Cop Who Tore Up Superior’s Check Reinstated

A Superior Court judge has ruled that a Los Angeles policeman fired eight years ago for ripping up his lieutenant’s paycheck and mailing it to him piecemeal must be rehired, but department officials said the officer will not be given a position of trust.

“We haven’t decided what his position will be,” Assistant Chief Dave Dotson said Tuesday, “but it will not be the kind of a job where he is in an enforcement position, where he needs to be trusted or where he’ll have the freedom to make decisions other field officers make.”

Ruling that the firing was “insupportable when compared to other instances” of police disciplinary action, Judge Jack M. Newman on Monday ruled that former West Valley Division Officer Jacob Krygoski must be reinstated and given back pay minus what he has earned since his dismissal. Krygoski’s attorney, Jeffrey Epstein, said his client will get about $100,000.

Krygoski, 35, was fired in 1978 after he admitted ripping up then-Lt. Mike Bagdonas’ paycheck, gluing the pieces to postcards and mailing them to Bagdonas one piece at a time. Bagdonas has since been promoted to captain and assigned to the narcotics detail.

Assistant City Atty. Christine Patterson said it was “outrageous” for the court to force the department to retain Krygoski after the officer admitted possessing and ripping up his supervisor’s paycheck. She said she has not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

Newman’s ruling came after three police disciplinary board hearings and two rulings on the case by the state Court of Appeal. The primary issue involved was whether the department had fired other officers for similar instances of misconduct or whether the action against Krygoski was an abuse of power.

“He admitted doing it and how sorry he was that it occurred,” Epstein said, adding that his client was part of “a group of officers who weren’t happy with the way the lieutenant was conducting himself and just decided to harass him to get back.

“I agree the Police Department should be run like a paramilitary organization. I believe he should have been disciplined. But if you’re just using him as an example and not firing other officers who are doing the same thing, that’s an abuse of power.”

Epstein said officers have been suspended but not fired for soliciting prostitutes, disobeying orders, gluing a superior’s locker door shut and squirting an arrestee with water.

“It is obvious that the police disciplinary board was going through mental gymnastics to support a preordained conclusion,” Epstein said.

Assistant Chief Dotson disagreed.

“In the cases where the factual situation was similar, we fired the officer on every occasion,” Dotson said. “That’s why we’re puzzled. We have difficulty understanding how anyone, if they read that record, could say the penalty of removal was inappropriate. How can a guy do what he did and perform the critical job of a police officer?”

Four officers who worked with Krygoski and Bagdonas said that there was a serious morale problem in West Valley Division in 1977 and that Bagdonas was one of at least three superior officers being harassed by as many as five patrol officers. Krygoski was the only officer identified and disciplined for the harassment.

Along with the paycheck incident, three tons of gravel was dumped onto Bagdonas’ lawn, magazine subscriptions were ordered in his name and valves on the tires of his automobile were loosened, causing him to have a flat tire during a trip to the desert with his family.

Two of the officers, all of whom spoke on condition that their names not be disclosed, said Bagdonas was respected as a firm but fair disciplinarian who was targeted for harassment because he was ordered to direct a “team policing” concept of law enforcement initiated by former Chief Ed Davis and since abandoned.