LOUIS P. TRANGUCCI
Louis Trangucci, Jr. appears to be the only New Rochelle Police Officer in the history of the Department to receive a Command Discipline for actions before and during becoming a cop. Perhaps the worst start to a career in more than 100 years.
Lou P. Trangucci is the son of former New Rochelle Council Member Lou Trangucci.
Louis P. Trangucci last year was paid $112,810 working for the New Rochelle Police Department, according to the See Through New York website.
Lou Trangucci, Jr., violated New Rochelle Police Department policy as he was handed his graduation certificate from the policy academy.
According to Internal Affairs records seen by Talk of the Sound, in 2013, former NRPD Detective Vincent Mirabile “prodded” the younger Trangucci to lie on a form submitted to the Westchester County Police Department claiming Mirabile as his father-in-law so that Mirabile could participate in a police academy graduation ceremony.
Mirabile is well known as “Scumbag Vinnie” for, among other things, his role in apparent charity fraud involving St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
According to the Internal Affairs investigation report, on December 20, 2013, Police Officer Trangucci graduated from the Zone 3 Police Academy. During the graduation ceremony, held at the Performing Arts Center at SUNY-Purchase, Scumbag Vinnie appeared on stage and was introduced as P.O. Trangucci’s father-in-law. Mirabile then presented P.O. Trangucci with his diploma/certificate.
On December 23, then-Captain and current Police Commissioner Robert Gazzola interviewed P.O. Trangucci regarding his relationship with Mirabile and how Mirabile became involved in the graduation ceremony.
P.O. Trangucci admitted that Mirabile was not his father-in-law, but rather the father of his girlfriend. Trangucci said that at Mirabile’s prodding, he submitted a police academy form purporting that Mirabile was his father-in-law to a Sergeant in the Westchester County Police Department. Trangucci said he did so knowing the information was false, to permit Mirabile to present him his diploma.
In an investigation report dated January 8, 2014, Gazzola found that P.O. Trangucci’s actions were detrimental to the good order and discipline of the department and a violation of Rule 2.8 of the Department’s Rules and Regulations.
Gazzola recommend the loss of one leave day, making P.O. Trangucci the first and only officer in NRPD to accept a Command Discipline within his first month as a police officer.
Trangucci should not even been in the class that graduated from the Westchester County Police Academy. Louis P. Trangucci was given preferential treatment in when his name was selected from the police department civil service list ahead of candidates higher up the list.
In 2013, as a political favor to Council Member Trangucci, then-Police Commissioner Patrick Carroll improperly selected Trangucci the younger for the police academy so that his start date with the New Rochelle Police Department was July 13, 2013. At best, he should not have been selected until the next class, which would have meant a start date of January 2, 2014.
The extra six months in service time meant that Trangucci received salary, overtime, pension benefits, promotion opportunities to which he was not entitled and which continue to accrue to this day.
In effect, Trangucci began his career lying (the graduation ceremony) and stealing (6 months of salary plus, overtime and pension benefits) all while tarnishing his academy classmate’s graduation and effectively stealing salary, overtime, pension benefits, promotion opportunities from another police officer, which based on the civil service list, appears to be Police Officer Robert Johnson.
In order to be selected off a police civil service list, a potential candidate for hire or promotion must rank among the top three candidates by exam score. Not every candidate is “reachable” by the time positions open up (they may have taken a job elsewhere, for example).
There were three lists created in 2013:
NRCSC Eligible List Police Officer Open Competitive 62-555 #2329
NRCSC Eligible List Police Officer Spanish Speaking 65-562 #2330
NRCSC Eligible List Police Officer Non-Resident 62-555 #2329
On the competitive resident police civil service list created on July 10, 2013, Louis P. Trangucci’s exam score ranked 24th out of the 43 passing exam results.
There were 2 officers where our database does not record a start date (Emily Hirshowitz, Daniel Maldonado). We will update the article when we obtain that information.
We color-coded the Westchester Police Academy Classes compromised by start date with New Rochelle Police Department.
GREEN — 7/31/2013
- Timothy Childs
- Emmanuel Gonzalez
- Patrick Lunn
- Scott Wallach
- Nicholas Zuzulo
- Louis Trangucci
BLUE — 1/2/2014
- John Care
- Robert Johnson
- Michael Martins
PURPLE — 7/30/2014
- David McCullough
GRAY — UNKNOWN
- Emily Hirshowitz
- Daniel Maldonado
PINK — 1/28/2015
- Michael Alberico
- Stephen Correale
YELLOW — 7/25/2018
- Stephen Parker
The Complete Series (as published so far):
Inside the New Rochelle Police Department Clown Show — Table of Contents
The Clown Show series is a multipart series reporting on New Rochelle Police Department Internal Affairs disciplinary records of current and former members of the department.
We are keeping the comments section closed until the series has run its course, but if you have your own experience with The Clown Show, please share at robertcox@talkofthesound.com or call/text/signal at 914-325-4616. We cannot do much without details like names of officers, dates, locations, so be as specific as you can. Give us a way to reply and follow up.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The NRPD disciplinary records published in our series Inside the New Rochelle Police Department Clown Show were confidential under New York State Law since 1976 when New York State enacted 50-a, a section of the New York Civil Rights Law, which hid disciplinary records of police officers, firefighters, and prison officers from the public. 50-a was repealed by the New York State Legislature and signed into law by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 12, 2020. On that day, Talk of the Sound made its first request for disciplinary records of New Rochelle Police Department officers, those of PO Alec McKenna. Those records were illegally withheld by the City of New Rochelle and the NRPD. In response, we filed an additional 834 requests based on current and past police department rosters, press releases, award ceremony programs and New York State police pension records obtained from the New York State Office of the State Comptroller. NRPD has claimed that about 200 of those requests are duplicative due to slight variations and discrepancies in how names of officers are recorded by NRPD, NRPD Internal Affairs and the New York State Police and Fire Retirement System. Those 600+ records were illegally withheld by the City of New Rochelle and the NRPD. Production of these records began on March 4, 2021, and continued in fits and starts over the following 8 months. As of the publication date of this article, NRPD had yet to complete production of all requested disciplinary records. For the reasons described above, our “Clown Show” series is reporting on incidents in the past, sometimes the distant past, but our obtaining the records published in this series has only just occurred in recent months, weeks or days and so while the Internal Affairs charges, investigations and resulting command disciplines are not new the public disclosure of them is new, hence “news”. Most, if not all, of the information contained in these decades of previously secret records is becoming known to the public for the first time through this series.