The Hampden County Sheriff's Department said it paid almost $2,500 to fix the damage to a government-owned Ford Explorer driven drunk by Sheriff Nick Cocchi through Springfield and West Springfield — a cost Cocchi has now reimbursed to the state.
The department ordered two wheel assemblies from Marcotte Ford for $800 dollars each, as well as a full set of Goodyear tires for $165 a piece from Bill's Tire Service in Ludlow.
Add in disposal fees, plus mounting and balancing the tires, and the total rings in at $2,428.24.
NEPM this week received an invoice and a purchase order in response to a public records request for documents related to the damage, as well as a copy of a personal check Cocchi wrote to the state on Monday.
"[T]he sheriff wrote the check to cover the entirety of the invoice to bring the SUV back to like-new status by covering both rims and a full set of tires," Cocchi spokesperson Rob Rizzuto said in an email.
The documents do not include any labor costs for the wheel assemblies.
"That's the bill we got, so that's the bill we paid," Rizzuto said Friday, adding that if the department receives an additional invoice for the labor, Cocchi would also reimburse the state for that amount.
In addition to the reimbursement, Rizzuto said Cocchi lost $2,203.85 in pay during a three-day suspension ordered by the sheriff's human resources department.
According to the criminal complaint, Cocchi drove the sheriff's department vehicle, while intoxicated, from Springfield Country Club in West Springfield to the MGM Springfield casino in the early evening of Sept. 21. The SUV was missing a tire and had damage to another tire, the complaint said.
Cocchi told a state trooper at the casino that he popped a tire coming around a corner near the casino. Surveillance video indicated this was not the case, the complaint said.
A prosecutor with the state Attorney General's Office, which handled the case because the arrest was on casino property, said the damage occurred on the North End Bridge, more than a mile away, according to The Republican newspaper.
"City video cameras showed the white Ford Explorer in this area, smoking, and a tire bouncing away from the vehicle,” the newspaper said Assistant Attorney General Mary Sandstrom told the court.
In that hearing, Cocchi admitted there were enough facts to find him guilty of driving while intoxicated. The judge gave him a continuance without a finding, which essentially puts him on probation for a year.
The court also suspended Cocchi's license for 45 days, but it will be much longer before he can legally drive. He refused state police requests to take a breathalyzer test, carrying a mandatory 180-day suspension from the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Prior to his arrest, Cocchi would typically drive himself to work most days in the government-owned vehicle assigned to him, Rizzuto confirmed.
With his license now suspended, Cocchi is driven to and from work each day by a sheriff's department employee — a cost Rizzuto characterized as negligible given how close the sheriff lives to his office at the Hampden County jail.
Adam Frenier contributed to this report.
