Firefighter/sex offender files complaint because fire department won’t let him join
Some of you may remember the wonderful Joe Fragoso. Fragoso made news as part of the series of scandals plaguing Connecticut’s Coventry Volunteer Fire Association in 2013. Fragoso, then a lieutenant, and his chief, Joseph Carilli, were charged with having sexual contact with some of the department’s junior firefighters.
In 2014, Joe Fragoso entered a guilty plea to second-degree sexual assault for molesting a 16-year-old female member of the department. Released from prison last December, Fragoso tried to join the Derby Fire Department in February.
The Derby Fire Department said no, so Fragoso filed a complaint last week with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Fragoso says the department is discriminating against him because of his criminal conviction and his Hispanic heritage.
Derby Fire Commissioner Michael Kelleher stands by the decision to keep Fragoso out of the department. Valley Independent Sentinel reporter Eugene Driscoll noted that Fragoso isn’t supposed to have unsupervised contact with children under 18 that aren’t his own and that the Derby Fire Department has members who are under 18.
Here’s more from Driscoll’s article:
“As part of my rehabilitation, I went through therapy and successfully completed treatment,” he wrote in his complaint.
Fragoso says Derby FD “retaliated” against him by contacting the State Fire Commissioner’s Office, which caused more trouble.
“The state is pursuing revocation of my firefighter certificates,” he wrote.
Fragoso said other “non-Hispanic, white firefighters have been arrested and/or convicted of crimes” but have not been removed from the department.
