Ex-Pittsburgh police commander claims secret recordings were part of misconduct probe

A former Pittsburgh police commander claims that he hid body-worn cameras inside his officers’ vehicles as part of an official investigation into misconduct, and therefore he is entitled to be represented by city attorneys in an ongoing lawsuit over the issue.

Matthew Lackner, 50, of Mt. Lebanon, is suing the City of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court in an attempt to have its law department represent him in the ongoing federal case which accuses him of violating seven officers’ right to privacy and due process.

Lackner filed the lawsuit Feb. 24 naming as defendants the city, as well as the officers who are suing him.

The issue came to light in October 2023 when Lackner was put on administrative leave. The Zone 2 commander, who had worked for the police bureau for 29 years, retired two days later.

A few months after that, Allegheny County police filed four criminal charges against Lackner, accusing him of violating the state’s wiretap act that prohibits recording a person without permission. Investigators said Lackner recorded 75 hours worth of conversations among at least seven officers from Sept. 27 to Oct. 4, 2023.

Lackner entered the court’s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program in June and agreed to serve two years of probation. The program allows defendants, upon successful completion, to have the charges removed from their criminal history.

In the meantime, Lackner is still the subject of a federal lawsuit on the matter.

The seven Pittsburgh police officers who allege they were subjected to Lackner’s illegal recordings sued him, citing a violation of their rights to privacy and due process.

That lawsuit also named the City of Pittsburgh, former police Chief Larry Scirotto and Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt as defendants.

However, earlier this year, a federal judge granted a motion to dismiss the city, Scirotto and Schmidt as defendants.

That leaves Lackner as the only defendant remaining.

According to the lawsuit he filed in Common Pleas Court, Lackner has requested that the city represent him in the federal case four separate times.

Lackner used the body-worn cameras to investigate official misconduct, the filing said. He believed that the officers were driving their undercover vehicles to their homes and getting paid to spend hours at home.

“The evidence will overwhelmingly show that Commander Lackner’s actions were very much within the scope of his office and duties, as it was indeed required by them,” the document said.

In addition, the filing said, the actions were taken “in furtherance of his employer’s interests and were not motivated by personal reasons.”

Therefore, under state law, it continued, the city is required to defend Lackner and indemnify him.

Under the law, “an employee of a government agency is entitled to legal assistance in the defense of claims brought against them arising from actions which the complaint, on its face, alleges were committed within the scope of their employment. The government agency has no discretion to deny their request”

However, the city continues to refuse to represent him. According to Lackner’s filing, the city has claimed that the criminal complaint filed against him establishes probable cause which constitutes a “judicial determination” that his acts constituted a crime.

However, Lackner claims that’s not the case.

Under the law, Lackner’s attorney wrote, admission into the ARD program does not constitute a conviction, and simply being charged with a crime does not prove he committed one.

“As such, no court has determined that Commander Lackner’s alleged actions at issue were not within the scope of his office or duties as a City of Pittsburgh police officer or that they constituted a crime, actual fraud, actual malice or willful misconduct.”

However, City Solicitor Krysia Kubiak disagreed. In a written statement, she said that Lackner was adjudicated on felony charges.

“The city has rejected Mr. Lackner’s requests for indemnification because his acts, which constituted felony level crimes according to his own admissions in the adjudication of his criminal charges, were not within the scope of his office or duties as a commander for the City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Police,” Kubiak said.

She noted that in the criminal complaint charging him, Lackner “denied to witnesses that he was conducting an investigation for the city, claiming that he ‘was part of a federal investigation.’”

Kubiak noted that the city is not a federal agency, and according to the criminal complaint, the U.S. attorney’s office confirmed there was no ongoing wiretap investigation into a city officer at that time.