PRIGNANO

PROVIDENCE — “What I did was inappropriate. I’m ashamed of it.”

Those words from former Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr., who did a telephone interview on a radio talk show one day last April, have become evidence in city officials’ effort to strip Prignano of his pension.

Prignano has admitted in sworn testimony in federal court and in interviews with the FBI that he helped some subordinates cheat on their promotional examinations during his six years as chief.

Other former police officers, according to disputed evidence presented during a hearing on the disposition of the pension, alleged to the FBI that Prignano also manipulated departmental committees that had a role in promotions.

A municipal ordinance requires an employee to give “honorable service” in order to receive a pension. The city Retirement Board will consider Prignano’s admissions and other evidence in enforcing the ordinance.

An audio recording of Prignano’s interview with talk-show host Dan Yorke about the police cheating scandal, which was broadcast on WPRO (630-AM) radio on April 30, was introduced yesterday during the last day of the pension hearing conducted by Vincent F. Ragosta Jr., a lawyer hired by the Retirement Board.

After having gathered evidence of Prignano’s admitted and alleged misdeeds while chief, and having given Prignano a forum in which to challenge the potential action against his pension, Ragosta will make a report to the board. The board then will decide whether to reduce or revoke Prignano’s $64,620-a-year pension or do nothing.

The 6-minute and 24-second discussion between Prignano and Yorke included the following quotation of Prignano, as recited by Ragosta from a transcript of the recording: “What I did was inappropriate. I’m ashamed of it. … I [was)] ashamed the day I did it. … I’ve been regretting it for years. …” The entire conversation, contained on a digital audio disk, was entered into the official record of the hearing.

Ragosta yesterday concluded the three-part hearing, in his downtown law office. He said he will complete his report, including the evidentiary record and recommendations about what to do with the pension, next month.

Neither Prignano nor his lawyer, Stephen R. Famiglietti, attended yesterday. Famiglietti stalked out of part two of the hearing in June, denouncing the procedure as highly unfair and, in some respects, illegal, and saying that he would no longer participate.

“It’s a dog and pony show,” he said later.

Famiglietti could not be reached yesterday for comment about the broadcast radio conversation.

Prignano said in a TV interview, also on April 30, that the hearing is “a kangaroo court” and “there’s probably nothing I can do” to persuade the board not to tamper with his pension.

Prignano, 65, who was police chief under former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., retired under pressure on Jan. 31, 2001, wrapping up a 34-year career in which Famiglietti has said Prignano served proudly. When he retired, he cashed out his contributions to the municipal retirement system, including accrued interest, and took a reduced pension as a result.

In order to gather evidence for the case against Prignano’s pension, another board lawyer, Jennifer S. Sternick, worked with Ragosta to interview witnesses and to review tens of thousands of pages of documents made available by the Police Department and U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente.

Corrente turned over documents from the Operation Plunder Dome investigation of city government corruption, including FBI agents’ summaries of witness statements, called “302s.” Prignano, for example, was interviewed multiple times by agents as part of Plunder Dome, and he testified in the federal criminal trial of Cianci.

Ragosta said Corrente gave “complete cooperation” to a Police Department investigation of the cheating scandal, including providing copies of the 302s. However, Sternick and Ragosta were not allowed to interview FBI agents. A U.S. Justice Department regulation prohibits FBI agents from testifying or giving evidence outside a federal court proceeding on a matter that they have criminally investigated.

The cheating allegations were the subject of three federal and state grand jury investigations, but no police officers were indicted.

Cianci was convicted of running City Hall as a racket, served time in prison, and since Prignano’s on-air conversation with Yorke, has become a talk-show host on Yorke’s station.

The Police Department, under the helm of Chief Dean M. Esserman, is pressing for revocation of the pension. So, too, is Mayor David N. Cicilline, who pledged, in Ragosta’s words, “to hold those corrupt actors accountable” who were implicated in the cheating scandal.

gsmith@projo.com