Raymond Newbold was a 41-year-old Nassau police officer when he fell and injured his knee on the job. The state pension system declared him disabled, and he retired on a disability pension. But today he works as a lifeguard at Jones Beach, where his supervisor says he runs, jumps and swims extremely well. His disability pension: $49,568 a year, tax-free.

Richard Franzese was head of the Suffolk narcotics squad and a rising star until the department charged him with sabotaging a drug case. Two days before his departmental trial he had an on-duty car accident. As a result, he said, he often fell asleep involuntarily and couldn't concentrate. One doctor suspected he was malingering, but others disagreed. The state declared him disabled before his charges could come to trial. Today, at 47, he's a state-licensed private investigator. His disability pension: $56,823 a year, tax-free.

Robert Rich was a 30-year-old Nassau police officer when he said he slipped on applesauce from an overturned tractor-trailer. He gave conflicting versions of the incident. For years, he complained of neck pain and fought to retire on disability, but the department declared him a sick-leave abuser. After 15 years, the state found Rich disabled, partly based on a psychiatric report that said he truly believed he was disabled. Police later learned Rich had run a lawn-mowing business while complaining of his injuries. His disability pension: $60,471 a year, tax-free.

A boom in police disability pension claims on Long Island over the past decade has cost taxpayers tens of millions of extra dollars and produced dozens of cases like those of Newbold, Franzese and Rich, a Newsday investigation has found. Hundreds of officers have taken advantage of loose guidelines and weak oversight in the state's police disability pension program to win lucrative, tax-free windfalls at public expense.

The police disability system, whose financial rewards have been stretched and sweetened over the years by the State Legislature and the courts, has evolved into a program that invites malingering and fraud and pays a large portion of its benefits to officers whose injuries had nothing to do with fighting crime. Long Island police officials believe that as many as one in three disability claims may be fraudulent or highly exaggerated.

"The original purpose was a bona fide, good, humanitarian purpose," says Suffolk Comptroller Joseph Caputo. "A policeman or woman gets hurt on the job, they should be protected and provided for. But the benefits have been stretched and stretched to the extent that in some cases now it's abused - without question it's abused."

In some recent years, one third of Long Island police officers who retired received disability pensions - the highest rate in the state, higher than many big cities such as Los Angeles, Boston and Washington and as high as New York City. Overall, more than 1,000 former Nassau and Suffolk officers are collecting almost $34 million a year.

Those who win the disability lottery, as they say in police slang, get up to three-quarters of their final annual salary - often inflated by last-year overtime - with no federal or state tax or Social Security taken out. That can amount to as much as several hundred thousand dollars more than a regular pension, which is subject to federal taxes, over their retirement years. Many also collect Social Security disability payments - in effect, a second tax-free pension.

Retired in their 30s or 40s, they are free to engage in vigorous sports, enjoy a life of leisure or pursue a new career. Most have no limit on their earnings. Even those with strenuous jobs, or new jobs in law enforcement, don't have to fear ever losing their pensions. In what Deputy State Comptroller John Mauhs described as a flaw in the system, disability pensions are considered permanent and aren't re- evaluated after they're granted.

Former Suffolk police Officer Albert Wieda can jump off cliffs to fly his hang glider without worrying that he'll jeopardize his disability pension, which was granted for what the state said was a permanent and disabling groin ailment he said he got after he moved the spare tire in his police car. Former Nassau police sergeant Neil Maiorino can patrol the streets of the village of Head of the Harbor as director of public safety without endangering his pension, which he received after slipping on paper towels at police headquarters. Police officials say that most cases are legitimate. And union leaders say they have documentation for every disability application that is filed.

"If . . . you get injured in the line of duty and you're entitled to a benefit, then you should get that benefit," said Nassau Police Benevolent Association President Gary DelaRaba, who acknowledges that there are the "appearances of some abuses."

"The way you lose a benefit is by abusing it," DelaRaba said. And police and county officials on Long Island say the system does breed abuses. Often the ailments that lead to disability are the bad-back problems common to middle age. Often the mishap is a slip-and-fall that has nothing to do with apprehending criminals and that nobody else witnessed.

Some of the claims come from officers in trouble, those facing criminal or departmental charges. And if the officer retires on disability, departmental charges are automatically dropped. One former Nassau officer collected his tax-free disability pension payments of $32,304 a year while doing time in Attica for drug-dealing.

