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Ex-Building & Safety Employee Sentencing April 26

A former supervisor in the Dearborn Building and Safety Department who pled guilty to two counts of fraud and resigned from his city job is scheduled to have a sentencing hearing on April 26 on the misdemeanor charges.

Andrew Pizzino

Andrew Pizzino pleaded guilty to the fraud charges last week.  He also was charged with two counts of ethics violations of the City of Dearborn Charter but those charges were dropped. Pizzino, who resigned from his job last week, will still collect his city pension as he was employed longer than 10 years, a spokeswoman for the city says.

Pizzino was one of four former Building and Safety department employees to face criminal charges, the result of a more than two-year police and FBI investigation of the department initiated by Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr.

Dearborn has since closed its investigation into the Building and Safety department. For earlier stories, click HERE

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 1:50 am and is filed under City Hall. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • kevin pal

    And Pizzino still collects his city pension? Disgusting.

    Maybe council and charter commission members can work on an amendment that prevents CONVICTED FELONS from collecting taxpayer money in this manner?

  • Dearbornette

    Kevin, read again: “sentencing hearing on April 26 on the misdemeanor charges,” not felony. Hence, your proposed fix would not do the job here. What if someone is convicted on a crime unrelated to their job? Would it be fair to strip them of their pension, say if they had worked for the city for 25 years? Just asking…

    I find it totally fascinating that the City has “closed its investigation into the Building and Safety Department.” I don’t know about you, but I think this was just the tip of the iceberg. I would like to know what measures have been put in place to prevent this, and the other incidents from ever happening again, but I guess this administration is not for transparency. Hmm, perhaps certain people who have received plush new jobs, or who still remain in the department have something on the administration?

  • Jamie

    Typical O’Reilley management, by closing the investigation. Save Norwood big Jack because he may spill the beans on the rest of the story regarding the Building Dept. As for the ethics board you might as well disband them, because they have no clout, as you can see from Andy’s case.

  • Hassen

    How about following thru with the rest of the department. I believe you forgot about Cascardo and Norwood, or do they sell tickets for you, and collect money for you? Nice job Big Guy. The feds should follow up on their own, they might find where you really stand. Over and out.

  • bob

    what boggles me is the city is so severe, with inspections, if you want to do anything to your house, but when it comes to inspect the house, for sale, they barely look at anything at all. I guess to busy being criminals

  • fourth generation resident

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation was brought in by O’Reilly. The FBI was already there. They did not need O’Reilly’s blessing. The Feds investigations rarely target individuals. More than likely the Feds were investigating other city dealings ” Talal Khalil Chahine.” and others. This investigation was simply a fig leaf to give the FBI cover because their main concerns are either dead or international fugitives. Please do not give credit where it is not due. O’Reilly could have Fired these people however he has no spine, instead he offers up the smalltime players and turns a blind eye to the rest

  • tarik

    I hope that the IRS follows up on Pizzino and Norwood, as well as Cascardo since O’Reilley won’t. Send the bum (pizzino) to jail downtown, then maybe will have a different outlook on what he did, his wife I know will be safe from any future beatings this way.

  • Michael D. Albano

    What “kevin pal” states about the council and charter commission rewriting the charter to make it a felony, thereby forbidding felons to collect their city pensions makes total sense to me.

    I do not know Dave Norwood, but I do know John Cascardo and he is a hard working, honest man and anyone who knows him well will tell you the same.

  • http://deepsaidwhat D. Schmeire says:

    Glad to see Pizzino plead ‘guilty’. I’m sure he will still claim that he is innocent but that he had to plead guilty to save his pension. He is a pathological liar and has gotten away with murder over the past few years because of favors owed to him from the late-mayor on down. Pizzino has always manipulated and used others to his benefit. Too bad Ms. Fawaz felt indebted to you and you got involved with her fraudulent mortgage schemes, Andy. Isn’t her title company closed now?
    And whoever thinks Cascardo is innocent should ask John about the fraudelent disability claim that he filed last year…Where’s your cane now, John?
    John and fraud go back for years, just pull out his job application. He has never been qualified to hold any of the jobs he has held in this town.
    John “BS” (bullsh-t) Cascardo and Andrew “F” (fraud) Pizzino have been attached to the hip for years. These clowns should have gotten a job with the
    circus. And how about your ex, Kathy Nicolas, Andy. Was she able to save her pension too after embezzling thousands of dollars from the Performing Arts Center? Is she still collecting unemployment fraudently, too?

