Probation Officer Gerald Silva Convicted of Purchasing Child Porn

A Rhode Island state probation officer assigned to the sex offender unit was convicted on Monday of being a sex offender, U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha announced on Tuesday.

Gerald Silva, 59, of Coventry, was arrested back in 2012 in connection with a massive investigation into Toronto-based production company Azov Films. The investigation, known as Operation Spade and led by members of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Toronto Police Service, revealed that Silva was one of more than 10,000 customers who had purchased online videos from Azov Films.

At least 348 of the company’s customers – including Silva – were charged with purchasing child pornography from the website, according to Toronto Police.

Silva was convicted of completing 22 orders through Azov Film’s website, spending a total of $1,589 on 75 different videos, each of which depicted child pornography. The videos, police say, were shipped to Silva’s Coventry residence while he was employed as a probation officer. “Dozens of videos” were seized from Silva’s home during an authorized police search in 2012.

During his trial, Silva claimed he had ordered and collected the videos as part of an ongoing professional project, but a jury returned a guilty verdict after less than an hour of deliberations.

Silva was charged and convicted on six counts of receiving child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. Each count of receiving child pornography is punishable by a minimum of 5 years in federal prison and up to lifetime supervised release. Possession of child pornography is punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison.
Silva is scheduled to be sentenced on May 16.

Another Rhode Islander, 60-year-old Warwick resident Stephen Hickey, was also charged in connection with Operation Spade. Hickey, a longtime high school teacher, pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography in August 2013. He was sentenced to 18 months in a halfway house.

Operation Spade was a three-year global investigation that led to the rescue of 386 children and 348 arrests, according to the Toronto Police website. Arrested suspects included six law enforcement officials, nine religious leaders, 40 school teachers, three foster parents, 32 children volunteers and nine health professionals.

Azov Films was shut down in 2011, and its owner – Brian Way – was arrested.

Three Rhode Island Officers Arrested in Cocaine Dealing Operation

Three Providence police officers, including a narcotics detective and a school resource officer, were arrested Thursday on charges that they helped with a cocaine-dealing operation.

Detective Joseph Colanduono, Patrolman Robert Hamlin and Sergeant Steven Gonsalves were arrested at police headquarters and have been suspended without pay, said Providence Police Chief Dean Esserman, who called it a "hard day" for his department. The officers either used the cocaine or helped arrange the drug deals, police said.

"These actions that we saw are an offensive display of a violation of trust that we cannot and will not tolerate," Attorney General Patrick Lynch said.

The chief of the State Law Enforcement Division met Thursday with the leaders of the tiny coastal town of Atlantic Beach to discuss a possible new partnership to stave off drug crime there during the coming summer months.

"Our plan is to be much more aggressive around the state, particularly when it comes to narcotics and violent-crime issues," said SLED Director Reggie Lloyd.

Lloyd traveled to Atlantic Beach for the informal meeting with the town's new attorney, Steve Benjamin of Columbia, a friend of his since law school. Sitting in the town's community center, Lloyd listened as Councilman Donnell Thompson, Police Chief Randy Rizzo and Town Manager Kenneth McIver described how Atlantic Beach's drug trade has mostly subsided.

Authorities arrested Guatemala's anti-drug czar and national police chief Tuesday in a case involving stolen cocaine and slain police, acting just two days before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives to discuss the drug war.

The detentions were the latest embarrassment for Guatemala's embattled anti-narcotics effort and came amid U.S. complaints that corruption is impeding the battle to stop the flow of drugs north through Central America.

Attorney General Amilcar Velasquez said Police Chief Baltazar Gomez, anti-drug czar Nelly Bonilla and police officer Fernando Carrillo were detained after an investigation by Guatemalan authorities and the U.N.-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity.

The arrests of Guatemala's drug czar and national police chief underscore how deeply the world's multibillion-dollar drug industry can corrupt small countries with weak institutions - a trend the Obama administration warned Wednesday threatens global security.

