City Will Settle with Patalano for $300,000

The city has settled a suit filed by a Cranston police major who was put on leave for almost two years on trumped up charges that the state police ultimately concluded were brought out of retribution by the department’s former command staff.

Cranston will pay Major Todd Patalano $300,000 in exchange for his dropping of the lawsuit filed against the city, Cranston Mayor Allan W. Fung, the former police chief and other officers.

Patalano, according to a detailed state police report on the pre-2015 operations of the department, was the victim of an unjust persecution simply because he crossed the former police chief, who resigned last year.

At the same time, the former chief, Marco Palombo Jr., will drop a countersuit, the Providence Journal reported.

The settlement also will result in Patalano releasing covertly recorded conversations with Palombo and other officers to all parties in the suit.

Patalano sought $5 million in damages in his federal lawsuit. At the time, the mayor said the claims were “outrageous” and ”Patalano’s demand for millions from the taxpayers shows he is more interested in serving himself than in serving the residents that he is sworn to protect. Cranston taxpayers will not be an ATM machine for Mr. Patalano and his lawyer.”

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

The false charges accused Patalano of not accurately recording civilian complaints of police misconduct as he led the department’s internal affairs division.

The state police concluded that the 20 months Patalano, a captain at the time, was out on paid leave dragged on needlessly and should never have been lodged in the first place.

Patalano returned to duty almost immediately after the state police took over the department last year upon the mayor’s request.

He was promoted from captain to major shortly after.

The mayor has received tremendous scrutiny for not intervening in the Patalano case sooner, though he said he relied on Palombo for updates and was under the impression that it was being adjudicated following protocol.

All told, including the $300,000 settlement, Cranston has paid $203,000 in legal fees to deal with the case, according to NBC10.