The following letters of appreciation for New Canaan Police Department officers were presented to the Police Commission by Chief John DiFederico at the appointed body’s Oct. 19 meeting.
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Police Officer Joseph Schinella. Photo courtesy of NCPD
Officer Joseph Schinella
“Chief,
“I wanted to inform you of the hard work and professionalism that have been demonstrated by Officer [Joseph] Schinella. Officer Schinella has performed multiple roles with NCPD, including: SRT, Motorcycle Unit, FTO, Dispatcher. He has proven himself time and time again that he is a dedicated member of this agency. In addition to his hard work and professionalism as a primary and secondary Field Training Officer, he has thoroughly investigated multiple cases that he was assigned.
“Officer Schinella investigated a larceny and fraud case that resulted in a prominent business in town losing over $50,000 when a check mailed was stolen and deposited into an unknown bank account. Officer Schinella investigated, wrote a search warrant for the bank account that deposited the check, conducted a TLO search to obtain contact numbers for the suspect and verified home address, and was able to track him down and get a partial confession from the suspect. An active arrest warrant is still pending for the suspect in this case for Larceny 1st and Forgery 1st.
“Officer Schinella followed that case up with a fraud resulting in a resident losing over $1,600 in a scam she fell victim to. Officer Schinella pursued this case for months, including writing a search warrant for Zelle and following up other leads in an attempt to help the victim in this case and demonstrate our commitment to helping the members of this community.
“Finally, Officer Schinella was a top-tier FTO. This is exhaustive work and I feel it rarely gets recognized for the critical role it plays in shaping the next generation of police officers. It requires patience, hard work and dedication to be the primary FTO and mentor of a new recruit. Officer Schinella has demonstrated those skill-sets. He even participated multiple times in scenario-days that I conducted with Sgt. Mitchell, where he could’ve taken a much-deserved rest day, but instead came in and participated to help make each scenario day a positive experience.
“As Officer Schinella’s direct supervisor over the past several months, ‘ve seen him assist on calls for service without ever offering any complaints about the workload, and he seems to truly care about his role as a police officer. Again, I want to commend Officer Schinella for all of his hard work.”
—Sgt. George Caponera (Feb. 24, 2025)
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Police Officer Erica Morey. Photo courtesy of NCPD
Officer Erica Morey
“Chief,
“I want to inform you of multiple successful investigations Officer [Erica] Morey has completed, including one that stemmed from a fraud and larceny investigation in July of 2023. Morey investigated a stolen check that was cashed by an unknown person resulting in a loss of over $7,500 to the victim. The check was stolen out of a postal mailbox and was meant to pay the property taxes of the complainant. Officer Morey contacted the bank that deposited the check and discovered that it was cashed in New York City. She completed a search warrant for the bank account that cashed the check. Once she obtained account holder information, she reached out to New York State to obtain a DMV photo of the suspect. By August of 2024 with a positive identification made of the suspect, Officer Morey completed an arrest warrant for the suspect for Larceny 3rd and Forgery 2nd. By October of 2024 the suspect surrendered on the active warrant. The case is now heading to trial and thanks to Officer Morey’s hard work and professionalism more and more of these types of frauds are being successfully investigated by our agency.
“Officer Morey has shown a strong interest in investigating cases during her time here. She has worked on a vandalism [case] that identified a strong suspect and showed the complainant that damage to private property is taken seriously. In July 2024 Officer Morey investigated a larceny from a store on Elm Street resulting in a loss to the store of over $500.
“Officer Morey was able to gather surveillance footage of a suspect, and contacted Monroe Police Department for use of their facial recognition software to identify a suspect in the case. The suspect was arrested in December 2024 demonstrating Officer Morey’s interest in investigating a case for months after the initial complaint was made. I want to commend Officer Morey for her hard work and professionalism in her short time with the New Canaan Police Department.”
—Sgt. George Caponera (Feb. 24, 2025)