Long Island's strong police unions have helped shape the lucrative system, and they continue to exert strong influence in Albany and on Long Island. Many of the pension applications are shepherded through the system by a small circle of lawyers and doctors. Several of the law firms have strong ties to the unions, which make the same expert legal representation available free - or at nominal cost - whether they be officers convicted of crimes or those injured by criminals.

In some states, disability pensions are just for those who can't work at all, and disability retirees caught in vigorous physical activity have been charged with crimes or have lost their benefits. But in New York, seemingly outrageous disability cases can be perfectly legal, and fraudulent ones are rarely if ever prosecuted.

Suffolk police Sgt. Brian Bugge investigated a case in which his department charged an officer with pension fraud. The state approved the pension anyway. He said: "There's absolutely no penalty for deceit or manipulation or outright fraud. The state has no system in place to control that. A cop who decides to lie has nothing to lose. The worst that can happen is they'll say you're not disabled. So you might as well try - the union's paying the legal fees."

Nassau and Suffolk police officials say they've repeatedly tried to alert the pension system to applications they considered fraudulent, and have even sent state officials videotapes of officers engaged in vigorous activity at times when they were telling doctors they could hardly move. But they said they found the state uninterested and uncooperative.

"To show you how blatant it is, a lot of these guys, when the state grants them their retirement, we see them a few months later, when they come in for their final check or whatever," said Sgt. Vincent Ward, former head of the Suffolk police medical unit.

"And they walk in fine . . . And he says, 'It's amazing - I went to Lourdes, and I got the miraculous cure.' It's like they're rubbing your nose in it." Lourdes, a Roman Catholic shrine in France, attracts millions of visitors who believe that miraculous cures have occurred there.

Nassau Police Commissioner Donald Kane and Suffolk Police Commissioner Peter Cosgrove said Long Island's high disability rates reflect changing attitudes among officers, who now file detailed reports documenting bumps and sprains that they would have shrugged off a generation ago. "I think the whole philosophy about the job has changed over the years," Kane said. "The old-time cop . . . you crawled to work if you had to, that was the code."

The pension system is part of the state comptroller's office, but both the present comptroller and his predecessor had little to say about its operations. Comptroller H. Carl McCall, who took office in May, 1993, said in April that he was just beginning to look into how the disability system works.

"Since I've been here I've heard a lot of concerns about the whole system, the process, the legislation that really determines what happens with disabilities . . . It seems to me now that I've been here for almost a year this is one of the responsibilities I have - that it's probably appropriate for me to review the entire system, in terms of how it works," McCall said.

Former Comptroller Edward V. Regan, who stepped down early last year, talked briefly about his concerns over Long Island disability rates but declined to be interviewed in detail. He said that for some months after an internal study in 1991 highlighted the problem, pension officials simply stuffed applications from Nassau and Suffolk into drawers and let them gather dust. He attributed the problem partly to the Long Island lawyers who specialize in police disability cases, whom he described as "very, very, very clever lawyers who have taken advantage of everything."

Mauhs, the top-ranking civil servant in the system, said his staff has merely been running the program under the rules created by the courts and the Legislature. In late 1992, he said, the system instituted some tighter guidelines for disability applicants who could still work in light-duty jobs or who earned substantial overtime before applying. Pension officials cited a recent decline in Long Island's police disability rate as evidence of stronger administration.

But the PBA's DelaRaba said the decline simply reflected the state's concern over Newsday's investigation, which started more than a year ago.

Referring to the investigation, he said, "The light that you shed on this . . . has created them to go slam on the brakes." DelaRaba said that last year "when we went upstate to talk to them . . . the buzz was that everybody knew that this thing was coming out. We haven't heard from anybody since then."

Since the pension system was formed for police and firefighters in 1967 it has operated largely in secrecy, with little outside oversight. State law makes police personnel and medical records confidential, and neither the Legislature nor the executive branch has ever monitored the system's decision-making.

Newsday's examination of the police disability pension system was based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of pages of police and medical records. Over the next week, Newsday will present its findings in a series of stories. Among the key findings:

Most injuries don't involve catching crooks. State and police officials say most injuries that produce disability pensions occur without a lawbreaker in sight. Many police get pensions from unwitnessed slip-and-fall claims during mundane activities that ordinary citizens risk all the time, such as working in offices or getting in and out of cars. One fell out of a chair; others said they tripped on rugs, stairs, wet pavement, ice in parking lots, paper towels or a telephone cord. Former Suffolk PBA president Edward Johnson collects $33,011 a year merely for bumping his elbow as he walked through a doorway.