  • wayne

    Cascardo must be related to you — Pizzino, Norwood and Cascardo were known as the 3 stooges, because not only were they stupid but they felt they were untouchable, until the heat came to town.

  • vincent

    Right on the money D.Schmeire, your information is right on. Basically what it comes down to is Andy stinks, and everyone in town knew it except O’Reilly, or he didn’t want to believe it. Hope the internal investigation is not done yet.

  • Just asking

    I have a question about this mess in the building department. Is there any plan to backtrack through the bribes, and make the people who PAID the bribes face punishment, or at least FIX what they should have fixed?

    I have heard that there are commercial buildings on Warren Avenue that were approved even though they were very short on parking. Eleven parking spaces total for a four-story building, for example. Shouldn’t those people have to add parking, at whatever expense, or shut down the building until they do?

  • http://rrrhamel@gmail.com Shady

    Well this chapter in dearborn corruption has come to “my” end. I hope a.p. all the worst, pain and suffering equal to all of those who’s lives he affected through his “What’s in it for me first” public service. I think you all have figured out the corrilation between the ex-mayor, his appointments, the council, and of course the placed employees with protection. While I was with the dept. soooo many people knew what he was doing (buying and selling homes was only part of it) and choose to do nothing about it. Mr. Duncan and Norwood had him but the administration wouldn’t budge. I saw Norwood give up, he came down to eliminate the problem, and saw there was no hope! I know i did my job and did it well for the people of dearborn and the city as a whole. My heart will remain for the city as well as my residence. Good luck to all and my last comment for those who choose to remain would be, If you think this city is corrupt imagine the county, the state, the fed.! Good luck and God bless, Shady has left the building! A.K.A. Jim Hamel #961

  • Donna Hay

    Just asking – there are a lot of buildings in Dbrn that are short of parking – they all seem to receive a parking variances – don’t understand why.

  • http://deepsaidwhat D. Schmeire

    Mr. Shady. I thought I heard that you and Pizzino used to do houses together a few years back? So why are you so hard on him. And if Mr. Norwood is so intelligent that he has known there has been corruption for so long but yet was unable to put a stop to it, why does he still collect a paycheck from this city?

  • t dogg

    The real test is whether the Dearborn Law Dept – Ms. Walling- will file a civil suit against AP recover any monies that were illegally obtained by him as a result of his employment by the City.

    After all, he did admit to it, and doesn’t that almost require such a suit?

    If she recovers more than $132,000 she pays for the pools for a year! Seriously, go after these guys in civil court – push them as hard as you’ve pushed Burton Katzman – and get their money – every dollar.

    That would be a real civil service.

  • Donna Hay

    t dogg – do you think that the city will ever see any money from BK? They are already trying to get an extension.

  • t dogg

    I suspect BK has their bankruptcy petitions (including those of the principals) ready to file if they cannot negotiate more time. And the City knows that and feels they are getting set up.

    A Bankruptcy filing will take the matter out of Judge Sapala’s Wayne County Courtroom and put it squarely in the Federal Bankruptcy Court, where Dearborn will line up behind all of the secured creditors. So, no, I don’t think the City will collect on the breach of contract nor be able to compel the construction. BK just doesn’t have the resources.

    So there’s three names that owe the City a lot of money – AP owes for the fraud, HF for the taxes, etc, and BK. I sincerely doubt that we will ever see a nickle from any of them.

  • Flyonthewall

    Andy needs to pay back the City for all the time he spent on City time working on his rentals plus his house by the lake in Brighton. He was never available to answer questions on the job. How about his buddy John Deschamps. They basically were the untouchables! Andy how can you say you can’t believe what people are accusing of doing anything, that you are a honest person! You are a user. Everyone knew what was going on and they looked the other way on both these guys. The question is why? He wasn’t the only one at fault he protected his inspectors when they would do things under handed and they all know what that is. You really didn’t need to be a FLY ON THE WALL to wall to see what was going on!!!!!!!!!!!

  • tarik

    Great idea T-Dogg start collecting some of the money that is owed to the City, and we can not only keep the pools going, but we can even improve them.

  • http://deepsaidwhat Jolie

    Sounds like a lot of sour grapes without rock solid details or evidence. What is the difference between misdemeanor fraud and felony fraud? Was Mr. Pizzino coerced into pleading guilty?

  • PO7219

    Jolie
    The difference btw misdemeanor and felony is the substantial value of the fraud. Misdemeanor is anything under $1,000 and a felony is anything over $1,000. Hope this clears up one of your questions.