The presiding hearing officer in the disciplinary trial of New Hyde Park Fire Commissioner Michael Dolan Sr. has recommended that he be removed as a volunteer firefighter for allegedly taking 65 smoke detectors last June from the New Hyde Park Fire Department
“Michael Dolan Sr.’s violation of the public trust can only undermine the public’s confidence and must be treated accordingly,” said Walter Wagner, a lawyer who served as hearing officer at the trial.
The New Hyde Park Board of Commissioners will make its decision on what action to take against the elder Dolan in a closed session next Tuesday night, according to Richard Stein, chairman of the board of fire commissioners.
If they follow Wagner’s recommendation and dismiss Dolan as a volunteer, he will still remain a fire district commissioner.
“It’s not finalized,” Dolan said in response to Wagner’s recommendation.
“Expulsion is really the nuclear option. And it’s totally disproportionate to the offense,” said attorney Michael Cornacchia, who represented the Dolans at the disciplinary hearing. “He was not found guilt of larceny. And he wasn’t found guilty of abuse of his office.”
Cornacchia repeated his comment after the disciplinary hearing, calling it “A hit on a commissioner.”
Cornacchia said he would appeal the expulsion if the fire commissioners dismissed the elder Dolan from the fire department.
In his decision, Wagner recommended that Dolan’s son, Michael Dolan Jr., be reinstated.
The board of New Hyde Park fire commissioners complied on Tuesday last week with commissioners John DiVello, Michael Bonura and John Waldron voting, Stein said.
The elder Dolan and Stein, who filed the criminal charges in the case and testified at the trial, did not vote.
“During the court trial, he denied knowing anything. He denied everything,” Stein said of the Michael Dolan Jr. “There was no proof that he had any knowledge of it.”
In a copy of his report and recommendation submitted to the fire commissioners on Feb. 28 obtained by Blank Slate Media, Wagner said he accepted Michael Dolan Jr.’s testimony “that he knew nothing of any controversies concerning those smoke detectors and, in fact, never even heard of the smoke detectors program. His testimony was that he was simply doing a favor that his father asked of him.”
Efforts to reach Michael Dolar Jr. were unavailing.
In the case if the elder Dolan, Wagner wrote that Dolan violated department rules of conduct and procedure when he removed property from the fire department without authorization.
Wagner cited the elder Dolan’s testimony in the Jan. 8 trial when he said he had told the other fire commissioners in a June 19, 2012 meeting that he had taken smoke detectors from New Hyde Park Fire Department headquarters.
In recounting Dolan’s account under cross-examination by attorney Thomas Stock during the trial, Wagner said Dolan acknowledged the smoke detectors belonged to the fire district, that only the fire board could decide what to do with district property and that after saying he would return the smoke detectors, he said he took them with his son and returned them to the Nassau County Firefighters Museum.
Wagner wrote that Dolan’s actions constituted “misconduct” and that his actions were “aggravated” by the “egregious conduct” of taking the smoke detectors two days after being told by the fire commissioners and fire district counsel that he was in the wrong.
Wagner said Dolan’s “failure to account for what he did with the smoke detectors is further misconduct or, at the very least, incompetence.”
Wagner said he considered fire museum official John Murray’s testimony that Dolan had returned 36 smoke detectors to the museum “credible,” but said there was no evidence that the elder Dolan had “realized any personal gain” by taking the 65 smoke detectors from fire department headquarters.
Dolan testified before he returned the detectors to the firefighter’s museum, he distributed 24 detectors to members of the Sons of Italy Cellini Lodge in New Hyde Park.
Fire district attorney Joseph Frank, who had recused himself for the disciplinary hearing, declined to comment on the elder Dolan’s case
Stein testified that he reported a burglary in the fire department last June to the Nassau County Police Department 3rd Precinct and signed a complaint against the Dolans prepared by the police.
The sequence of events in the case started when Dolan visited Murray at the firefighters museum in May or June, according to Murray, and was given 150 Kidde smoke detectors.
“Because it was Mike Dolan, I gave them to him to put in seniors’ hands,” said Murray, who testified that he had known Dolan for the past 30 to 35 years.
Murray said the smoke detectors were worth $10 apiece, but a subsequent police report on the alleged theft said 65 detectors were reported stolen at a value of $30 apiece for a total of $3,250.
In his opening remarks at the trial, Cornacchia said that by attaching a higher value on the detectors the fire commissioner had made the alleged theft a felony rather than a misdemeanor, and a conviction would have forced Dolan to resign his position as fire commissioner.
Dolan said he obtained the detectors after consulting with Stein for an ongoing department program to provide smoke detectors to senior citizens.
Stein said after Dolan brought the 100 smoke detectors to department headquarters, Stein distributed 15 of the Kidde smoke detectors to residents. He said he also took two of them for demonstration purposes and gave two to fire department secretaries Marie Cochran and Patty Guy. He said Cochran and Guy told him Dolan and his son subsequently removed 81 smoke detectors removed from the headquarters.
At the June 19, Stein said Dolan denied stealing the detectors, but said he had taken them.
Stein said Dolan told him he would return the smoke detectors, which he did the following day.
One of the other commissioners subsequently told him the Kidde smoke detectors had been taken again, Stein said.
Videotape from surveillance cameras showed the Dolans removing bags of smoke detectors on June 21, Stein said.
In a private conversation after the police became involved, Stein testified Dolan asked him “How do we make this all go away?”
Dolan’s testified that he removed the smoke detectors from the commissioners room on June 14 was that he said half of them had been taken and he put them in his garage for safe keeping. Stein said he asked Dolan if he knew where the smoke detectors were, and Dolan returned them.
But Dolan said after subsequently returning the smoke detectors to the fire department, he discovered more detectors had been taken, and then said he enlisted his son’s assistance to return them to the firefighter’s museum.