As U.S.-funded wars pressure cartels in Mexico and Colombia, drug gangs are increasingly infiltrating vulnerable countries, particularly in Latin America and Africa. Drug profits total about $394 billion a year, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime - dwarfing the gross domestic products of many nations and making them easy prey for cartels.

"Violent traffickers are relocating to take advantage of these permissive environments and importing their own brand of justice," the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's intelligence chief Anthony Placido said Wednesday in testimony before a U.S. House subcommittee.

The State Law Enforcement Division is reviewing information city leaders provided Thursday regarding allegations that William Bailey covered up a criminal domestic violence case, according to SLED spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons.

Bailey, the city’s public safety director, is on administrative leave for lying about an unrelated handgun theft.

City Manager John Smithson told The Sun News on Thursday that SLED is investigating the allegations.

The arrests followed a more than four-month investigation that began with information from a state police detective and involved wiretaps and intercepted phone calls. Police seized several hundred grams of cocaine and firearms as part of the probe.

Three other men were arrested, including Hamlin's brother, Albert, who police describe as a major cocaine dealer and the primary target of their investigation. Police say Robert Hamlin, a school resource officer at a Providence high school, helped his brother avoid getting caught by giving names of narcotics detectives and providing descriptions of their police cars, said State Police Capt. David Neill.

The Providence Journal reported on its Web site that Gonsalves is a former driver for Providence Mayor David Cicilline and the husband of the mayor's executive assistant, Xiomara Gonsalves. The Journal said the mayor described his assistant as "incredibly heartbroken."

Cicilline's spokeswoman, Karen Southern, did not return calls seeking comment Thursday night.

Also arrested was Khalid Mason, who in 2007 faced drug dealing charges that were dismissed by a federal judge after a Providence police sergeant testified at a pretrial hearing that he didn't have any notes or reports from his investigation. That case is not connected to the current arrests, police said.

Mason supplied drugs to Albert Hamlin, who would purchase one kilogram of cocaine at a time for about $35,000 and break down the drugs into smaller quantities, which he would then sell, police said.

Gonsalves, 47, is charged with soliciting another to commit a crime. Robert Hamlin, 33, is charged with conspiracy to possess cocaine, and Colanduono, 44, is charged with conspiracy to deal cocaine and compounding and concealing a felony.

A phone message left with the police union was not immediately returned, and it was not immediately clear if the officers had lawyers.

State Police Col. Brendan Doherty told The Associated Press that at least some calls were made when the officers were on duty, though police say there's no evidence that any drug dealing took place at a school.

Doherty said the alleged drug dealing was "the act of a few rogue officers - rogue officers who compromised the trust of the citizens of city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island."

Cicilline called the arrests "gravely disappointing" and said the officers deserve to be prosecuted aggressively.

The investigation is continuing.

Gonsalves was released on personal recognizance by a bail commissioner Thursday evening and is due in court March 18. The other five defendants, including the two officers, are being held without bail overnight and will be arraigned Friday in Providence District Court.

Detective Robert DeCarlo Indicted for Beating Handcuffed Man with Flashlight

A Providence police officer was indicted yesterday on charges that he beat a handcuffed man with a flashlight, prosecutors said.

A Providence County grand jury charged Detective Robert DeCarlo with assault with a dangerous weapon and misdemeanor simple assault in the Oct. 20 arrest of Luis Mendonca, 21, who was taken into custody following a chase.

Surveillance video in a Providence parking lot shows police surrounding an apparently handcuffed Mendonca as one officer kicks and strikes him. A lawyer for Mendonca has said his client was in a coma for two days and needed staples to close a gash on his head. Mendonca is in the custody of federal immigration authorities.

“Today’s indictment is a reminder that everybody is the same in the eyes of the law,’’ Attorney General Patrick Lynch said in a statement. Providence Mayor David Cicilline said the alleged actions were unacceptable and would not be tolerated.

DeCarlo, 45, is to be arraigned tomorrow in Providence Superior Court.

DeCarlo’s attorney, Peter DiBiase, said yesterday he had not seen the indictment. But he said the surveillance footage does not show the full story and pointed out that DeCarlo was responding to a dangerous situation at night involving a suspected robber who allegedly assaulted a police officer.

