Subpoenas issued in injury cases

FBI looks into missing firefighter medical files

The FBI issued a flurry of subpoenas at the Boston Fire Department yesterday, compelling about a dozen administrative employees to testify before a grand jury investigating questionable injury claims by Boston firefighters, two senior officials said.

Agents served the subpoenas on civilian staff members and firefighters who had access to firefighters' medical records while the department was preparing copies for federal authorities in the inquiry, said the two officials, who were briefed on the development.

The Globe reported last month that medical files for three firefighters went missing from department headquarters sometime between May and July, and fire officials believed they may have been stolen.

The files' disappearance prompted federal authorities to launch a parallel investigation of potential obstruction of justice and theft, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Fire Department has turned over surveillance video and entry data from its headquarters building in Roxbury for the investigation, and yesterday's subpoenas appear to be part of that inquiry, the officials said.

Also at department headquarters yesterday, former firefighter Albert Arroyo, who competed in a bodybuilding contest while he was on injured leave and awaiting approval of an accidental disability pension, launched a formal appeal of his removal from the ranks.

Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser scheduled a hearing Tuesday, when Arroyo can appear at headquarters to present a case appealing his removal, said department spokesman Steve MacDonald. The commissioner removed Arroyo from the payroll on Aug. 4 after he did not show up to work for two weeks, in defiance of a return-to-work order from Fraser.

MacDonald declined to comment yesterday about the subpoenas delivered at headquarters. "We would not comment on any ongoing investigation," he said.

It was the second round of subpoenas issued at the department since the US attorney's office launched its initial investigation earlier this year. In April, the FBI delivered the orders to dozens of current and former firefighters and to city agencies, including the Fire Department, asking for thousands of pages of documents. The medical files were among those documents.

The injury investigation was prompted by a Globe report in January that showed that 74 percent of Boston firefighter retirements between 2005 and 2007 were due to accidental disability, more than twice the rate of similarly sized cities. Firefighters granted disability retirements receive 72 percent of their salaries, tax free for life.

Arroyo had been awaiting approval of his disability pension application when The Globe reported last month that he placed eighth in a bodybuilding competition six weeks after he reported injuring himself so severely at work that he could no longer perform his duties as a fire inspector. He reported slipping on a staircase in an incident on March 21 that no one witnessed at a fire station where he was not assigned.

After viewing a video of the May 3 bodybuilding contest - the Pro Natural American Championships, posted on Boston.com - the fire commissioner concluded Arroyo was fit enough to return to work and ordered him back. Last week, the Boston Retirement Board denied Arroyo's pension application.

Between April and June, Fire Department employees copied the medical records of more than 1,550 firefighters and turned them over to the US attorney's office as part of the original investigation. The original files were put back in locked file cabinets inside the headquarters' medical office, which is locked nights and weekends, said one of the senior officials and another public official briefed on the situation.

When three firefighters who had reported career-ending, on-the-job injuries and applied for disability pensions asked for copies of their medical files, department personnel copied the records and provided the firefighters with the copies, the officials said.

The original medical files have not been seen since, they said.