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He and his wife, Lisa Kaczmarek, are to be sentenced Feb. 2 on what his attorney has called a "family plan" that keeps Lisa out of prison. She will serve six months in the county jail; he is expected to go to prison for two years.

TheFAMILY PLAN?!? Only in Schenectady can such a sham take place. A city riddled with drug dealers/users which is one of the main criminal issues plaguing them. And a police chief and his wife who was clearly a part of it. And of course he gets to keep his pension that we pay for. I mean heck, he deserves it right?

Not only that but he will be out in 2 years to sell his wares once again.  

I thought 'family plans' come from Planned Parenthood......??

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In Schenectady, even the police run red lights

    An open letter to Schenectady Police Chief Mark R. Chaires: For years I have traveled down Union Street and turned on Erie Boulevard on my way to work.
    Over time, I have noticed the increasingly brazen behavior of drivers on Erie Boulevard — running the red light at Erie and Union. Some fail to clear the intersection before the light changes to red. Others enter the intersection facing an already red light. Some even speed through when Union Street already has the green light — sometimes at 40 mph to 50 mph.
    I've always wondered, "Where are the police when you need them?" Today, I found out. The car that blew through the red light (green in my direction) was a Schenectady police car — with not a flashing light on in sight.
    I guess if you can't catch them, you might as well join them.

    JAMES M. FOGARTY
    Schenectady

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SCHENECTADY COUNTY
2 drug case rulings reversed
Body cavity search went too far, appellate court finds
BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Steven Cook at 395-3122 or scook@dailygazette.net.

    The drug dog search was fi ne. The full body cavity search, that was a bit too far, at least without the proper prerequisites.
    In two separate rulings this week on Schenectady County drug cases, the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings. One reversed a man’s drug conviction based on the cavity search he underwent; another set two other men back on course for trial, reinstating key drug evidence after ruling that a drug dog was properly used in that case.
    In first case, the Appellate Division threw out crucial drug evidence against a 24-year-old city man, drug evidence allegedly found in the man’s rectum.
    The court found that police did not have enough reason to believe — following an undercover drug operation May 16, 2006 — that drugs were in the body cavity before ordering a full search.
    In the second case, the Appellate Division reversed a pre-trial hearing ruling and reinstated drug evidence — effectively reinstating the case — against two men pulled over in an Aug. 1, 2007 traffic stop. A Schenectady County Court ruling had thrown out that drug evidence, allegedly found in a car’s console, arguing that police did not have enough reason to use a drug-sniffing dog.
    The Appellate Division reinstated the evidence, arguing that use of the dog already in the police car was less intrusive than a full search and officers had enough suspicion to ask to perform a search.
    The rulings mean that the case against the first defendant, Jonathan Gonzalez, 24, formerly of State Street, will likely be dropped altogether, Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said.
    Gonzalez had been convicted of felony drug possession counts and sentenced to 2 /2 years in state prison. Without the drugs, prosecutors would have no way to retry the case, Carney said.
    Gonzalez was arrested after an undercover drug operation after he allegedly agreed to provide drugs. He was arrested and then strip searched for drugs. He was also required to submit to a body cavity inspection, where the drugs were allegedly found.
    But Gonzalez’ alleged statement to “get you whatever you need” was vague and did not give enough reason for police to do the more thorough search.
    “Inasmuch as a review of the record reveals no evidence … to lead the police to reasonably suspect that evidence was concealed in a body cavity, the police were not justified in conducting a visual cavity inspection,” the court ruled.
    Carney said his reading of the ruling is that police must have some direct reason to suspect that contraband is in a body cavity before ordering a body cavity search.
    Gonzalez’ appeal attorney Joe Landry could not be reached for comment. Gonzalez’ current status also could not be determined Friday.
USE OF DRUG DOG
    In the second case decided this week, the court reinstated drug evidence against defendant Damien Devone, 26, of Brooklyn, and, by extension, co-defendant Troy Washington, 23, of Delamont Avenue, Schenectady.
    The two were arrested after a traffic stop — Washington was using his cellphone while driving.
    Under questioning by officers, Washington couldn’t provide his driver’s license or the car’s registration. He then allegedly said the car was registered to his cousin, that he couldn’t remember his cousin’s name, then indicated it was Devone. The car was actually registered to somebody else.
    The officers — one city police and one state trooper working as part of Operation Impact — then walked a drug sniffing dog around the vehicle. The dog quickly indicated drugs were inside and police soon found drugs in the console.
    Both men were charged with drug possession, but, at a pretrial hearing, the drug evidence was thrown out. Officers needed a higher level of suspicion to use the dog, that court ruled.
    On appeal, prosecutor Peter Willis successfully argued that the dog did not unnecessarily prolong the stop. It was already on scene and police were trying to verify the other information. Prosecutors are only permitted to appeal such rulings when the case cannot go forward without the evidence, Carney said.
    The appellate court noted that the county court held the search to a higher..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01001

Ok, so they said there wasn't enough to warrant a cavity search but when they found the drugs in his butt after they DID the cavity search, there apparently WAS a good reason...LIKE THE GOOD STUFF IN GRANDMA'S SAUCE- "IT'S IN THERE!!!!!!!!!!!"