“What you’ve seen in that video does not tell you what was happening for the 20 minutes this suspect was running through the city of Providence and assaulting people and running away from police,’’ DiBiase said. He said the suspect refused police commands to stop fighting and resisting. “None of that is seen on the video,’’ DiBiase said.

Police say Mendonca was stopped by campus police for the Rhode Island School of Design but struck one of the officers and ran away. A group of Providence police officers tracked him down in a parking lot, where his arrest was recorded by a nearby surveillance camera.

DeCarlo is the third Rhode Island officer since December to be charged with beating a suspect.

A Woonsocket police officer, John H. Douglas, is accused of federal civil rights abuses in the alleged assault of a teenager, and Lincoln police officer Edward Krawetz is facing state charges that he kicked a handcuffed woman in the head outside the Twin River slot parlor. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

Assault with a dangerous weapon carries a maximum 20-year sentence, while misdemeanor assault is punishable by up to a year in prison.

Probation Officer Michael Ayer Charged with Delivering Heroin

A Stoughton man who works as a probation officer for juveniles in Rhode Island was arrested Tuesday afternoon after police say he sold heroin to an undercover officer, the Providence Journal is reporting.

Michael Ayer, 49, of 46 Frank Road, faces two counts of delivering heroin to a police officer. He was scheduled to be arraigned in Kent County District Court on Wednesday.

The Providence Journal is reporting that Ayer was arrested around 2 p.m. Tuesday. Rhode Island police say he was driving a state-registered vehicle and using his state cell phone to sell drugs.

The State Police High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force began the undercover operation last month, acting on a tip from an informant.

Ayers has been a probation officer with the state Department of Children, Youth and Families for 14 years, the newspaper reported. Police said there is no indication that Ayers sold drugs to anyone he was supervising.

Officer Edward Krawetz in Court for Kicking Woman

A suspended Lincoln police officer accused of kicking a woman in the face while she was handcuffed, pleaded not guilty Wednesday morning in Providence County Superior Court.

Officer Edward Krawetz, 40, of 429 River Rd., Lincoln, was arraigned on a felony charge of assault with a dangerous weapon — his foot.

Judge Kristin Rodgers released him pending a pretrial hearing April 6.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office, Michael J. Healey, said last month that Donna Levesque, 45, a Massachusetts resident, was sitting on a curb with her hands cuffed behind her back at the Twin River slot parlor when Krawetz allegedly kicked her on May 31.

Krawetz and Officer Russell Enos were working in uniform and off-duty on a security detail at Twin River when Levesque began acting in a disorderly manner and was escorted outside by the two officers, according to Healey. The officers took Levesque into custody on a disorderly conduct charge in a bar at the slot parlor, he said.

Healey said Levesque has no memory of the incident and did not seek treatment for any injury. He said she later pleaded no contest to the disorderly conduct charge.

Rodgers ordered Krawetz not to have any contact with Levesque. He remains suspended from the force without pay.

Enos was not accused of any wrongdoing.

State police became involved on July 21 after the Lincoln police chief asked them to investigate the alleged assault, state police Capt. David Neill said Wednesday. Lincoln Police Lt. Chris Tuffy worked with state police detectives, Neill said.

The evidence against Krawetz includes a videotape obtained from Twin River security, Neill said. He said the state police will not release the videotape because it is evidence in the ongoing case.

“The videotape corroborates the fact that the officer did strike the female with his foot,” Neill said. “The video corroborates the alleged assault.”

It was not known who brought the alleged assault to the attention of the Lincoln police.

Neill said he could not comment on when or why the Lincoln police began investigating the incident, but he believes that investigation began shortly after the incident.

Lincoln Police Chief Brian Sullivan said that the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights prevents him from talking about the case. He said the department is referring all questions to Providence lawyer Vincent Ragosta Jr. who is representing the Lincoln police. Ragosta also cited the Bill of Rights and would not comment on the case.