Officers in trouble tap the system. Long Island officers convicted of drug dealing, burglary, child molesting and attempted murder have softened their falls with disability pensions. Nassau police Officer Ronald Hertz, charged with dealing cocaine, kicked down a door seeking vengeance on a man he suspected of being an informant the day after the state found him disabled with a back problem, then collected his tax-free $32,304-a-year disability pension while serving time in Attica.

Others have escaped departmental charges by retiring on disability. Once an officer retires, departmental charges can no longer be pursued. Suffolk Lt. William Birks, charged with insubordination in 1991 for refusing to take a "for-cause" drug test, retired on a $55,957-a-year disability pension before his case could be prosecuted. The state comptroller's office has repeatedly proposed bills to cut off pensions for police and other public employees convicted of certain crimes, but the bills always die in committee.

Evidence suggesting fraud isn't pursued. Senior police officials say they've repeatedly given the state strong evidence of fraud, including surveillance videotapes showing disability applicants doing things they'd claimed they couldn't do. Suffolk police Officer John Luciano, now retired on a $34,116-a-year disability pension, was videotaped working vigorously on his boat right after he told a county doctor he was laid up with back pain. But police officials say they've been rebuffed by pension officials who were uncooperative and uninterested. The state system has no fraud investigators and only 15 examiners to screen approximately 4,500 disability applications a year from police and other municipal employees statewide. Although state law gives the system broad powers to look into the veracity of disability claims, Mauhs said probing fraud isn't part of his agency's job: "We are not an investigative agency, we're a retirement system."

Pensions are never re-evaluated. Some disability retirees work in physically demanding jobs or play vigorous sports. Former Nassau police Officer Paul Fedorys is a jail guard and is required to be able to subdue unruly prisoners. Former Suffolk Lt. John Ryan plays shortstop on a local softball team. Former Nassau police Officer Edward Jensen advertises transmission installation. Former Nassau police Officer Vincent Bovino operates a mail-order business selling a drink designed to thwart drug tests and works out regularly with exercise machines. Former Nassau police Officer Michael Yarocki does carpentry and says he could return to full police duty. And even though pension officials know that former Suffolk police Officer Albert Ianuzzi filed a document in court admitting he isn't disabled and could work, they say they can't take away his pension. Some other states require periodic re-examinations and have taken away pensions in some cases, but New York doesn't.

A few doctors and lawyers handle many cases. A small group of Long Island physicians and attorneys has played a central role in the disability boom, handling scores of cases. Police and county officials criticize two orthopedists, in particular, as too quick to find their police patients disabled, and records show some of their patients got disability pensions even though they were caught in vigorous activities.

One was Nassau police Officer Robert Grzymala, who told the department he had too much back pain to testify in a criminal trial, then was caught playing 23 consecutive holes of golf two days later. Four law firms with police union connections handle most of Long Island's police disability cases, sometimes working closely with the doctors. Police unions pay all or most of many applicants' legal fees.

The state has failed to curb abuses. Some other states - California, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas - have a variety of systems in place that officials say help to eliminate some of the abuses found on Long Island. They include regular physical re-evaluations, prohibitions against some occupations, loss of pension for conviction of certain crimes and vigorous pursuit of fraud. In New York, such proposals for reforms have died in legislative committee, victims of strong police union lobbying effort on one side and little public interest on the other. Twenty-eight years ago, then-State Comptroller Arthur Levitt warned that the system could "get out of hand" if the Legislature kept increasing benefits. Many officials think that is exactly what happened. "Unless someone is pushing on the other side, i.e. someone representing the taxpayers, the process lets this stuff slide through," said Robert Helm, former counsel to a state commission that studied pension issues.

Former State Comptroller Regan said he began to realize a few years ago that something was odd about the number of disability pensions awarded to members of the Nassau and Suffolk police departments. Long Island applicants seemed to be getting too big a slice of the pie.

As the state's top fiscal officer, Regan's job included supervising the system that provides pensions for all police officers and firefighters in the state except those in New York City, which has its own pension fund. He ordered his staff to look into what was going on and give him a report.

When Regan got the study in November, 1991, the numbers confirmed his suspicions. The Long Island statistics were way out of line with the rest of the state.