I can't see why you would want to be in law enforcement and have to have one arm, three fingers, and your big toe tied behind your back. God help us.

I swear some of the judges must have stock in the drug dealing operations or something. I am shaking my head...

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

I swear some of the judges must have stock in the drug dealing operations or something. I am shaking my head...

and we thought it was only police chiefs?

You would think they would come up with an x ray or something.  Anything to accomplish the task other than how I think they must do it.  Gross....for the cops that is.

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SCHENECTADY
FBI data: City police were more effective a decade ago
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    In almost every respect, the city had a more effective police department a decade ago.
    From 1998 to 2000, according to FBI data, the police had a better solve rate for nearly every serious crime than it did in the three-year period from 2005-07.
    They also solved a greater number of cases back then — a surprising figure since crime has increased 17 percent since that time.
    And they did it with fewer people. The detective division had just 19 people — 16 fewer than it has today. The police department as a whole had roughly the same number of officers. But with more of them on patrol and fewer on investigative duty, the department solved 6 percent more crimes from 1998-2000 than it solved from 2005-07. The police self-reported the data from each year to the FBI, which uses it for detailed crime analysis and provided it to The Sunday Gazette.
    The department’s statistics have infuriated some crime victims, who say the department should be working harder. In Mont Pleasant, which was hit hard by a burglary crime wave this fall, residents blame the police for fueling the crime spree by solving just 7 percent of the burglaries in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The solve rate was 22 percent in 2000, and residents argue that if police had kept up that enforcement record, fewer burglars would be free to continue stealing today.
TIME CRUNCH
    Assistant Chief Brian Kilcullen, who oversees the investigative division, was at a loss to explain the decline in solve rates.
    “I don’t know,” he said, adding that he found the statistics surprising. “I’m not sure what we can attribute it to.”
    Kilcullen, who served in the patrol division for 14 years before being promoted two months ago, said patrol officers seemed to be less busy a decade ago. He had more time to gather evidence, interview neighbors in search of witnesses and thoroughly prepare a report back then, he said.
    “You weren’t being asked to clear [the incident] before you’d completed it to your satisfaction,” he said. “The preliminary investigation is key. The more we can get when we initially respond, the more likely we’ll close the case.”
    Administrators are trying to reduce call volume or increase the number of patrol officers so police have more time for those investigations, but no changes have been made yet. The reorganization will help, Kilcullen said.
CORRUPTION CONCERNS
    But others say the real problem is one of morale. Some officials believe police worked harder a decade ago, before a series of scandals tarnished the department’s reputation.
    In 2000, the FBI began to investigate reports that some police were taking drugs from dealers and giving them to informants. By the end of that year, two officers were indicted on drug distribution and extortion charges.
    There was more to come. In 2002, four officers went to federal prison and another committed suicide at the department headquarters during the federal probe. In 2004, another officer went to prison for giving a gun to a known drug dealer.
    Then in 2007, Detective Jeffrey Curtis pleaded guilty to stealing cocaine from the department’s evidence locker and smoking it himself. He also went to prison. He was followed this year by former Chief Greg Kaczmarek, who pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine with intent to sell.
    The repeated examples of corruption at the highest levels of the department has hit the officers hard, City Councilman Gary Mc-Carthy said.
    “There has been an overall morale issue in the department that I believe leads to a lessening performance,” said McCarthy, who leads the Public Safety Committee. “The public will remind officers responding to calls and cast negative aspersions on the department.”
    He added that he doesn’t think officers are deliberately slowing down their productivity.
    “I’ll classify it as a morale issue without a person intentionally not performing. That would be a serious issue,” McCarthy said.
    Kilcullen ruled out morale altogether, saying that police productivity has in no way suffered because of the scandals.
    “The remaining members of the department come to work every day and dedicate their efforts and energy to what we’re here for,” he said.
    He also said the increase in crime could not explain away a decrease in the solve rate.
MORE CASES, FEWER SOLVED
    In recent years, police have investigated nearly twice as many murders as they saw a decade ago. At the same time, there was a 50 percent increase in robberies and a 61 percent increase in aggravated assaults.
    But other crimes did not “take a back seat” to the more violent incidents, Kilcullen said. Even the increase in murder only kept detectives away from other crimes for a short time, he said.
    “Soon after the murder we’re dedicating significant resources to that case,” Kilcullen said. “In the very short term.”
    In the past three years, police did solve more robberies and aggravated assaults than before. But with the steady increase in violent crime, their solve rate for aggravated assaults fell from an average of 42 percent in 1998-2000 to 36 percent in 2005-07. Police nearly held the line on robberies — their solve rate dropped just one percentage point, from 17 percent to 16 percent.
    But the most serious crimes have only gotten worse.
    Murder has increased 90 percent, from a low of 3 murders in 1999 to a high of 10 in 2007, while the solve rate has fallen to 87 percent. The solve rate was 135 percent a decade ago, when police solved every new murder as well as some cold cases each year.
    The solve rate for rape has fallen from 32 percent to 24 percent. Reports of rape have increased only slightly — from an average of 34 a year in the late 1990s to 38 a year today — but police have arrested fewer rapists.
    In the past three years, they arrested 28 rapists, while a decade ago they arrested 37 in the same time frame.
BURGLARY PROBLEM
    The same is true for burglaries. In 2000, the police solved 22 percent of the city’s 768 reported burglaries. But that fell to 7 percent in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Each year, less than 75 of the burglaries were solved — leaving nearly 800 unresolved.
    Between 1998 and 2000, 247 burglaries were solved. More burglaries have occurred in recent years, but only 191 were solved in the past three years. That’s a 23 percent drop.
    Now, some city residents say the recent burglary crime wave — in which dozens of houses have been hit in Bellevue and Mont Pleasant — was fueled by those years of few arrests.
    Carol Rogers, one of many victims this fall in the Mont Pleasant neighborhood, said police should have made burglaries a priority.
    “They’re just shrugging it off and saying, ‘It’s gone, there’s no chance of you getting it back,’ ” she said. “There just doesn’t seem to me to be a real concern for the people who live there.”
    Police have focused on the burglaries in recent months, and Kilcullen said officers should be able to report major arrests soon.
    He also emphasized the department’s commitment to the issue.
    “Burglaries have not taken a back seat to other felonies,” he said. “We’ve dedicated significant resources to the burglaries recently.”
    But residents said the damage has already been done.
    “As a homeowner, it’s pretty scary,” said local activist Vince Riggi, who has criticized the police over this issue. “You wonder if you’re going to be next.”
GETTING IT TOGETHER
    Residents say that police do respond to their calls about burglaries but appear disorganized.
    Pawnshop item reports, which the police collect so they can search for stolen goods, are submitted on paper and left in a stack when they could be more easily searched in computerized spreadsheet form. Rogers said the detective in her case didn’t look at her photos and descriptions of stolen items until more than a week after the burglary.
    Other residents said they were told to visit pawnshops themselves to find their possessions.
    One man said his Xbox was found by police two years ago but held as evidence for a trial. The trial never took place, but his video game system has still not been returned, he said.
    McCarthy has ideas to combat the burglary wave — he wants to hook residential home alarms directly to the dispatch center and reinvigorate neighborhood watches. But he said the................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00103