Six years ago, the town settled out of court on a claim filed by a teenager that Krawetz had struck him and damaged his teeth during an arrest. The teenager was later cleared of charges of assault and resisting arrest. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed.

Officer Luic Mendonca Accused of Beating Suspect

The FBI is investigating Providence police after an officer was caught on videotape beating a restrained suspect, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said Thursday.

A separate probe by the attorney general into the Oct. 20 arrest of Luis Mendonca will continue as the FBI conducts its own investigation, attorney general spokesman Michael Healey told The Associated Press.

The FBI would not confirm or deny an investigation, and Providence police did not immediately comment. The FBI investigation was first reported by WPRI-TV.

Surveillance video from the arrest in a parking lot shows police surrounding an apparently handcuffed Mendonca as one officer kicks and strikes him.

A lawyer for the 20-year-old Mendonca has said his client was so badly hurt that he was in a coma for two days and needed staples to close a gash in his head.

Cliff Montiero, head of the Providence branch of the NAACP, said he asked the FBI on Monday to investigate. He also spoke with Mendonca’s family, and said they filed a complaint Monday with the FBI. Montiero said he visited Mendonca on Wednesday at the state prison, where he is being held as a probation violator.

“He was angry and felt he hadn’t done anything wrong,” Montiero said. “He didn’t understand why they had to beat him so badly.”

Police have previously said that Mendonca was stopped by campus police for the Rhode Island School of Design, then told he could go but struck one of the officers and ran away as they waited for Providence police to arrive. A group of officers tracked him down in a parking lot, where his arrest was videotaped by a nearby surveillance camera.

A spokeswoman for RISD did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the FBI investigation.

Two unidentified Providence officers were placed on administrative duty earlier this month.

Montiero, a former Providence police officer and deputy sheriff, said the case had been “terribly handled,” and that he believed if there was no videotape the officers would not have been disciplined at all.

“If a Providence police officer, or several of them, go to jail over this, it’s going to send a lesson to all police officers,” he said. “It’s your job to detain them, not to punish them.”

Officer Edward Krawetz Charged with Assaulting Woman

A Rhode Island police officer has been charged with assaulting a woman after she was taken out of a slot parlor for being disorderly, authorities said Friday.

Officer Edward Krawetz has been suspended without pay and faces administrative charges as well, Lincoln police Capt. Raymond Bousquet said.

A person with knowledge of the May 31 incident tells The Associated Press a videotape shows Krawetz kicking the handcuffed woman in the head as the two waited outside for a patrol car to arrive. The person is not authorized to publicly discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A telephone listing for Krawetz could not immediately be found and it was not immediately known if he has an attorney. Krawetz has been with the department for 12 1/2 years, Bousquet said.

The state attorney general's office is handling the criminal case and did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

A spokeswoman for Twin River in Lincoln, just north of Providence, also did not immediately comment.

Krawetz, who was in uniform and working at the slots parlor, is charged with felony assault. He will be arraigned Jan. 6, said Capt. David Neill, a state police spokesman.

He is the second Rhode Island officer to be charged in an alleged beating in the past two weeks. A Woonsocket officer was indicted last week on federal civil rights charges accusing him of beating a 16-year-old boy and urging fellow officers to lie about it to the FBI.

The FBI is also investigating a separate beating of a suspect by Providence police officers

Officer John Douglas Accused of Brutally Beating Teen

A Rhode Island police officer was arrested Thursday, accused of brutally beating a teenage boy and then encouraging fellow officers to lie about it to the FBI.

Woonsocket police Officer John H. Douglas pleaded not guilty in federal court to charges of violating a person’s civil rights and obstruction of justice. He was released on $10,000 unsecured bond.

He did not speak during his brief arraignment. But his lawyer defended him afterward, saying he was “a model policeman.“

In September, the FBI launched an investigation after the 16-year-old boy appeared in state juvenile court severely injured and said several police officers beat him up.

Chief Family Court Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah said at the time that the boy had a boot mark on his back and that one of his eyes was swollen shut. The boy’s lawyer, Robert Laren, said the boy suffered a broken eye socket, was shot by a stun gun and had been badly beaten in the police station.

