NYPD officer fired after ticketing dead people, blames quotas

AutoBlog: NYPD officer fired after ticketing dead people, blames quotas

A New York City Police Department officer has been fired for a ticket-writing scheme after 17 years on the force. According to The New York Post, Paul Pizzuto wrote summonses to drivers he'd ticketed in the past, some of whom had been deceased for years by the time the citations arrived in the mail.

Pizzuto says he started writing the fake tickets after command told him he needed to start writing more on top of the 125 to 150 he was already issuing. Colleagues raised concerns when they realized Pizzuto never showed up in court for the additional summonses.

The former officer pled guilty to three counts of falsifying business records earlier this year. The NYPD, meanwhile, denies pushing Pizzuto for more tickets and accuses him of trying to pad his pay with his efforts. Pizzuto claims he was improperly fired because the NYPD didn't give him a hearing over the matter. The police department, meanwhile, says he was let go because the citations were an "oath of office" offense, meaning Pizzuto wasn't entitled to a hearing.

Pizzuto was one of three officers busted in the scandal, and he not only lost his job, he received 150 hours of community service along with a docked pension.