PROVIDENCE — In a reverberation of the scandal that brought down former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., the city Retirement Board yesterday decided to strip former Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr. of his pension for having rendered dishonorable service.

Prignano has admitted, and expressed his shame and regret for having helped, when he was chief, police officers cheat on their promotional examinations in order to win higher ranks.

The board now heads to Superior Court, where it will file suit to implement its decision. In the meantime, Prignano will continue to collect his $66,560-a-year pension.

Although they had been invited to participate in a pension-revocation hearing to be held yesterday, neither Prignano nor his lawyers were present for the board meeting at City Hall. Prignano and his lawyers could not be reached for comment later.

Prignano contends that because he was not convicted of a felony criminal offense, and given the particular wording of a city pension ordinance that requires honorable service, the city cannot take away his pension. He has protested through his lawyer that most of his years with the city were honorable.

However, the city Law Department and the board’s special legal counsel, Vincent F. Ragosta Jr., have advised the board that it can in fact take away his pension. Ragosta said yesterday that the board has the power according to the ordinance, the common law and state Supreme Court decisions.

In a letter read aloud at the board meeting, Richard Kerbel, city director of administration, said, “… Government employees do indeed carry extraordinary responsibilities, and when conduct breaches the public trust in a serious way, revocation of pension must be one of the consequences.”

What little debate there was at the meeting centered on whether the board should be more patient in waiting for Prignano to plead his case against pension reduction or revocation.

His chief lawyer, Stephen Famiglietti, is ill with cancer, and Susan Marcotte Carlin, Famiglietti’s associate, said in a letter that she could not come to a hearing yesterday because her mother is ill. The hearing previously had been put off at least twice because of Famiglietti’s illness and the death of Prignano’s mother.

The board voted 6 to 5, with one abstention, against another continuance. Members appointed by Mayor David N. Cicilline and the City Council lined up against members elected by active and retired employees, with the elected members supporting a delay.

Member Pasquale Grieco, Prignano’s uncle, recused himself and left the room.

Then the board voted 7 to 5 to accept an investigative report from Ragosta on the pension and to adopt Ragosta’s recommendation that the entire pension be revoked.

Ragosta told the board that it has the power to conclusively revoke the pension but he said that, “in an abundance of caution,” the board should petition a Superior Court judge to confirm its implementation of the revocation. On another 7-to-5 tally, the board decided to do so.

On the prevailing side of the vote were city Finance Director Bruce Miller, city Treasurer Stephen T. Napolitano, Councilman John J. Igliozzi, Carla M. Dowben, Susan R. LaPidus, Wallace Demary Jr., and former Councilman David G. Dillon.

Dissenting were board Chairman Pasquale T. D’Amico and Sharon Gleckman, a school employee, who represents active city employees who are not police and fire officers; James Potenza, a Fire Department captain who represents active firefighters; Harold Zacks, a police detective who represents active police officers; and Kerion O’Mara, a retired detective who represents retired police and fire officers.

“What happened with Colonel Prignano was wrong. I’m not defending the man,” O’Mara declared. But he insisted that Prignano cannot lose his pension because he has not been convicted.

“We’re making up the rules as we go along … because it’s a [politically] hot topic,” he said.

D’Amico said later that he wanted more time to make up his mind and that Prignano might deserve a portion of his pension. He said he would have preferred that the board put off a hearing until September, as Carlin had requested, and then settle the matter no later than that month.

Prignano, 65, who was chief under Cianci, retired under pressure Jan. 31, 2001, concluding a 34-year career. As an offshoot of Operation Plunder Dome, a federal investigation of corruption in the Cianci administration, a police promotions cheating scandal was probed, too. In the process, Prignano’s role was revealed when he testified in Cianci’s trial in 2002.

In the ensuing years, the cheating probe and related police disciplinary proceedings continued, and the city negotiated with federal officials for confidential information regarding Prignano and others gathered during Plunder Dome.

Ragosta, who held a hearing to formally record information that would justify action against Prignano’s pension, privately submitted his investigative report to the board in January. The report was formally accepted yesterday.

Cianci was convicted of running City Hall as a racket and served time in federal prison.

One person has lost his pension as a result of Plunder Dome and, besides Prignano, the pensions of Cianci and three others remain in limbo. Cianci has not asked for his pensions — he would have qualified for two — and his lawyer has said that he won’t.

gsmith@projo.com