for the incident type.
Beebe wrote a letter to Hughes on June 9, denying his FOIL request, stating, `No such New York Incident Report was generated and does not exist.`
Cunningham said criminal reports are not necessary for workplace violence reports and there is no internal equivalent.
`We don’t have a lot of workplace violence incidents,` he said.
The alleged audiotape of Corsi is three years old if it exists, according to Bethlehem town attorney James Potter, but the town has not denied its existence and is searching through tapes held by the county to find the conversation in question.
Potter said he had `no comment` on Hughes’ letter to the board, but has previously said the town is looking into the legalities surrounding the allegations.
Cunningham said Hughes told him he had a copy of the tape when they spoke at his home on May 17 about internal police department issues. However, Hughes denies ever claiming to possess the audiotape and that he only brought up the long-held rumor because he felt Corsi was targeting him for disciplinary actions for being vocal about union issues.
Hughes was slapped with back-to-back 30-day suspensions in April and May for misconduct charges.
An informational executive session about the investigation into Hughes’ allegations was held June 3, five days after The Spotlight published its first story on the Corsi allegations and six days after Hughes made a formal complaint against Corsi with the district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit.
Hughes said he went to the meeting and asked the Town Board to conduct its own investigation, independent of Hughes and Corsi.
`An investigation was conducted and closed because the allegations were baseless. That part of the [workplace violence] policy worked fine,` Hughes read to the Town Board. `However, the policy isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if Jack Cunningham and his police puppets stonewall my efforts to address the false report written against me. As this town’s elected officials, I hope you all call for an independent investigation into this matter.`
Hughes maintains that he’s been targeted at work by Corsi and possibly Cunningham for being vocal about a number of issues and said the fact that an incident report was not produced is indicative of the internal problems at the Bethlehem Police Department.
Cunningham denies that argument and said the board is unlikely to conduct an independent investigation.
`Could they, yeah they could, but it is not very likely,` he said. `This is another example when [Hughes] is just factually wrong.`
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