Hellertown Council Approves Resolution to Cut Former Police Chief’s Pension

Hellertown Borough Council approved a resolution at last week’s council meeting that will nix the pension of ex-Hellertown Police Chief Robert Shupp, who pleaded guilty to three theft-related charges earlier this spring.

The resolution noted that Shupp forfeits his pension due to his conviction for crimes related to public employees, and any contributions he made will be returned without interest. The accrued defined pension benefit will be retroactive to March 6.

Shupp was sentenced to 9 to 23 months in Northampton County Prison on April 23 and began serving that sentence with eligibility for work release on April 30. He must pay court costs related to the case’s prosecution as well as fines totaling $10,000. Judge John Morganelli noted that Shupp had paid $41,000 in restitution to the borough as of his sentencing date.

During the meeting, councilwoman Liz Thompson said she and councilman Andrew Hughes attended the sentencing.

“Interestingly, according to the judge, the former chief initially cited political pressure from the borough mayor (David Heintzelman) and borough council president (Tom Rieger) as the reason for his time card fraud,” Thompson said.

“Now that the court case is behind us, I’d like our residents to have the truth. And so, there are some questions that I still have and that our residents have that I would love answers to,” Thompson said. “Why were the charges for the over $80,000 in time card fraud really dropped? What checks and balances were not followed that allowed the theft to happen? What controls have been updated or are now being followed to give our residents peace of mind that this will not happen again?”

After some discussion, Rieger said to Thompson, “I’m looking you right in the eye. I have no idea what he’s talking about–‘political pressure.’ I think we all gave pressure for him to do a job, which apparently he was not doing, but I have no idea what he is talking about.”

Council solicitor Michael Corriere said the time card fraud charges weren’t pursued due to “insufficient evidence, according to (the) DA.”

“In other words, they couldn’t prove if it was authorized or not,” Corriere said.

“That question (regarding the time card fraud) really goes to his manager, who is the mayor,” said Hughes. “The mayor, in the borough system, has one employee–it’s the chief of police. The mayor has the responsibility to set performance goals, conduct annual reviews and handle their time card. So, if the mayor is not doing those things, hence to the solicitor’s point, you can’t really prove there was a criminal act.”

“I had made comments that it wasn’t a criminal act because fundamentally, in my opinion, the mayor didn’t do his managerial job of managing the police chief,” Hughes added.

Thompson made a motion to have council request a date and time suitable for Heintzelman–who was absent from last week’s meeting with prior notification–to answer questions from the public regarding the management and approval of Shupp’s time cards. “This motion is so that we have transparency with our residents,” she said.

The motion was approved 5-2, with Rieger and councilman Michael McKenna voting against it.

“Moving forward, we must learn from these failures, hold our elected officials to a higher standard and implement stronger checks and balances to restore trust in our community,” Hughes said. “Our work is not yet done.”

The next borough council meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 19 at 7 p.m. at Hellertown Borough Hall and online.