The epitome of chutzpah

Former Stoughton, Massachusetts police officer David Cohen, who was found guilty of making an extortion attempt while on duty and in full uniform, has decided to attempt to bill his former employer for $113,496, the amount that this wingnut's attorney estimates (try not to howl with laughter here) Cohen's out for time spent preparing for his own unsuccessful criminal defense:

"In the letter dated Nov. 4, Cohen is seeking $113,000, which includes 87 accrued vacation days, 125 unused sick days, 144 hours of compensation time accrued for not using sick time, 152 hours of supervisor comp time, 481 hours for court appearances related to his criminal case, 280 hours of overtime to prepare for his case, at least 61 percent education incentive pay for 2007, and 61 percent for accrued stipends and benefits."

What a complete tool. Cohen's "lawyer", Brian Simoneau, should himself be disbarred for even agreeing to make such a goofball request, much less actually following through and doing so.

Unbelievably, he's not even the first disgraced ex-Stoughton cop caught up in this scandal to make this sort of ludicrous request:

"Former Police Chief Manuel Cachopa was found guilty by a superior court jury in January of acting as an accessory after the fact to protect Cohen from prosecution. A judge sentenced him to 1,000 hours of community service and three years of probation.

Cachopa, through his attorney Robert A. George, slapped the town with a bill for $500,000 seeking payment for his criminal defense."

After he no doubt finished having himself a good chuckle, the town's manager has announced that he's going to summarily decline to compensate these crooks for having to defend their own bad behavior, according to the story.

We think the public safety hiring system Stoughton's currently using needs to be closely examined as soon as possible, seeing as how a pair of clowns like Cohen and Cachopa somehow made it through the process.

UPDATE: We thought the former chief's name rang a bell. Here's a post we did last February on this very same story, in which we congratulated Stoughton Detective Supervisor Robert Welch for professionally and impartially (and, ultimately, quite successfully) investigating and exposing the rotten shenanigans of his fellow officers, despite being improperly demoted for doing so. (Welch has since been reinstated.)