The city police officer accused of staging a hit-and-run to cover-up his own accident applied for accelerated rehabilitation in Middletown Superior Court Tuesday.
Angelo Passanisi, along with his attorney, John Kelly, filed the necessary paperwork for the program with Judge Elpedio Vitale and now must wait until Feb. 17 to find out if the program will be granted.
Accelerated rehabilitation, also called AR, is a program that gives persons charged with a crime or motor vehicle violation for the first time a second chance. The person is placed on probation for up to two years. If probation is completed satisfactorily, the charges are dismissed.
Before Passanisi’s next court date Feb. 17, lawyers for the state will contact the alleged victim in the case to see if they object to the program being granted. In this case, the victim would be Passanisi’s car insurance company, whom he is accused of defrauding.
The company that insured Passanisi’s Jetta, Massachusetts-based Hanover Insurance Co., paid out $4,400 for work to repair the vehicle, with more money requested, and paid for a rental car for Passanisi to use while his car was being fixed.
Passanisi, who is free on $2,500 bond, is charged with tampering and fabricating evidence, insurance fraud and falsely reporting an accident in the second-degree.
After a night spent with friends at a local bar Sept. 23, Passanisi, 25, of Middletown, allegedly crashed his 2001 Volkswagen Jetta into a telephone pole while driving too fast and then made it look as though the damage had been done to his parked car by a vehicle that then fled.
Immediately following the crash, Passanisi reportedly contacted a fellow officer and informed him of the accident. The officer and Passanisi had spent time together earlier in the evening at a city bar. Passanisi would not tell the officer where the accident occurred but informed him that he was alright, according to the arrest warrant.
According to court records, Passanisi later reported to Middletown police at 2:45 a.m. that a vehicle sideswiped his parked car on Prout Hill Road and then drove off. A Middletown police officer came to the scene and took an accident report, and two officers unsuccessfully canvassed the area in search of a suspect vehicle, according to court records.
Passanisi confided in a fellow officer the next day that he had created an accident scene by placing pieces of debris from his damaged car on a lawn, according to court records.
The officer, who told his supervisor about the conversation on Oct. 14 and made a written statement the next day, wrote in the statement that though he never spoke of the incident with Passanisi again after the initial phone call, he heard Passanisi retell the story of his parked car getting hit and saw him driving a new truck, according to court records.
Also according to court records, the officer said he eventually came forward because he did not want to risk losing his job for someone else’s mistake.
According to court records, there was no evidence of paint transfer, usually present on a car that has been sideswiped, on Passanisi’s Volkswagen.
Passanisi has been a member of the Middletown Police Department since February 2008, and is currently on paid administrative leave pending the results of an internal affairs investigation.
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