Images of the crashed-into car posted to NextDoor.
A Morris Cove resident has sued Alder Sal DeCola and two neighborhood police officers after DeCola crashed into her parked car in February, drove away from the scene and allegedly conferred with the district’s top cop on how to pressure her not to press charges.
Morris Cove resident Julie Ferrucci has filed that lawsuit containing those allegations against DeCola, along with Morris Cove district commander Lt. Brian McDermott and police officer Mark Salvati.
The newly filed lawsuit stems from a hit-and-run incident in February, which resurfaced on the social media platform NextDoor before the primary election in September. DeCola wound up winning the primary and now faces Republican challenger Lisa Milone and write-in candidate Susan Campion in the Nov. 7 general election.
On Feb. 26, DeCola crashed his car into Ferrucci’s parked jeep and immediately took off. Though police responded to the incident, it was a neighbor on NextDoor who identified DeCola as the likely perpetrator and reached out to Ferrucci with this information on March 2.
Ferrucci (who declined through her lawyer to comment for this article) has said in social media posts and now in the lawsuit that the police then pressured her not to press charges against the alder.
DeCola was not arrested for the incident, and there is no known police report from that night.
The lawsuit, which was served to the defendants on Thursday, charges the three city officials of “deprivation of constitutional rights” and “civil conspiracy.”
Ferrucci and her lawyer, Patricia Cofrancesco, have filed a civilian complaint against McDermott and Salvati within the police department as well. An Internal Affairs investigation into the incident is also ongoing.
Phone records contained in the civilian complaint suggest that McDermott and DeCola spoke on the phone twice on March 2, the first confirmed phone call between them since Feb. 26.
According to Ferrucci’s lawsuit, Salvati — the initial responding officer — referred the case to his supervisor, Lt. McDermott, upon learning of DeCola’s identity.
The lawsuit alleges that McDermott told Ferrucci, “The New Haven Police Department won’t press charges against this man, that’s up to you and you don’t want to do that because he’s a very powerful and influential politician here in New Haven.”
McDermott, who was the only one of the three defendants to respond to requests for comment on Thursday, maintained a different narrative.
“Unfortunately the [Internal Affairs] investigation is still open, so I’m not at any more liberty to speak to you than I was last time,” he said. “One thing that I’ll reiterate is that we didn’t treat Sal DeCola any differently than we have the majority of other citizens in this type of situation.”
In September, police chief Karl Jacobson said that the police department typically does not arrest perpetrators of car crashes unless the victim wishes to press charges. When asked about the lack of a police report at the time, he said, “I wouldn’t say it’s typical, but it does happen.”
Tom Breen, Allan Appel, and David Sepulveda File Photos
Lt. Brian McDermott, Alder Sal DeCola, and Ofc. Mark Salvati.
DeCola did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
In September, he told the Independent that he crashed the car due to a “medical condition,” which he later specified was related to multiple myelodysplastic syndromes, a cluster of blood cancers affecting bone marrow.
When pressed in September on why he fled the scene of the crash, DeCola responded, “I said, I had a medical condition.”
He added, “I called Lieutenant [McDermott] and I made restitution for all damages.”
Records included in the civilian complaint filed by Ferrucci and Cofrancesco on Thursday reveal new information about the timing of DeCola’s call to McDermott.
In early September, when this reporter asked McDermott for the most specific timeline of events he could pinpoint, McDermott had stated that DeCola had “proactively reached out to me” to explain what happened “within hours” of the crash.
McDermott’s cell records, as obtained by Cofrancesco, do not show evidence of a call between McDermott and DeCola on the night of the crash on Feb. 26 — nor within the following three days.
The first time DeCola and McDermott appear to have spoken on the phone after the crash (based on the phone numbers they use professionally) was on March 2. The records indicate that they spoke for one minute at 12:07 p.m. and then for 2 minutes at 3:06 p.m.
When asked about the lag between the crash and DeCola’s contact with him, McDermott said of the timeline he gave in September, “You asked me for my best guess, and I gave it to you,” based on “the impression I was under at the time.” He said he has since learned more information about the incident, but “I’m hamstrung by this with what I can say with [the Internal Affairs investigation] still open.”
Chief Jacobson wrote in a comment, “I am waiting for the results of the internal affairs investigation. It probably will take several more months as we need to interview several people including the person filing a lawsuit.”