6 March—Back in halcyon Litchfield, it’s refreshing, to say the least, that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) won’t back former town garage foreman Richard Jespersen’s grievance against the town for firing the admitted thief last year. I wrote about it in November in ironically titled Shame on Denise Raap.

The thieving bugger is out and AFSCME is to be congratulated for doing the right thing. May it ever be thus.

So what’s next? As things stand, Litchfield is out the $17,000-plus in goods, services, and who knows what else Jespersen is known to have misappropriated. No alleged about it. As I wrote in November, that’s a possible Class C felony, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $10,000; and, in addition to the fine and vacation up the river, a felony conviction can cost a public-sector employee his pension.

Litchfield’s vigilant first selectman and board colleagues chose not to press criminal charges against Jespersen when his larceny was discovered lest he plead out to a mere misdemeanor, which could have forced the town to let him keep his job. But now that he’s out, the town should go for it.

Denise Raap and the selectmen should prevail upon the police and prosecutor to throw the book at Richard Jespersen because he certainly deserves to be locked up and fined to the max. And, convicted of a felony, he won’t get his pension, only a refund of his actual contribution.

Or, if Jespersen pays back every penny he stole from Litchfield—plus, perhaps, a lagniappe for pain, suffering, and inconvenience—we can forget about the criminal prosecution. Live and let live and all that nonsense.

Sad to say, realistically and based on the cockeyed justice we’ve been seeing far too often in criminal prosecutions in Connecticut, Richard Jespersen’s paid criminal lawyer (because I don’t want to think he qualifies for a public defender) is likely to plead him down to a misdemeanor with a negligible, nondeterrent fine and no time in the slammer, with perhaps a couple of years’ probation and minimal, meaningless community service.

So the town and taxpayers of Litchfield will continue to be screwed. And Richard Jespersen will get to keep his handsome pension and gloat over his good fortune while he’s out mowing lawns for his landscaping business, which may well be the recipient of Litchfield’s unwitting largess . . .