“It shouldn’t have happened. I’m upset that it happened,“ Jeremiah told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The indictment, handed down Wednesday, said Douglas punched and struck a 16-year-old juvenile Sept. 15. It did not go into other detail, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office would not say if other officers would be indicted. The two counts together carry a maximum 30-year sentence.

The boy has not been identified because he is a juvenile.

Cliff Montiero, the Providence NAACP president who had called for the FBI investigation, said he was pleased with the charges and hoped other officers who may have been involved would be held accountable.

“If one person was charged, it’s better than what we’ve gotten historically” in other cases of alleged police abuse, Montiero said. “I’m happy that we have one, this is unusual - that a police officer is being charged by doing something that’s disrespectful to the uniform that he wears.“

Douglas, 34, of Blackstone, Mass., has been with the Woonsocket police department for five years and spent four years in the Marine Corps before being honorably discharged, his lawyer Peter DiBiase said.

“Excellent family man, excellent husband. I think that speaks for his version of facts,“ DiBiase told NBC 10.

Douglas remains on unpaid administrative leave, where he was placed after the allegations were made, said Woonsocket police spokesman Detective Lt. Eugene Jalette.

Jalette previously said the boy was acting suspiciously when the police stopped him. An officer recognized the boy as having escaped from a probation program. When officers tried to arrest him, the teenager threw one of them to the ground, splitting the officer’s lip, Jalette said in September.

He said there was a foot chase and a struggle, then the boy was taken to a hospital for injuries that officers described as minor. Afterward, the boy was taken to the police station and then turned over to the custody of the state agency that runs the probation program.

Montiero and Laren said the boy told them he was beaten by several officers during the arrest and then twice more at the police station.

The boy is black and Douglas is white. Montiero, a former Providence police officer, said he did not know if race played a role in the alleged beating, but said blacks historically have not been treated well by police in the state.

Officer John Douglas Accused of Beating 16-year-old

A Rhode Island police officer, accused of beating a 16-year-old boy, then encouraging fellow officers to lie about it to the FBI, maintains his innocence.

Woonsocket Officer John H. Douglas pleaded not guilty Thursday in Providence to charges of violating a person's civil rights and obstruction of justice.

The charges stem from an FBI investigation launched in September after the 16-year-old boy appeared in a juvenile court severely injured and said several police officers beat him up. The judge in that case said one of the teenager's eyes was swollen shut.

Woonsocket police say the boy was wanted for escape from a probation program and he suffered minor injuries during a struggle with arresting officers.

Officers Caught on Tape Beating Man

A surveillance videotape showing an unarmed and apparently handcuffed man kicked and then beaten over the head several times with a flashlight by the police was made public by his lawyer on Friday.

The video, from the night of Oct. 20, was released on the day that the man, Luis Mendonca, 20, of Pawtucket, was sentenced in District Court, Providence, for assaulting two Rhode Island School of Design police officers in connection with that incident.

The grainy, black-and-white video shows a group of police officers struggling with Mendonca in a parking lot off Benefit Street on the city’s East Side while he is lying on the ground near a parked car.

It shows the officers dragging Mendonca from under the car and into the center of the parking lot, after he has apparently been restrained. The video then shows another police officer entering the fray, kicking Mendonca and following up with a number of blows to the victim’s head with what his lawyer says is a flashlight.

The video, which has no sound, ends with a visibly limp Mendonca being dragged by police officers up a flight of stairs leading to Benefit Street.

Mendonca’s attorney, Alberto Aponte Cardona, of Central Falls, says that following the beating, his client was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital, required 12 staples to close a gash in the back of his head and was in a coma for nearly three days.

Cardona says that the officer shown repeatedly striking Mendonca is Detective Robert R. DeCarlo, a 15-year veteran who has received at least two awards for his police work, according to Journal archives.

“It is obvious from this video that that officer needs to go. He’s not fit to wear the badge. Officers need to be prosecuted,” he said.

Police Chief Dean Esserman says the department’s Internal Affairs Division has been investigating the incident, but he would not confirm whether DeCarlo was involved. The officer that is the focus of the investigation currently remains on duty, he said.

