PAYS TO BE 'TAINTED'
LI’s 245G commish
The police commissioner of a small Long Island village got reappointed to his cushy $245,000-a-year post amid allegations he took an all-expenses-paid trip that included hookers, court records show.
Stephen McAllister, first appointed top cop in Floral Park in 2010, was voted in for a fifth term as head of the 35-member police force on April 2, according to official minutes.
That was just three weeks before McAllister — who pulls down $19,000 more annually than New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill — was named an unindicted co-conspirator by the feds in an NYPD corruption scandal that will soon head to court. (O’Neill oversees a force of some 36,000 cops.)
The records don’t show any discussion before the vote, even though McAllister was the subject of an internal probe last year over testimony that he joined two NYPD cops and others who flew to Miami in 2013 for a college-football championship game.
Admitted cop-briber and former Mayor de Blasio donor Jona Rechnitz said he paid for “everything from A to Z on that trip,” including an evening of “entertainment” by prostitutes.
McAllister was cleared of wrongdoing by the village probe, but federal prosecutors on Friday implicated him in the corruption case against exNYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant and former de Blasio donor Jeremy Reichberg, set for trial this month.
Court papers allege that McAllister — a retired NYPD inspector — interfered with three arrests of an unidentified Reichberg associate on Feb. 16, 2014, and on Oct. 28 and Dec. 16, 2015.
Prosecutors said Reichberg gave McAllister “gifts that appear to have included event tickets, discounted or free jewelry, a ride on Rechnitz’s private plane, and home improvements.
“In exchange, on at least one occasion, Reichberg sought and obtained [McAllister’s] assistance in releasing a person who had been arrested,” according to the March 12 fed filing.
In addition, Rechnitz was named a Floral Park police chaplain, which let him score a “law-enforcement parking placard” and outfit his car with “lights and sirens,” the feds said.
McAllister received his sixth raise last year, when the village board boosted his annual salary by $55,000 because he was denied a waiver to continue drawing his NYPD pension, The Island Now Web site reported.
Asked about the decision to reappoint McAllister, Floral Park Mayor Dominick Longobardi said that “at the time, yes, we all agreed that it was the best thing and the best for the residents.”
McAllister didn’t return requests for comment. His lawyer, Joel Weiss, said McAllister “has not done anything illegal whatsoever” and “has not abused his authority in any manner whatsoever.”
Weiss called Rechnitz an “inveterate liar” and said that “the upcoming trial will prove he is an unreliable source.”