Workers for city CLIP program cleared in lawsuit

By David Gambacorta and Daily News Staff Writer
Posted: July 24, 2012

A FEDERAL jury on Friday ruled against a Northeast Philly man who filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the city in December alleging that workers took items from his backyard.

Steven Tengood had claimed that members of the anti-blight Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP) illegally took a jacket, recyclable material, canned goods and other items in 2008 and were setting him up to be the victim of a conspiracy that targeted older citizens.

Tengood also claimed that he had suffered financially and emotionally from fighting the city over property-code violations and sought more than $925,000 in damages.

Jeffrey Scott, the attorney who represented the city, said that the jury found no evidence of wrongdoing on behalf of any of the defendants who were named in the lawsuit: Tom Conway, a deputy managing director for the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services; CLIP inspectors Martin Higgins and Roseann Elia; and their former supervisor, Rycharde Sicinski.

Sicinski was among a handful of CLIP members who were accused by a state grand jury in 2009 of stealing guns, cash and furniture from properties in the Northeast. He was sentenced last fall to 18 months to three years in prison.

Tengood "was claiming they were trying to get into his home, and there was no evidence of that at all," Scott said.

Scott said he was happy that Conway, Higgins and Elia had been vindicated.

"They were drug through the mud," he said. "These are very hardworking, diligent city employees, and we're very pleased the jury came back the way they did."

Contact David Gambacorta at 215-854-5994 or gambacd@phillynews.com. Follow on Twitter @dgambacorta.

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