Police Chief Harry Rilling has another scandal on his hands, this time concerning more allegations of sexual encounters by Thomas Cummings. From the Hour:
A gay city police lieutenant was arrested Tuesday for allegedly enticing three 15-year-old boys and having sex with two of them in his Norwalk apartment, after a three-month investigation by Stamford prosecutors.
Lt. Thomas Cummings, 46, may have used the extra-duty job he worked often as Norwalk High School security to meet and seduce boys, according to three arrest warrants filed at Stamford Superior Court.
The lieutenant, a 24-year department veteran and former Detective Bureau commander, turned himself in Tuesday morning at Stamford police headquarters and was charged with eight felonies. He faces up to 115 years in jail if convicted.
The arrest warrant affidavits, authored by Stamford State’s Attorney’s Office Inspector Pat Mooney and signed on Monday by a judge, allege that Cummings’ sexual conduct with young teens had been “ongoing for several years” — at least back to 2003.
Investigators allegedly found and seized 143 pornographic VHS tapes and 110 pornographic DVDs depicting teenage and 20-something males engaged in oral and anal sex, sometimes in orgies, during a Nov. 1, 2007, warrant search of his Wolfpit Avenue condominium, the affidavits stated.
Cummings has been on paid leave since Oct. 29, 2007, when Police Chief Harry Rilling was first told of the allegations against him, and was suspended without pay immediately after his arrest, according to a written statement released by Rilling on Tuesday.“These allegations are extremely serious and, if found to be true, will be dealt with harshly,” the chief stated. “We have cooperated and worked with the State’s Attorney’s Office from the moment the allegations were brought forth and will continue to do so until final disposition.”
Rilling said the department had no reason in the past to investigate Cummings for inappropriate relationships with minors, and added that the allegations “should not be a reflection on the hard-working, dedicated men and women of the department. The citizens of Norwalk can be confident our commitment to excellence shall not be compromised by this incident.”
Cummings’ arrest is the newest in a series of recent, high-profile scandals in the Norwalk Police Department that include three other officers charged with tampering with evidence, threatening a bar patron with an off-duty gun and groping a woman.
Cummings faces three counts of enticing a minor, a felony carrying a maximum prison term of five years; two counts of second-degree sexual assault, a felony with a maximum 20 years; and three counts of risk of injury to a minor, a felony that also carries a maximum 20 years.
According to the affidavits and a Tuesday written statement by State’s Attorney David I. Cohen, Cummings allegedly used Web sites, specifically Manhunt.net, and chat rooms “to entice minors to his home, where he showed them pornographic materials and engaged in sexual intercourse.”
Cummings’ family posted $75,000 bond — $25,000 for each case — on Tuesday and arraignment in Stamford court is scheduled for Feb. 14.
He is the divorced father of two teenage boys.
“The charges against Mr. Cummings are merely allegations, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Cohen wrote. He declined to comment further.
The fact that some of the allegations center on Cummings’ conduct while working security at Norwalk High raises some more questions about what is really going on there. Teaches have been talking about many problems that surface at Norwalk High that are never looked into by Corda or the central office administration. Sal Corda’s comments are rather interesting about this.
Schools Superintendent Sal Corda said it was “disconcerting” and “distressing” for him as a parent and educator to learn of Cummings’ alleged activities and their connection to Norwalk High.
“We had no indication and no knowledge that anything untoward was going on or obviously we would have done something about it,” Corda said. “We do everything that we can to keep our kids safe. No complaints were filed, no rumors were circulating, nothing at all.”
The comments that BOE posts here generally garner is a direct contradiction to Corda’s assertion that rumours are not in evidence. Corda and Lenny Mecca, the curent Norwalk High principal are asleep at the switch.
This is not to say that things are all that much better over in the Norwalk’s Police Department. Once again the intersection between sex crimes and investigative work has been nonexistent. It was Stamford prosecutors who conducted the investigation, not the Norwalk Internal Affairs. Many issues about staffing, about police condict and about investigations that fall apart have been raised here.
source: The Hour, Norwalk officer charged with 8 felony sex crimes, By Harold F. Cobin and Noelle Frampton, January 30, 2008