Thank the FBI for the increase in murders, burglaries,etc.  10 years ago the police department had some proactive officers not afraid to
go after the gun-carrying dealers on the street and the gang members and murderers.  The FBI insured that will never happen again in
the city of Schenectady.  I still remember reading about and hearing about the trial where they paraded dozens of drug addicted
prostitutes they threatened with life in prison unless they testified to what they wanted them to say.  The feds could have cared less if
they told the truth or not- as long as they said something incriminating about a cop- their charges would be dismissed.  

There is still talk at the Schenectady Police Department that the feds even got 2 Schenectady police officers to lie in order to win their
case.  One is a relative of Falvo- the Assistant Chief- his brother in law is a city cop and the other is  a retired detective that
made up some crazy story about a drug deal he claimed to witness one or 2 of the cops make, but the FBI investigated it and found out he made up the whole story, so they covered it up and never charged the cops.  

The fact that the feds and the Administrators at Schenectady PD that worked that case 10 years ago went as far as getting officers to
commit perjury in hopes to win convictions is something that officers do not soon forget.  If your bosses are willing to go as far as
arresting crack-addicted hookers and threatening them with life in prison if they don't tell a story and getting their own officers to commit perjury- then how hard are you going to work for them?

Anyone that is suprised that things in the city of Schenectady are far worse than 10 years ago needs a reality check.  Again...
thank you to the FBI. Looks like you've done a great job.

What role has our District Attorney played in this 10 year issue? With an increasing amount of "plea bargain" successes, that's got to figure in the equation someplace, doesn't it?

Thanks Papanetta... for a different perspective.  I agree the plea bargain figures would be interesting to see. It seems to me there are never any consequences for ones actions. A slap on the hand then get back to the pathetic business of stealing from or killing someone else.  Reading some of these posts from the last few days about Schenectady is so sad.  What the hell have we created and when are people going to realize this whole culture and way of life is not working?  When?

the sting for the crime needs to be harsher......I wonder why the army is being roused  in case of economic chaos and anarchy????

we are a land of laws....however, we are also a land where folks seem to think that if it is not deemed illegal it's okay.........I thought that was what
Jesus, Muhammed and Moses were for?????

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The preponderance holds the view that it is an unenforceable law. That is a load of baloney! All laws can be enforced if the penalty for a violation is severe enough to make self-policing the enforcement tool. Politicians pass legislation for image, not for effectiveness. Laws are written with built-in excuses for all the ways in which an attorney can get you off, and not to eliminate or prevent undesirable behavior. Most people excuse their own unlawful behavior, believing that "everybody does it." Everybody does not!

Mr. Elfland in his letter about the texting law, stated it very well........