Esserman has also asked the attorney general’s office to open an investigation. Michael J. Healey, a spokesman for the office, says an investigation is ongoing.

“The department takes the matter very seriously,” Esserman said. “We are looking into everything … One officer is under investigation, but the entire incident is being looked at as well.”

During the court hearing on Friday, Cardona tried to submit the surveillance video as evidence that Mendonca had not resisted arrest, as the police alleged. Mendonca had been charged by Providence police with two counts of simple assault and one count of resisting arrest.

But District Court Judge Elaine T. Bucci said that the video was inadmissible since the attorney general’s office had withdrawn the charge of resisting arrest.

“They dropped the resisting arrest charge so that this video does not come out,” said Cardona.

Cardona released the video to the media on Friday after having made it available to Channel 12 at least a day earlier. The videotape came from a surveillance camera on an apartment building at 306 Benefit St., and was focused on the parking lot where the beating took place.

Esserman says that the department’s internal affairs division obtained the video from the building’s owner and launched an investigation into the incident soon after it happened. Investigators questioned the witnesses and officers at the scene and also contacted Mendonca, who subsequently filed a formal complaint with the internal affairs division.

Cardona received a copy of the video as part of the court’s discovery process.

Judge Bucci found Mendonca guilty of violating the terms of his probation on previous charges and sentenced him to 90 days in the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston.

Upon completion of his prison term, Mendonca must also serve one year of probation and a one-year suspended sentence on each of the two charges of simple assault. Cardona says his client will appeal the sentence in Superior Court.

Mendonca still suffers blurred vision, headaches and vomiting from his injuries and needs to receive the proper medical treatment while he serves out his prison term, said Cardona.

“My client is a good kid. He worked for the City of Central Falls. He volunteers with youths,” says Cardona, an assistant city solicitor in Central Falls. “He’s had his transgressions, but none violent.”

Friday’s court proceedings shed some light into the events that precipitated Mendonca’s beating.

At about 7:20 p.m. on Oct. 20, Mendonca had been stopped by RISD police near Hemenway’s Restaurant on South Main Street, following a report of an attempted trespass at the RISD dorm at 15 Westminster St.

RISD officer Justin Wall testified that he had stopped Mendonca and was searching him when Mendonca “attempted to pull away,” striking the officer in the ribs with his elbow. Wall then put Mendonca in restraints.

When RISD Sgt. William LaPierre arrived, Mendonca identified himself as “Cory Garabedien,” but could not spell the name or produce any identification.

Still, the officers uncuffed Mendonca and said he was “free to go,” according to both officer’s testimony. But with Providence police on their way, the RISD officers say that Mendonca offered to show an ID.

Instead, LaPierre says Mendonca made a “lunging move,” struck the officer in the chest, and pushed LaPierre’s arm out of the way as he fled down South Main Street. Mendonca ran up a long flight of stairs behind the state attorney general’s office that led to the rear of an apartment complex on Benefit Street.

While the officer’s testimony on Friday ended there, the video released by Mendonca’s attorney shows what happened next.

After trying to hide under parked cars, the video shows that at about 7:41 p.m., Mendonca was seized by a group of at least eight police officers — mostly Providence police, but also one RISD officer –– and was beaten while “clearly” restrained, says Cardona.

“We want all of those police officers held accountable,” said Cardona. “Not one of those officers comes to this poor guy’s aid. They knew that this guy was defenseless.”
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Video:
http://www.jacksonnjonline.com/2009/12/04/rhode-island-police-officer-caught-on-camera-kicking-suspect/

Officer Carmine Giarrusso Arrested for False Report

The police have charged a former Cranston police officer with falsely reporting a crime after he complained that an acquaintance struck him with a truck at the intersection of Vine Street and George Waterman Road.

The police said they decided to arrest Carmine Giarrusso, 47, of 38 Lyman Ave., after concluding that he had not been hit by a truck driven by Richard D’Abate as alleged, but intentionally stepped in front of D’Abate’s stopped truck.

