Former NP Fire Chief Accused Of Stealing Thousands of Dollars

 By: Liz Tufts

A former fire chief in North Providence. could soon be facing legal action after cashing a check for almost 20–thousand dollars that wasn’t his.

Now Mayor Charlie Lombardi is fuming. After going over the yearly budget, he proposed giving the current fire chief a 6–percent pay raise, but one town councilor wouldn’t budge. In fact, Lombardi says Kristen Catanzaro said it was way too much.

That’s when mayor Lombardi went back to see how much her husband,  former fire chief Steven Catanzaro,  made when he was in charge. what he found was alarming.

“I checked her husband’s history of pay raises one year it was 18 percent then the next 22 percent, ” says Lombardi.

In 2001, his pay increased by close to 13– percent to more than 70,000 a year. In 2002, his raise was more than 20–percent, but what stuck out like a sore thumb is this: In January of 2002,  he was issued a more than 20,000 dollar pay check.

It should have been 23–hundred.

This check was deposited and cashed and we would like the answers, ” says Lombardi.

We went to Catanzaro’s North Providence home, and no answer.

Lombardi vows to get to the bottom of it. “What makes me mad is that we have a council woman here and makes a big deal about salary and then doesn’t check her family’s skeletons, ” says Lombardi.

We want to point out Lombardi was not the mayor when this all happened.

A letter has been sent to Catanzaro’s home demanding payment. He has ten days or the town will take legal action.