Sheriff seeks 7th term
By Donna Comella

Not since the first State Constitution in 1777 provided for each county to have a sheriff, has anyone held the job in Wayne County as long as Richard Pisciotti. Last Thursday night at the old County Courthouse, he again received the nod to run at Republican Caucus.

Pisciotti has served since 1982, when, at aged 36, he became the youngest Sheriff ever elected in the county. Written accounts vary as to Pisciotti's age when he first became involved with then-Sheriff Bob Burns' department as a young teen. The first Junior Deputy in the county, he was issued a uniform and allowed to ride in patrol cars by age 16.

An Army veteran, Pisciotti worked for the Village of Lyons Police Dept. following his honorable discharge. A year later, he became a Sheriff's Deputy, and proceeded up the chain of command, from sergeant to criminal investigator, and lieutenant. He has served as the president of the New York State Sheriff's Association and is a graduate of the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA.

Sifting through the files, you see 1993 headlines such as 'Wayne Sheriff prepares to run for a final term.' Or quotes from him in 1996 such as, 'This will be my last term, for sure.' Speculation of his retirement have come around for his last few terms, but his Stetson always flies back into the ring.

The department has been a part of his life for the better part of about 45 years. And even he can laugh now when he tells about the time when, as what he calls a 'Buck Deputy,' he was tricked into thinking his patrol car had been stolen.

He had pulled into the department parking lot to run and grab some paperwork. When he came out and the car was gone, he said the first thing he did was look for tire tracks. 'I thought, 'Oh my God, I have to go in there and tell the sergeant that I lost my car,'he says, laughing. 'Oh my God, I'm gonna get fired. I might as well take my uniform off right now.'

But for just as many laughs as Pisciotti can recall, there have been just as many tough cases and difficult times. He is seen at the site of homicides, fatal car crashes, search and rescue operations, criminal investigations of every nature.

Under his administration, the county has seen construction of a new jail, and several new programs implemented. One of the latest, called 'livescan' allows the department to use computers to fingerprint an individual in about five minutes and have criminal history and/or identification within 20 minutes. Before the use of this new technology, that information could have taken up to a month. The new technology will also be used in the Sheriff's Records Dept. to speed the process of Pistol Permits and such. Other new technology for the Road Patrol Deputies is a Traffic and Criminal software called TraCS. A deputy can now scan in your information from the barcode on your Driver's License, key in court information and scan his signature, to quickly complete the issuance of a traffic ticket. Pisciotti obtained federal funding for the new tech tools.

Pisciotti has also again received the endorsement of the county's Conservative Party, as well has his own GOP. Democrats have yet to caucus, but it is doubtful that anyone will challenge Pisciotti's bid for a seventh consecutive term. He has been opposed only twice, once in 1982 and in 1989. He tromped both opponents by thousands of votes.

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