Taken together, the five largest cities in the system - Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Albany and Yonkers - had about 2,900 police officers. In the five years from April, 1986, through March, 1991, the five cities had 62 officers retire on disability.

During the same period, Suffolk County, with about 2,500 officers, had 202 get disability pensions. Nassau, with about 2,800 officers, had 225 disability retirees. For both Long Island departments, the annual percentage of retirees getting disability pensions went as high as 34 percent, compared with the statewide average of 17.6 percent. Officers from Nassau and Suffolk, the report said, "are filing for disability at an unusually high rate."

Since that report, the comptroller's office has released new figures that show a slight increase in pension awards for 1991.

The percentage of applications approved by the retirement system was higher for Long Island police, too - 84 percent for Nassau and 87 percent for Suffolk, compared with an average rate of 68.4 percent for the five cities.

Currently, the 605 Nassau officers retired on disability collect about $19.1 million a year. The 465 Suffolk disability retirees get about $14.7 million a year.

Nassau and Suffolk officials who deal with police disability claims are quick to criticize the administration of the state pension system, but they also say that officers are reacting in a predictable way to the sweetening of the program over the past few decades by the State Legislature.

Assistant Nassau County Attorney Peter McDonald, who heads the county unit that monitors employee injuries, said state disability pensions have become "just too easy to get. We have sent reports from our independent consultant doctors to Albany in which these consultants, after examining the police officers, have said 'no disability.' However, the state pension system comes back with a notice that the pension has been granted."

"If the system makes the likelihood of getting three-quarters so great and the down side is just that you don't get it, that's all, no penalty for questionable claims, what has anyone got to lose? The legal and medical advice given to police engenders a mentality that unless a person is very naive, you're foolish, you're entitled to this; if you don't take it, you're stupid."

Both Long Island police commissioners, Kane and Cosgrove, said police attitudes have changed significantly since they were young officers.

Kane: "If you were the detective who was 'squealing' - catching cases that day - you did not want to be sick and have somebody else have to catch your squeals. The peer pressure was enormous. That doesn't exist today. Matter of fact, you'd probably be considered - 'What are you, a dummy?' You know, 'What are you doing here?' Because if you sign off sick, then there's a chance for somebody else to make overtime."

Cosgrove: "When I came on, this was an all-male culture, and it was a real macho environment. If you made a difficult arrest and you rolled around on the floor, you didn't want to admit you were hurt. You just shook it off and kept working. I think over the years that's faded."

Disability pensions for police in New York have existed since early in the century. But for many years, police unions faced a serious political handicap in their pursuit of improved benefits. Their members belonged to the same pension system as most other state and municipal workers, so their proposals for benefit increases were judged according to the cost of providing those increases to the whole 200,000- member system. Often their requests were considered too costly.

Through the early 1960s the unions lobbied the Legislature for a change that would cost nothing extra at first but would make future benefits increases easier to obtain. The proposal would set up a separate pension system just for police and firefighters. Long Island's volunteer firefighters are not covered by this system.

A key ally proved to be then-state Sen. Thomas Mackell (D- Queens), a former New York City police officer, who sponsored a bill to create such a system. "It has become extremely difficult in recent years for policemen and firemen to obtain certain benefits," Mackell wrote in a letter to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in 1966, calling the situation "grossly unfair."

"Because of the very nature of police and fire duties, the hazards involved, the hours involved, the pressures and tensions, etc., police and fire work is a rather unique profession and the benefits applicable thereto are likewise unique." A separate system, Mackell argued, would "place policemen and firemen in a position where they have a fair opportunity to obtain the benefits and protections their professions demand . . . "

Then-State Comptroller Arthur Levitt supported the measure. But according to records from legislative archives, Levitt also sent the governor a memo with a strong warning: " ....the increased cost to the participating employers may be quite substantial. Further, if the benefits of the policemen and firemen are increased, it may well be that the operation of the system will get out of hand."

Nevertheless, the Legislature and Rockefeller approved the measure, and the separate system was set up in 1967. What the police lobby had in mind for the future was explained clearly in a letter to the governor's counsel, Robert Douglass, from the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police: "Our intent with this bill is to be in a position where we can seek special benefits for policemen, which are necessary because of the nature of their work.... "

The next major political beachhead for the police unions involved the question of what constitutes an accident. During the 1970s and early 1980s, police disability applicants found that the pension system and the courts were rejecting many applications by using narrow definitions of what kinds of mishaps could be considered accidents.

