Former ZEO Nilsen seeks AR deal

NORTH CANAAN — Karl Nilsen, the former zoning enforcement officer for North Canaan, who was arrested last fall for simultaneously embezzling from three towns that employed him, has applied for accelerated rehabilitation. The details are expected to be finalized in court on May 25.The state of Connecticut judicial website defines accelerated rehabilitation as “a program that gives persons charged with a crime or motor vehicle violation for the first time a second chance. The person is placed on probation for up to two years. If probation is completed satisfactorily, the charges are dismissed.”As part of his program, Nilsen will have an agreement with the court that requires him to pay back a total of $27,000. Nilsen, who was 69 at the time of his Nov. 30, 2010, arrest is now living in Derby. He originally filed not-guilty pleas in three first-degree larceny felony charges. He was accused of padding his hours and billable mileage, allegedly claiming $16,541 in unsubstantiated earnings from September 2008 to January 2010.An investigation was launched by the selectmen in New Hartford and Burlington early last year, when they became suspicious of budget overruns in their land use offices. An independent auditing firm compared time cards and mileage claims, finding more than 529 overlapping hours and 208 unaccounted for travel hours between the three towns.A complaint was filed with the State Police on April 7, 2010, by the New Hartford and Burlington selectmen. Nilsen had been suspended a week earlier as the Burlington ZEO and New Hartford land use coordinator. He retired from the North Canaan post in the summer of 2009, after working there for nearly three years. On March 22, 2010, Nilsen left the New Hartford and Burlington jobs, calling it retirement and expecting a pension.Nilsen spoke with The Journal at the beginning of the police investigation. He said that what appeared to be overlapping times and mileage had to do with the difficulty of recording actual hours as he traveled between offices, meetings and site inspections, and often doing paperwork outside of office hours. He said he would frequently conduct site inspections while traveling between towns.Under the accelerated rehabilitation program, Nilsen will be on probation and ordered to pay full restitution to each town; $1,700 to North Canaan and $7,400 each to New Hartford and Burlington, plus legal expenses incurred by the towns, bringing the total to $27,000. None of the selectmen in the three towns have objected. If the terms of the accelerated rehabilitation program are completed, the charges will be removed from his record.