City employees piling up cell phone bills

Erin Neff

Monday, July 31, 2000 | 11:10 a.m.

City employees are racking up thousands of hours on cell phones to conduct not just official business but also personal calls, records show.

The records, requested by the Sun, show the city spent $61,250 paying for calls made by 365 of its employees in the first six months of 2000.

That number does not include the cost of the phones, the service contract, or the amount spent by emergency and code enforcement personnel for a separate two-way radio pager system with phone capabilities -- an amount that tops $300,000 annually.

The records showcase a huge disparity in phone use, from 11 cents charged by Mayor Oscar Goodman to more than $1,000 for Public Works employee Chris Finberg.

But the most unusual facet of the 1,200 pages of records is the secrecy granted Goodman's executive assistant, William Cassidy.

Cassidy's bill for the period from January to June is the highest citywide at $1,686. Yet it's the special handling of the records, not the amount, that raises eyebrows.

The records, first requested by the Sun four weeks ago, were not made public by the city until late Friday -- after certain numbers were removed from Cassidy's records.

"We talked with the city attorney's office, and they said that as long as the bill was paid by the employee and that releasing the number would be detrimental to someone's safety, it is OK to block them out," said David Riggleman, the city's communication manager.

Six numbers are blocked out so that only the last four digits of the nine-digit number appear.

Cassidy called one of the numbers 220 times for a total of 769 minutes and a cost of $281, according to the records. The five other blocked-out numbers account for 128 calls for a total of 224 minutes and $86.79.

"There are only a couple of people involved, although there are different numbers," Cassidy said.

Why the secrecy?

"It's a personal safety issue," he said.

Cassidy, who worked as a private investigator for the defense team in the Ted Binion murder trial, took a leave of his city position when the trial began.

He did not, however, leave the city cell phone behind, according to the dates and times of his phone use.

Cassidy said he was told when he got the phone that personal calls were permitted as long as he paid for them. Cassidy has paid for all of his cell phone calls -- not just the personal ones -- "out of an abundance of caution."

"I view it like I'm buying the phone from them," Cassidy said. "I've paid more than I owe by several hundred dollars just so that I'm not using taxpayer money."

As new defense lawyers for Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy try to win the convicted killers a new trial, Cassidy's connections to the first trial will be the focus of an upcoming court hearing alleging that he meddled in the original case.

Cassidy would not comment on the nature of his calls to the blocked-out numbers, but he would not deny they were related to the Binion case.

Goodman, a criminal defense attorney who represented Murphy before he took office, has tried to distance himself from the Binion case.

"There's nothing I can do about that," Goodman said, referring to recent legal filings naming Cassidy as a back-door operative who interfered with the defense case. "He's told me he didn't do that, and I believe him until there's proof otherwise."

While Cassidy's cloak-and-dagger cell phone use includes the most long-distance calls among city staff, most other employees use their phones strictly for local calls.

City Councilman Lawrence Weekly, who has the second-highest bill at $1,139, makes the majority of his calls to other city offices during work hours.

The same is true of the other council members. Larry Brown's bill was $911, Lynette Boggs McDonald's bill was $519, Michael Mack's bill was $894 and Gary Reese's was $268.

Councilman Michael McDonald's record is impossible to track as his bill shows he only phoned one number -- his personal cell phone -- for a total of $300. His ward liaison, Rick Henry, also phoned McDonald's cell repeatedly in his $745 bill.

Even though all council members have cell phones, some also have personal cells and barely use the city-issued ones. Goodman, with only one 1-minute call on his city phone for the first six months of the year, opts to use his personal cell phone for the majority of city business when he is away from his office.

Some might think the city's highest-ranking officials need to use the phones the most. But City Manager Virginia Valentine's bill was $832, while her deputy managers' bills were just $62 and $75 each. City Attorney Brad Jerbic's bill was just $220, compared with $1,030 billed to Goodman aide Chris Castro.

Some employees freely used their phones for long-distance calls, and many get billed for calling toll-free numbers, checking voice mail and accessing time and temperature, according to the records.

Cassidy, for example, called 16 different cities long-distance on a repeated basis. He placed 109 calls to his former residence in Irvine, Calif., for a total of 264 minutes and $91.