Parking enforcement officers in Utah accepted years of free pizza in a saucy scheme to save employees at one pie joint some dough — by not writing hundreds of tickets, according to a report.
Sicilia Pizza in the Salt Lake City dished up the kickbacks to Officer Jeff Clegg and three of his colleagues to avoid receiving parking violations, a KUTV investigation revealed Tuesday.
As much as $19,000 worth of fines — just under 800 tickets at $25 each — went uncollected, the outlet reported.
“If I see a menu of the restaurant in the lower left-hand corner of the vehicle, it is either an employee or the owner’s (of the restaurant) vehicle and we are not to cite those vehicles,” Clegg told the outlet.
He added that “it got to the point that we just go in the back (of the restaurant) and get what you want, so we would go behind the counter and get our own pizza.”
The deal was made between Clegg and restaurant owner Amrol Hararah, and was discovered during the station’s probe of Clegg’s firing, which he claimed was due to his complaints of workplace bullying.
After the station pressed the officer, he admitted he was ousted for the pizza payoffs.