The highest-ranking internal investigator for the National Park Service pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing from the agency charged with protecting the nation’s natural and cultural resources.
Patricia Buccello, the national special agent in charge for the National Park Service, admitted in federal court to using the government credit card to buy more than $4,000 in airline tickets over a two-year period to fly from D.C. to Maine, where her husband, David, is the park ranger for the Acadia National Park.
In all, Buccello admitted to misspending more than $10,000.
Buccello, 55, faces six months in prison, according to federal guidelines. On Friday, she retired after nearly 30 years’ service as a park ranger or criminal investigator. She had been the NPS top special agent since 2003, overseeing the regional supervisors and more than 45 special agents around the country. Buccello’s sentencing is set for Jan. 9.
“It’s a job that the public expects extra integrity and honesty,” said David Barna, chief spokesman for the National Park Service. “That’s why it’s been so difficult for us. It’s just a shame.”
The U.S. Department of the Interior Office of the Inspector General began investigating Buccello after she failed to show up for a March ceremony honoring fallen NPS officers in Jacksonville, Fla., according to court documents. Instead of attending the ceremony, Buccello gave up her airline seat in exchange for a free round-trip ticket, but told her boss and investigators that the flight to Jacksonville had been canceled, prosecutors said.
A year earlier Buccello also failed to fly to St. Louis and deliver a fatality report to the wife of an NPS officer who had died in the line of duty. Buccello called the widow and told her that she couldn’t make it to Missouri because the plane was stuck on the tarmac, but investigators learned that none of the flights that Buccello was scheduled to take was delayed that day.
