State workers reach plea agreement over “man cave”
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- November
- 12
Two New York employees who were allegedly selling and using drugs, watching television and sleeping in a concealed “man cave” on state property instead of working pleaded guilty today to defrauding the government, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced.
Gary A. Pivoda, 48, of Glennon Road in Latham, an Albany suburb, and Louis Marciano, 50, of Willow Street in Rensselaer used a storage area in the East Parking Garage in Albany to set up the space. The two, who were night maintenance employees, used it between April 17 and July 14, 2009, when the New York Inspector General’s Office and state police raided it.
“These state employees shirked their duties to the state while partying on the public dollar. With these guilty pleas, their party is officially over,” Cuomo said in a statement. “This office will continue to fight corruption and abuse at the taxpayers’ expense in all of its forms.”
Pivoda pleaded guilty to the felonies of defrauding the government and third-degree grand larceny. He will serve a year in jail, pay $2.076.12 in restitution for hours not worked and resign from his state job. The plea deal includes a lifetime ban from government employment.
Marciano, who pleaded guilty to defrauding the government, will receive five years of probation. He will have to do 250 hours of community service, pay $1,503.97 in restitution for hours not worked and resign from his state job. He is banned from government employment.
“The flagrant abuses committed by these state employees were an affront to all taxpayers. Now they are paying the price, said state Inspector General Joseph Fisch, who referred the case to Cuomo’s office. “I applaud Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for securing a just end to this case.”
Man Cave Video from Gannett Albany on Vimeo.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 5:41 pm by Cara Matthews.
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Wow, they caught a couple low paid maintenance workers wasting some work time. Someone put up the gallows!
Granted they should have been fired. They were apparently smoking something illegal there. They should have been quietly fired, and that’s it.
These poor guys, who probably made very little money, just happened to get caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, when people are looking for the government to cut costs. What a show! How much did the AG’s office spend prosecuting these guys, and how much did that cost?
Did Cuomo and the other high-paid people justify their salaries with this?
The heads that need to roll are those that have no perspective.
They certainly deserved to be fired; however, Cuomo et al, instead of quietly investigating and prosecuting hundreds of similar taxpayer rip-offs, (including among the legislature,) choose a press conference to promote one insignificant event like they just caught Jack the Ripper.