Sierchio and other members of the PFRS board initially voted against Onesti’s 2008 disability claim, but after an appeals court sent the case back, members approved the pension. “This has to be the most expensive staple in the history of New Jersey,” Lagerkvist said.Īfter viewing the Facebook video, John Sierchio, who serves on the New Jersey Police and Fireman’s Retirement System pension board, said he would seek to have Onesti’s disability case reviewed and forwarded to state fraud investigators. The former transit cop gets an annual tax-free benefit of almost $46,000. NJ Watchdog editor Mark Lagerkvist calculated the cost of Onesti’s disability pension would be more than $2 million if the retired officer lives to his statistical life expectancy of 80 years old. The video showing Onesti firing the sniper rifle was first obtained by the website NJ Watchdog, which has partnered with NBC 4 New York to investigate other cases of alleged pension abuse. It was a staple gun into the tissue of my finger,” he said. The former transit cop also said he never thought the staple injury was particularly grave.ĥ-Year-Old Critical, 2 Others Hurt in West Philly Hit-and-Run “I can obviously step out and look at it as someone else would look at it, and it absolutely looks ridiculous,” said Onesti. Another doctor wrote that the patient “can no longer pull a gun, restrain a suspect, do crowd control use handcuffs.”ĭespite the physicians’ statements, which cast doubt on Onesti’s ability to grip a weapon, the retired officer posted a Facebook video which shows him firing a bolt action rifle.Ĭontacted at his suburban Philadelphia home in Drexel Hill, Onesti said he can see how the video might make people question the veracity of his disability claim. The injury would “significantly impede his ability to fire a weapon, apprehend suspects, etc.,” wrote one doctor who signed Onesti’s disability application. His injuries stem from a firearms certification class two years earlier, where Onesti accidentally fired a staple into his non-shooting hand while preparing to attach a paper target to some cardboard. In Christopher Onesti’s 2008 application for a disability pension, doctors said he was “permanently and totally disabled” because he would have trouble operating his service weapon and performing other police duties. A former New Jersey Transit police officer who retired on disability after stapling his own hand is the subject of renewed scrutiny after a video emerged, showing him repeatedly firing a sniper rifle at a gun range.
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