Officers who hurt their backs lifting heavy people on trundles, for instance, weren't considered accident victims because such an assignment was considered an expected part of the job, an "incident" rather than an "accident."

John Ryan, 45, former Suffolk County police lieutenant, collects a $66,460-a-year, tax-free disability pension for a knee injury and plays shortstop in his spare time. Although he asked to return to the force, the department turned him down. He is shown playing in Shoreham last summer.

The police lobby pushed to add a new kind of "performance of duty" disability pension covering any on-the-job injury, regardless of whether "an accident" took place. As Floyd Holloway, a police lobbyist from Long Island, said in a 1984 letter to Gov. Mario Cuomo's office, "Injuries such as carrying a trundle, slipping on steps within the stationhouse, or other injuries 'incidental' to police employment will now be eligible to receive the disability."

At first glance, performance-of-duty disability pensions, paying 50 percent of final salary, appeared less costly than accidental disability pensions, which pay up to 75 percent. But as some critics saw it, the devil was in the details: Pensioners in the new category, unlike those in the accidental category, could also collect workers' compensation payments without any reduction in their state pension.

The State Insurance Department warned that the change "would produce very substantial increases in such benefits, to the extent that the benefit under the Retirement System plus Workers Compensation plus the Social Security disability benefit would in many, if not most, cases exceed the salary" the retiree made while working. The state's Conference of Mayors opposed the change, contending that: "A person should not receive substantially more money in tax-free disability payments than would be received if employed."

Sponsored by state Sen. Richard Schermerhorn (R-Newburgh) and Assemb. Joseph Lentol (D-Brooklyn), the measure sailed through both houses of the Legislature without a single dissenting vote and was signed by Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Lawyers for the police unions have also challenged the pension system in the courts, seeking to broaden the legal definition of an accident. There, too, they have won significant victories. For instance, Michael Axelrod, then the Nassau PBA's lawyer, won a case in 1985 setting the precedent that a slip-and-fall mishap need not include an actual fall to be considered an accident - just a slip is sufficient.

The next big pension issue was debated in 1987. Police and civil service unions lobbied to kill restrictions on disability retirees' outside income after they passed the date at which they would have become eligible for a regular pension. For police, this would be 20 years from when they joined the force; for civilians, after age 55.

Opposing the measure were the State Insurance Department, the Division of the Budget and the state's pension commission, an advisory agency that's not part of the pension system. They argued that a disability retiree could wind up, as Insurance Superintendent James Corcoran put it, "financially better off than one who remained on the job," collecting a state pension, Social Security disability checks and an unrestricted private income. The Governor's Office of Employee Relations also argued against the change: "Disability retirement was designed to provide economic support for employees who could no longer perform their job duties and had a diminished capacity to earn a living."

But the Metropolitan Police Conference, a lobbying group, argued that limiting outside income "creates unnecessary hardship on the retired member and his family." Comptroller Regan's office wrote to Cuomo's counsel, "We have reviewed this measure and have no objection to its enactment." Sponsored by Schermerhorn and Assemb. Frank Barbaro (D-Brooklyn), the bill passed the state Senate unanimously and the Assembly by 144-1, with the entire Long Island delegation voting yes, and Cuomo signed it into law.

The lone dissenter, Assemb. Robert D'Andrea (R-Saratoga Springs), said he objected to retirees collecting both disability pensions and private paychecks. "It gets very expensive when you add up the number of people in these situations," he said.

Cuomo's office would not elaborate on why the governor had signed the pension-enhancing bills, except to issue a stock response. "He thought it was fair and reasonable," said deputy press secretary Thomas Conroy, when asked about each of the bills.

Deputy Comptroller Mauhs said the pension system got an upsurge in disability applications as soon as the income restrictions were lifted, a step he said he considered a mistake. But although there were some warnings along the way that the state's liberalizing of the police disability system could carry a big price tag, a dispute among bureaucrats over dry technicalities, carried out in bureaucratic language, seldom makes news, and the changes in the system took place with little public notice.