D’Abate, 44, of 9 Acorn St., told the police that Giarrusso had been feuding with him for years, going back to when Giarrusso had an affair with D’Abate’s then-wife. He said that when Giarrusso saw the truck at the intersection around 8:30 a.m. Sunday, he intentionally stepped in front of the stopped vehicle and complained that D’Abate had hit him.

An argument ensued, D’Abate said, and when Giarrusso realized that D’Abate was taking pictures, Giarrusso went back to the truck and slapped his hands on the hood. When the arrived, Giarrusso repeatedly urged them to check the hood for fingerprints, saying it would prove that he was hit and that he had to place his hands on the hood to brace himself from the impact. Giarrusso also told police that in addition to causing him pain in his shoulder, hip and knee, D’Abate’s vehicle also struck Giarrusso’s girlfriend, Lorna Casali, who was walking with him, and had also hit her dog.

The police said Giarrusso gestured frequently during their interview and did not act like someone who had just been hit by a truck. In addition, the police said the dusty truck did not show any scuff marks that indicated it had hit something. They said D’Abate’s version was supported by a photo he had taken showing Giarrusso slapping his hands on the truck, and by a statement from another witness. After Giarrusso signed a formal complaint at the police station, he was arrested on charges of making a false report of a crime. He was released later on $1,000 personal recognizance.

Trooper Edward Stenovitch Arrested for Punching Sgt

A Rhode Island state trooper has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a Providence police sergeant at a fundraiser honoring a deceased policeman.

Edward Stenovitch was arrested Monday after allegedly punching Sgt. Bernard Gannon in the head early Saturday morning at a bar at the Providence police union hall. He was released on his own recognizance.

Providence Police Deputy Chief Paul Kennedy said the attack was “unprovoked.“

Gannon was treated for a broken nose.

State Police Maj. Elwood M. Johnson Jr. said Stenovitch has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an internal investigation.

Hundreds of officers were gathered at the union hall to raise money for the wife of Providence police officer Peter Rocchio, who died in June in an off-duty car crash.

Former Officer Joseph Mignano Charged with Robbing Man

A former Providence police officer is charged with robbing a man.

Police say Joseph Mignano, of Fall River, Mass., was impersonating a police officer when he robbed a man in the Silver Lake section of the city on July 18.

The 32-year-old Mignano was arraigned Tuesday on charges of second-degree robbery and impersonating an officer. He was held on bail as a probation violator.

Police Captain James Desmarais tells The Providence Journal that the police are investigating similar incidents in which people claimed that they were robbed by a man who identified himself as a police officer and proceeded to search them and steal their money.

It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.

Retired Detective Antonio Buonanno Accused of Threatening His Daughter with Knife

A retired Cranston police detective is accused of threatening his 27-year-old daughter with a butcher knife.

Antonio Buonanno pleaded not guilty Thursday in District Court to a misdemeanor charge of domestic disorderly conduct.

A Cranston police report said Buonanno was having an argument with his daughter, Christine, at their home in Cranston and that Buonanno “pulled out a butcher’s knife” and threatened the woman.

The report said that a few minutes later, “Buonanno put on his shoulder gun holster and taunted Christine” in a hallway.

Police said Buonanno had a pistol tucked into the back of his pants.

Christine Buonnano told NBC 10 that her father didn’t threaten her and that “it’s a resolved issue between me and the family.“

Buonanno can be prosecuted without his daughter’s cooperation.

Deborah DeBare, the executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she is outraged by the use of a misdemeanor charge in cases like this.

“Unfortunately, it’s very common in domestic violence cases for first charges to result in a filing, which doesn’t even show up as a conviction on someone’s record,“ DeBare said.

DeBare said the coalition has been trying for several years to compel the General Assembly to include the domestic disorderly conduct charge penalties included in the stiffer mandatory penalities for domestic violence charges.

But sources tell NBC 10 that defense attorneys, the legislature and the American Civil Liberities Union oppose the legislation.
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http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_news/local_wpri_warwick_retired_cranston_sergeant_anthony_buonanno_charged_20090507_nek