Tickets ‘fixed’ for city council members by local police chief

NOLENSVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - A commissioner and the vice mayor of the Williamson County town of Nolensville had their traffic tickets “fixed” by the town’s police chief, a WSMV4 Investigation has found.

Police body camera footage and copies of the tickets obtained by WSMV4 Investigates show Nolensville Vice Mayor Wendy Cook-Mucci had her citation for failing to stop at stop sign later changed to a warning, and Commissioner Lisa Garramone had her speeding ticket voided.

An internal ethics investigation, completed by the town’s attorney and obtained by WSMV4 Investigates, shows Nolensville Police Chief Roddy Parker admitted to voiding Garramone’s ticket.

While that investigation found that Parker did not recall changing Cook-Mucci’s ticket to a warning, the town’s attorney determined that the police chief violated the town’s ticket fixing statute by voiding/modifying both tickets.

Both Garramone and Cook-Mucci were also determined to have violated the town’s ethics policy, citing “a reasonable person could perceive the nullification as an attempt to influence their action as commissioner (i.e., to favor the police department in decision making, such as budgets.)

A meeting of the town’s commissioners this week will determine if a third-party investigator should now be called in conduct a full independent investigation.

Police know ticket fixing is happening

Body camera footage shows on June 2, 2020, Cook-Mucci was given a citation for failing to stop at a stop sign by Nolensville police.

Additional body camera footage showed on Dec 11, 2020, Garramone was cited for speeding by Nolensville police

But a review of those tickets show that Cook-Mucci’s ticket was later changed to a warning, and Garramone’s was voided all together.

“It’s bad PR. The optics on it are bad,” Nolensville Town Manager Victor Lay said.

The body camera footage shows officers knew the “fixing” was going to happen.

On the night Garramone received her speeding citation, two officers are recording sitting in their car after pulling her over.

“What’s her last name?” the first officer asks.

“Garramone,” the second officer said.

“She’s one of the council people,” the first officer said.

“What?” the second officer asks, and then said, “Chief will be calling about that. We’ll have to void this out.”

That second police officer then said he was the officer who wrote Cook-Mucci’s ticket for not stopping at a stop sign.

“I wrote one of them too,” the second officer said.

“Yeah, how did that go?” the first officer asks.

“He took care of it, I guess,” the second officer said.

The ethics investigation

The ethics investigation conducted by town attorney Charles Michels shows that Parker admitted to voiding Garramone’s ticket.

While Parker said he doesn’t recollect changing Cook-Mucci’s citation to a warning, Michel found in his report that Parker violated the ticket fixing statute by voiding/modifying the tickets.

Parker also said in the ethics investigation that he thought he had the discretion to void traffic tickets.

Parker also told Michels that he voided her ticket in the “best interest of the police department and town.”

Parker refused to speak with WSMV4 Investigates about the ticket fixing, citing the potential of a third-party investigation and a lawsuit filed by Garramone.

The ticket fixing means that neither Cook-Mucci nor Garramone had to immediately pay the tickets or have their insurance potentially impacted by the citations.

“I think when any of us get a ticket, we pay it. But these commissioners were able to get out of that, and I’m wondering if they should have known better,” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“Bottomline is, I think they did. But I’m not them,” Lay said.

The ethics investigation found both Cook-Mucci and Garramone violated the town’s ethics policy, citing, “that a reasonable person could perceive the nullification (of the tickets) as an attempt to influence their action.”

Garramone did pay the ticket nine months later and went to driver’s school, but the ethics investigation shows she did so only after a citizen filed a Freedom of Information Act to obtain police body camera footage.

In the footage of Garramone’s citation, she tells the officer who she was with at a party prior to being pulled over.

“Hanging out there with Chief Parker,” Garramone says in the video.

Garramone, who is campaigning for re-election, agreed to an interview with WSMV4 Investigates, but then never showed up and has since not responded to calls or texts. But Cook-Mucci, who decided not to run for re-election prior to the ticket-fixing scandal, agreed to speak with WSMV4 Investigates.

Cook-Mucci said she knew she had been pulled over in 2020, but had forgotten about it and had no idea it had been changed to a warning.

Cook Mucci also said she was unaware Garramone’s ticket had been fixed, but as soon as she found out about it, she went to the city and asked them to investigate her own ticket.

“It just looks bad for commissioners, I’ve got to be honest with you,” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“It would be ridiculous for me to say anything about (Garramone) when I’m sitting here with my own citation to talk about, and I don’t know what happened,” Cook-Mucci said.

In fact, last month, Cook-Mucci suggested in a work committee that the town pay for a third-party investigator to conduct a new investigation to be fully transparent with citizens.

Lay said that a third-party investigator may be necessary because both himself and the town’s attorney are the subject of a new ethics complaint by a citizen.

“It’s a lot on the surface - juicy drama, and I would say (to citizens): wait, listen, get the facts from reliable sources,” Cook-Mucci said.

Both Cook-Mucci and Garramone are subject to censure.

Lay, who is the boss of Parker, said because the chief did not realize he was doing anything wrong and that the ticket-fixing happened before he became town manager, Lay believes no disciplinary action is necessary for Parker.

Lay said as a result of the ticket-fixing, the city has since changed its citation system, meaning tickets immediately are transferred electronically to the courts.

On Thursday, the Nolensville town council will meet at 6:30 p.m. and is expected to discuss hiring a third-party investigator.

Before that meeting on Thursday, WSMV4 will air another investigation into new details we’ve uncovered, including what else police officers are frustrated about and why Garramone filed a lawsuit against her critics.

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