Warwick DPW worker wants charge dropped

WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) -- A Warwick city employee, charged with taking more than $1500 in city property, filed a motion to dismiss the larceny charge, three months after winning back his DPW job and close to a year of back pay.

In his motion, Kenneth Naylor’s attorney argues the 13-year Department of Public Works employee did not intend to keep the city property permanently.

“There is no larceny when a person takes the property to temporarily use and return the property,” attorney David Revens wrote in the motion.

Revens did not return a phone call from Target 12.

Warwick Police claim they acted on a tip and followed Naylor in September of 2011 as he left the DPW yard with a pick-up truck filled with city equipment and pipe. According to a police department document, the load included shovels, a chain saw, a rake, cast iron pipe and a gas can.

Naylor claimed then, and now in his motion, that what he did was acceptable under Warwick DPW ‘policy’.

“In fact,” Naylor’s motion to dismiss states. “The Department of Public Works…has had for decades an unwritten policy permitting employees to borrow all sorts of equipment.”

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The motion goes on to argue that ‘It is clear, from all the information obtained in the information packet, that the defendant had no malice or intent to steal’.

After the Naylor case broke, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian said the city no longer would allow city employees to borrow equipment or supplies. Earlier this year, Avedisian enacted a city code of ethics executive order.

Naylor was fired about a month after his September, 2011 arrest. Last August, he was re-instated by an arbitrator who awarded the DPW worker about nine months of back pay.

The President of Council 94, which represents Naylor, told Target 12 the City of Warwick committed a form of ‘double jeopardy’ by punishing Naylor twice; First with a 20-day suspension and then by firing him.

Meanwhile, in the criminal case, Naylor pleaded not guilty to one count of larceny in March. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for next month.

In an unrelated case, Warwick Police are currently investigating Warwick DPW Senior Equipment Operator Dan Conley for allegedly taking city loam from the Warwick compost facility.

Send news tips to Target 12 Investigator Walt Buteau at wbuteau@wpri.com and follow Walt on Twitter: @wbuteau .