The Auburn Police Department cannot take its investigation any further into whether a faxed document sent from the Auburn-Cayuga Development Corp. to Auburn Corporation Counsel Tom Leone was fraudulent because A-CDC President David Colegrove "stonewalled" the investigation, APD Police Chief Gary Giannotta said.

"A-CDC appears to be a well-meaning organization," Giannotta said. "They have the potential to do positive things in the community, but we've been stonewalled by Mr. Colegrove, who doesn't seem able to produce the document we're looking for."

The document under question is an April 21 fax sent to Leone, noting the removal of Mayor Tim Lattimore from the organization founded in 2004. The faxed copy of a Feb. 21, 2004, resolution was sent to Leone because Lattimore asked the city's attorney to give a formal opinion on a potential conflict of interest, and Colegrove provided the resolution under question to explain the mayor's involvement in A-CDC.

The investigation will now be turned over to the state comptroller's office which, unlike the APD, has subpoena power, Giannotta said.

"We've cooperated in the inquiry," said Colegrove, who said he did not want to comment further. "We'll cooperate with any other inquiry from any other appropriate source."

Questions were raised about the resolution because letterhead on the February resolution in question displays an A-CDC logo that was not created until the fall of 2004.

Colegrove told police that because the resolution was on plain paper and looked unprofessional in its original form, it was faxed to Leone on the letterhead dated from a later time, Giannotta said. But Colegrove never supplied supporting evidence for his story - the original resolution, a zip drive and meeting minutes.

Colegrove also said an old laptop of his with A-CDC documents on it had been disposed of a while back, Giannotta added.

A-CDC Chairman Charles Bouley Jr., who signed the document along with Colegrove, and then-A-CDC secretary John Smith, owner of Auburn fiberoptics company Schott North America Inc., cooperated with Detective Doug Parker's investigation, but neither men had the materials for police to resolve whether the resolution was fraudulent or not, Giannotta said.

Police served a Freedom of Information Law request to Colegrove June 2 and gave him seven days to respond, Giannotta said.

On June 22, Colegrove told Giannotta his attorney found case law that quasi-public agencies like A-CDC do not have to turn over minutes of meetings under the FOIL, but Giannotta but said he still hadn't heard from that attorney six days later. Colegrove said that information was faxed to Giannotta's office Tuesday.

"I think case law regarding other economic development councils show they're not subject to FOIL," said Lattimore, whose own computers were examined during the course of APD's investigation. "I do not feel that this agency has done anything wrong to the letter of the law. The spirit of the law was addressed."

"I'd like to see our police department looking into criminal activity instead of economic development," Lattimore added.

Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 x282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net