Controller Urges Charges in Overtime Case : Courts: Tuttle sharply criticizes district attorney for decision not to prosecute former city official accused of overpaying himself $95,000. He urges Garcetti to pursue forgery allegations.

City Controller Rick Tuttle described as “outrageous” a decision by the district attorney’s office not to file criminal charges against a former top city employee who was accused of paying himself nearly $95,000 in overtime.

Tuttle said he will ask Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti to pursue forgery or fraud charges against James D. Bisetti, the former chief management analyst in the city’s General Services Department, which oversees facilities, equipment and vehicles.

“I think there is quite a bit at stake, including a material amount of money and the public trust,” Tuttle said.

Bisetti resigned under pressure two years ago after it was disclosed that he was paid for 2,376 hours of overtime over 28 months that city officials believed he did not work.

After a protracted review, Garcetti’s office concluded that Bisetti had signed a subordinate’s name to authorize many of the improper payments. That “suggests that (Bisetti) intended to defraud the city of overtime pay to which he was not entitled,” the district attorney’s office concluded.

But prosecutors decided that it would be hard to make the accusations stick because one of Bisetti’s subordinates told investigators that he believed Bisetti was working the extra hours at home, according to a memo describing the decision not to pursue the case.

Bisetti could not be reached for comment.

The case also led to the suspension last year of Roger Huseby, the subordinate who authorized many of the overtime payments and whose signature Bisetti was also suspected of forging.

The case also helped propel a citywide review of overtime payments to city employees, which found that 6% of the work force collected more than $15,000 a year in payments. Controls on the payments were often lax.

Tuttle asked department heads to keep a tighter rein on the payments. To prevent a recurrence of the Bisetti case--in which General Manager Randall Bacon said he knew nothing about the payments--Tuttle reports to all department heads on employees who receive more than $5,000 in overtime a year.