In the long run, the decision to give police their own pension fund led to a system that treats them better in some important ways than civilian government employees. The state pension system provides a disability retirement option for all employees. But in practice, the benefit is easier for police to get. Because their work requires them to be in top physical condition, they argue they are disabled for their occupation with only minor orthopedic problems. The system is also more generous for those who aren't disabled. They can collect a regular retirement pension after 20 years' service, while civilian employees must wait until they're 55. And police don't have to contribute any of their own money to their pensions, while many civilian employees have to contribute 3 percent of their salary.

Some officials say the political support enjoyed by police in a time of rising concern over crime - when some disabled officers can become celebrities who ride in parades and receive ovations - has made both politicians and civil servants disinclined to question disability applications, especially when they don't see anyone urging them to do so.

"I think the big problem with the system is there's not always someone on the other side," said Helm of the pension study commission. "The Legislature wants to get elected. You have the policemen, or unions generally, who want to get certain benefits. Unless someone is pushing on the other side, i.e. someone representing the taxpayers, the process lets this stuff slide through. Then things get out of hand."

Michael Yarocki, 46, a former Nassau officer, collects a $33,359-a-year, tax-free disability pension for a shoulder injury and works as a home improvement contractor. He is shown on the job at a Sayville restaurant last fall.

That's the same phrase - "out of hand" - that former State Comptroller Levitt used in his warning 28 years ago about the possible high costs of giving police and firefighters their own pension system. And given the State Legislature's record on police benefits issues, Long Island police officials say they are unhappy but not surprised that they have found little enthusiasm in the state pension system for cracking down on what they consider suspicious cases.

"There are people out there who we have investigated and we feel strongly should not have received accidental disability retirement," said Nassau Chief of Support Robert Sefton, a former commander of the department's medical unit. "But the state, in their wisdom, has determined that they're entitled to it, despite our objections or evidence to the contrary that they were not disabled."

The Nassau and Suffolk police medical units monitor officers' medical claims and investigate those suspected of malingering. Det. Sgt. Robert Kiesel, medical sergeant in Nassau for the past 12 years, said he believes that about one-third of disability pension applications are phony or highly exaggerated.

Robert Grzymala, 46, a former Nassau officer, has an 8.3 golf handicap and collects a $44,857-a-year, tax-free disability pension for a back injury. Police investigators found him playing golf two days after he said he was too injured to testify in a criminal case. He is shown playing last fall.

His former counterpart in Suffolk, Joseph Michaels, was asked what he thought the equivalent figure was in his county. "About 35 or 40 percent," said Michaels, who is now an aide to County Executive Robert Gaffney serving as chairman of the county's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

The case of Nassau police Officer James Molloy, who retired in 1991 at age 43, is typical of those who have left police officials frustrated. He claimed a back injury from a car accident, but the medical evidence was contradictory. His doctor and some test results supported his claim, but doctors who examined him for the county and state said he wasn't disabled.

While Molloy was on sick leave, the department got a tip that he was running a bar owned by his parents, Murphy's Law Pub in North Merrick. Police are prohibited by state law from working in places that sell alcohol. Investigators observed Molloy working at the bar and noted that the place had a gambling machine. Molloy was arrested in connection with working in a bar and promoting gambling, but a grand jury declined to indict him.

At Molloy's pension hearing, Kiesel testified that late one night he watched Molloy help a bar patron push a large car out of a snow bank where it was stuck, and Sgt. William Dempsey testified that he'd seen Molloy bend and squat while working at the bar with no sign of back problems. The hearing officer rejected Molloy's application, but the system later reconsidered his case and approved a $60,576-a-year disability pension.

"Give me a break," was Kiesel's reaction. But a state pension official said a re-examination found that Molloy's condition had deteriorated. Molloy didn't want to discuss his case. "My side of the story is I'm retired and I'm going to stay that way," he said.

Deputy Insp. John Sharp, commander of Nassau's Seventh Precinct and former head of the medical unit, said the department actually made more headway with the Molloy case than it usually did in trying to influence the state pension system. The usual situation, Sharp said, was that Kiesel and other investigators in the unit would develop evidence that a disability claim was fraudulent, only to have the state take no interest in pursuing or even discussing the evidence.

"We would follow them [officers on sick leave] and find them someplace - shopping, at home - doing things that were not possible to do by someone who claimed their level of disability."

Often, Sharp said, they shot videotapes of police on sick leave engaged in physically demanding activity and offered them to pension officials in Albany. "Those were the kinds of things we were prepared to offer New York state, and they were not interested. When I say they were not interested, I'm telling you - never, ever."