Jun 15, 2016 4 min read

Former Cecil Township police Chief John Pushak said he had a “very complicated answer” when a state trooper asked him whether he’d put any funds from a special department account to personal use.

“Did I mismanage the account? Yes. Did I steal? No,” Pushak said to Trooper David Bayer later in an interview Dec. 11, 2013. “I would never steal from the police department.”

Washington County Assistant District Attorney Jerry Moschetta played a recording of the interview Wednesday, the second day of Pushak’s jury trial on two felony charges of theft and failure to make required disposition of funds and a misdemeanor charge of misapplication of entrusted government property.

The charges stem from allegations he improperly withdrew about $10,000 from the department’s federal property account between January 2010 and January 2013 and used it to gamble at area casinos.

Jurors listened to the recording as part of testimony by Bayer, who was the last witness called by the prosecution.

Pushak’s attorneys maintain the former chief’s actions weren’t criminal.

When questioned by defense attorney Thomas Brown, Bayer said Wednesday no one ever indicated to him that Pushak was trying to hide his activities or withdrawals.

In the interview played for the jury Wednesday, Pushak admitted to Bayer he used a debit card for the federal property account, over which he had sole control, to withdraw cash to gamble when his own debit account was at its limit.

When Bayer asked Pushak if the account was short because of his trips to the casino, Pushak said, “I don’t know.”

He told Bayer “when this all came down, I excluded myself from the casino” and sought counseling.

An audibly distressed Pushak said he learned in counseling “it wasn’t a gambling problem,” he said. “I had a casino problem.”

Pushak also told Bayer he and his wife, who died of cancer in 2008, were married in Las Vegas. Going to casinos had been a form of “mindless entertainment” during the six years she fought the illness.

“We went to the casino a lot,” he said.

His trips continued following her death. He said the occasions he made withdrawals from the federal property account for gambling money were about “buying time at the casino.”

The township’s federal property account was set up in December 2009 with money distributed by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The special account carried stipulations, including that funds in it couldn’t be mingled with other government money, and that acceptable uses of the fund included drug investigations or equipment purchases.

Bayer’s investigation covered a period spanning from late December 2009 until January 2013, the month before township supervisors placed Pushak on administrative leave and commissioned a private investigation into the federal property account.

Pushak resigned April 1, 2013. He’d been in the department for 38 years; he’d been chief for 32.

The prosecution alleged from when the account was set up until early 2013, only three of 31 withdrawals were of funds used in drug investigations.

The Meadows Racetrack & Casino in North Strabane Township and Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh were among the locations withdrawals from the account were made.

The prosecution also alleges Pushak diverted payments from third parties who paid for township police officers to work security details from the general fund, where that money should have gone, into the federal property account to maintain the balance.

Pushak repaid the roughly $10,000 found to be short from the fund, according to testimony and court documents.

Jurors also heard from two character witnesses called by the defense.

One, Phyllis Zaccarino, a former township supervisor and neighbor of Pushak’s, described him as “honest, reliable, a good neighbor” and “not a trouble-maker.”

Pushak has been free on his own recognizance since he was arrested.