Ryan

PROVIDENCE — City officials have resumed their effort to take away the pension of retired police Capt. John J. Ryan, one of three former high-ranking police officers implicated in the Police Department’s cheating-for-promotions scandal.

But Ryan has gone to Superior Court in an effort to stave off the threat, which arises from a scandal that dates to the mid- to late-1990s.

Vincent F. Ragosta Jr., a lawyer deputized by the city Retirement Board to handle pension-divestiture cases against Ryan, former Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr. and former Maj. Martin F. Hames Jr., was scheduled to conduct an evidentiary hearing tomorrow on the Ryan case.

Ryan has filed a petition for a temporary restraining order to block the hearing, and the city last week agreed to postpone the hearing until the litigation is resolved.

Assistant City Solicitor Kenneth B. Chiavarini said the city is seeking a court decision as soon as possible in an effort to clear the way for its move against Ryan’s pension. Officials want to strip Ryan of his pension, number one, because he allegedly cheated and helped others to cheat.

New charges have now been added to the city’s bill of particulars against Ryan: That he accepted favors from Richard “Uncle Dickie” Autiello while Autiello’s Four A’s auto sales and repair business had contracts with the Police Department that Ryan supervised. Ryan, the city alleges, received free or underpriced vehicles and vehicle repairs from Autiello as well as other gifts.

Autiello was convicted of three charges in the Operation Plunder Dome investigation of City Hall corruption that forced from office former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., for whom Autiello had been a political campaign fundraiser. Autiello was imprisoned for three years and 10 months.

Ragosta declined to elaborate on the new charges.

The cheating, which has been admitted in various forums, consisted of the surreptitious distribution to favored officers of so-called source sheets that drastically limited what they had to study for their written promotional examinations. By knowing where to focus their study, according to city officials, those officers enjoyed a significant advantage over their competitors.

According to disputed evidence contained in previously secret grand jury transcripts and other records, Prignano told the FBI that he gave a source sheet to then-Lt. Ryan prior to a promotional exam in which Ryan scored well and ultimately won promotion to captain. Ryan admitted having received it, but he denied having used it.

In grand jury testimony, two former officers testified that Prignano twice tampered with the promotions process for captain by dictating how candidates would be ranked in their interviews for promotion. One of the alleged beneficiaries was Ryan.

Ryan admitted having slipped source sheets for exams to then-Lt. John F. Glancy and Patrolwoman Rhonda Kessler, according to an FBI summary of interviews with Ryan and others. Glancy scored well, was promoted to captain and later retired. Kessler was promoted to sergeant, but she lost her rank in an internal police disciplinary process arising from the alleged cheating and remains on the force as a patrolwoman.

Glancy’s lawyer has denied that his client cheated. Kessler, too, has denied cheating. She was suspended without pay for six months and demoted, but the discipline stemmed from her allegedly lying about Ryan’s offer to help her cheat –– not from having cheated.

Ryan’s lawyer, Joseph F. Penza Jr., last week declined comment on the old and new allegations against his client.

At issue is a municipal ordinance that requires honorary service as a prerequisite for an employee to receive a pension. A lack of such service calls for the reduction or revocation of a pension, according to the interpretation of Mayor David N. Cicilline, city lawyers and members of the Retirement Board, who instigated the pension-divestiture cases.

Ryan contends in his lawsuit that his pension cannot be touched, under the ordinance, unless he is convicted of a job-related crime. He has never been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. The city’s delay in acting against his pension, Ryan also contends, has put him at an unreasonable disadvantage in defending himself.

Ryan, 47, a law enforcement consultant and lawyer, lives in Rhode Island. He has been drawing a pension since he retired in June 2002 after nearly 20 years on the police force, and his current annual entitlement is $28,056.

He asks in his suit that the court declare that a pension can be taken away only if the pensioner has been convicted of a job-related crime, and that until that matter is settled, the city be blocked from holding a hearing and from rescinding or reducing the pension.

Failing that, he also asks that Ragosta be disqualified from presiding over an evidentiary hearing, for technical legal reasons. Ragosta’s assignment is to submit a report to the Retirement Board, which would then decide what to do with the pension.

gsmith@projo.com