“He was never chief:” Girardville fires officer-in-charge accused of misconduct
Lt. named acting officer-in-charge; fourth in as many years
GIRARDVILLE – Girardville has another officer-in-charge, the fourth in as many years.
After a brief executive session, borough council voted Wednesday to fire Ofc. Fabrizio Bivona and appoint Lt. Jeremy Talanca as acting officer-in-charge.
“He was never the chief,” Mayor Judy Mehlbaum said after the meeting. Bivona has identified himself as Girardville’s Chief of Police in multiple emails to the media.
Bivona has been suspended since Dec. 11 for matters under investigation, borough solicitor Arlen Day said.
Day said a subsequent suspension was issued Dec. 30.
Bivona tried to file charges against two officers Dec. 13, days after his suspension. The charges were thrown out by Magisterial District Court because of his suspension.
“The charges that he filed against the police officers, there’s no way,” Day said.
In the charges, Bivona alleged two borough officers illegitimately entered a home on North 4th Street in the borough in May.
He appeared on a podcast, The Zelenko Report, making “false statements” about the borough and police officers, Day said, including the charges he filed while suspended, claiming the incident was directed by Mehlbaum.
“In the podcast, he talks about an 11-year-old girl, I looked at the video [of the incident] and there is no girl in the video. There never was,” Day said.
“Nothing on [the podcast] was the truth,” Mehlbaum said.
Bivona, Day said, was also insubordinate and failed to follow procedures relating to punching timecards.
“There were a number of issues,” Day said.
Mehlbaum said Bivona has not returned borough property issued to him, despite repeated requests, including his badge and keys for borough hall and the police car. She added that the locks have been changed at borough hall.
In the suspension notice provided to Bivona on Dec. 30, he was accused of failing to punch his timecard, working at times he was instructed not to, filing unwarranted criminal charges against other officers while suspended, making false statements that council was going to terminate him, making false and misleading public statements about the mayor, council, and two officers, falsely representing himself as chief, and failing to turn in his badge, keys, and borough property when instructed to do so.
Bivona says he was hired last March and named officer-in-charge after Chief Fred Lahovski resigned.
Since 2020, Girardville has had four people leading the police department.
Jody Long was appointed chief of the department in on Sept. 10, 2020. He was the first official chief named since Melville Tomeo in 2016.
Lahovski replaced Long as chief in Feb. of 2021. Since Lahovski’s resignation, the department had been led by an officer-in-charge, Bivona, and now Talanca.
Bivona was not present at Wednesday’s meeting.
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