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Hillsborough Workers Charged With Selling Firetruck Parts

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By MIKE SALINERO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 27, 2008

TAMPA - Three Hillsborough County employees are suspected of selling parts off county firetrucks and pocketing the money, County Administrator Pat Bean said Thursday.

The employees - Jack Holley, Robert Hall and Timothy Cohee - have been suspended with pay from their jobs at the Fire Rescue fleet maintenance shop on 78th Street in Tampa. The suspensions followed an investigation by the county's Consumer Protection and Professional Responsibility Agency. Bean said the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office also is looking into the matter.

The investigation, which began in April, was triggered by an unidentified whistleblower who worked at the shop, Bean said.

The whistleblower has since transferred to another county shop.

Bean also gave credit to Ron Rogers, an administrative assistant fire chief, for noticing irregularities after he started spending time at the shop in the fall. Bean said Rogers was sent to the shop to "implement more controls and accountability."

"I'm just very grateful to Ron Rogers, who was very astute and very alert as he took over that responsibility. ... He observed some things that just didn't seem right," Bean said.

The employees are accused of selling damaged parts taken off trucks that came to the shop for repair. The damaged parts were replaced with new ones and the trucks were sent back to fire stations. Normally the county would have gotten the money for the scrap parts.

Bean said she didn't know how much the sold parts were worth in dollars or how long the illegal practices had been going on.

Bean said that Holley, Hall and Cohee sold damaged parts to a scrap metal buyer in the same neighborhood. Two other employees at the shop were not involved and still work there.

The firetrucks the trio worked on are safe and do not present a danger to firefighters or the public, Bean said. The county and a private contractor checked maintenance records against the work done on the trucks.

Holley is senior equipment repair supervisor at the shop and makes $66,227 a year. He has been employed with the county for more than 22 years and was rated "exceptional" on his two latest evaluations.

Hall, an equipment mechanic making $39,249 a year, has worked for the county for two years. In his latest evaluation, Hall was rated "successful," a downgrade from his "exceptional" rating a year earlier. Hall contested the lower rating in written remarks on the evaluation.

Cohee's job title is trades helper. He has been with the county for one year and four months and makes $20,592 a year. Cohee was rated "exceptional" in his latest evaluation.

None of the men could be reached for comment Thursday.

Bean said a final decision will be made on the three men's employment status after the county's investigation winds up in 30 days.

She didn't know when the sheriff's investigation would be done.

The maintenance shop investigation is the third county probe this year.

In May, Bean announced that the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Inspector General's Office at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development were investigating three employees at the county's Affordable Housing Office.

The federal probe followed a county investigation alleging, among other things, that the employees tried to steer affordable housing clients to a real-estate company owned by the husband of one of the employees.

A county investigation in March resulted in six building inspectors being fired or forced to resign after they were accused of inspecting buildings before proper permits were pulled.

Bean said that after becoming county administrator in December 2003, she instituted an ethics policy and has tried to follow through on allegations of impropriety whenever they surfaced.

"I expect all employees who work for the county administrator to adhere to that policy," Bean said.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.

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