By John Nickerson
Staff Writer
Posted: 12/08/2008 01:00:00 AM EST
NORWALK - A special fire commission hearing scheduled for today to determine whether a veteran firefighter will keep his job after a larceny conviction has been postponed.
City attorney Jeffrey Spahr said the meeting for firefighter Andre Williams will take place after his sentencing in state Superior Court in Norwalk on Jan. 21. Williams' criminal attorney, William Pelletreau, requested the postponement, Spahr said, and the city did not object. A new date has not been scheduled, he said.
Williams' union attorney, Daniel Hunsberger, said he met with Spahr and Fire Chief Denis McCarthy on Friday.
"We expressed our position that the prudent thing to do would be to put off the meeting until the judge makes his final ruling," Hunsberger said. "We were prepared to go forward on Monday, but we left it up to the city to decide about the meeting. It was their call."
On Nov. 21, Williams, 46, pleaded guilty to third-degree larceny after he was charged two years ago with first-degree larceny, second-degree larceny and six counts of writing bad checks. Williams wrote his landlord almost $22,000 in checks that bounced, court records show.
At the plea hearing, Judge Burton Kaplan told Williams that he faces a year in jail if he does not pay back $12,500 before his sentencing date.
In 2006, Williams, who last year earned $92,332 in salary, overtime and benefits, was granted a two-year diversionary court program for first offenders that would have wiped away the charges.
But, as a condition, Williams had to pay back the $12,500 he owed his landlord after he made good on more than $9,000 in bounced checks. When the program ended, however, Williams had not made restitution, court records show.
Williams, who began working at the fire department in 1986, was fired in 2006, then reinstated later that year on the condition that he complete the program.