The timeline of the police department’s confidential informant cash scandal potentially has stretched to six years — with officials unable to say whether annual financial reports were filed or who was minding the store. That was the latest development Wednesday in the fallout from Monday’s revelation that now-retired Police Chief Karl Jacobson reportedly admitted to stealing $10,000 money from the department’s fund for paying cash to confidential informants (CI). Jacobson resigned, put in for retirement, and admitted stealing the $10,000 as assistant chiefs and Mayor Justin Elicker confronted him about the allegation, Elicker said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference. Elicker appointed Assistant Chief David Zannelli (who was technically responsible for the fund under department guidelines) to serve as acting chief as both an internal investigation and a state criminal investigation take place. Click here to watch Wednesday’s presser, at which the mayor and acting chief updated the press on the scandal. They said it’s unclear whether or not $10,000 was the extent of the missing money, out of a CI bank account that typically receives $75,000 a year from the general fund. Jacobson has controlled the CI fund, including cash flow and reporting responsibilities, since 2019, according to Zannelli, even though Jacobson was supposed to hand down those responsibilities to the relevant assistant chief when he became chief in 2022. Zannelli said both he and his predecessor as assistant chief in charge of investigations, Bertram Ettienne, repeatedly asked Jacobson to hand over the CI money and the distribution responsibilities; he said Jacobson said they needed training first, then didn’t arrange for the training. (Jacobson has not responded to requests for comment.) Do audit reports exist? Who watched? Zannelli told the Independent Wednesday that so far officials have not seen any evidence of required CI fund annual cash audits since Jacobson took control of the fund in 2019 (when he became assistant chief of investigations). That search will be part of the investigation into the missing money. “We don’t know. We have no reason to think so,” Zannelli said when asked if those six years of reports exist. Under department rules, the assistant chief, not the chief, was responsible for preparing those audits. At the request of the state’s attorney’s office, the city has sealed off the chief’s office in order to preserve evidence. That delays the department’s ability to search for documents like the audits, according to Zannelli. Zannelli was asked in an interview Wednesday why he never submitted the annual report as assistant chief. (Zannelli, who previously was the assistant chief in charge of patrol, stepped into the role of assistant chief of investigations in January 2025, after switching roles with Ettienne.) Zannelli said that was because the chief was controlling the fund — and because of what he called ambiguity in the city’s general orders. “We had no reason at the time to believe the chief of police had any integrity issues,” Zannelli said. Elicker was asked at Wednesday’s press conference whether anyone in government should have noticed over six years (the time Elicker has been mayor) whether or not CI financial audits were ever prepared. “It’s a good question,” Elicker responded. “We are looking into this. Clearly this result is something that is not desirable. We want to make sure it never happens.” Elicker was asked if he should have appointed Zannelli as acting chief before an investigation is complete into the CI fund, since Zannelli had technical authority of the fund according to the general orders. In the past Elicker has appointed the city’s chief administrative officer, who oversees the police department, as acting police chief after the departure of the chief.  Elicker didn’t address the issue about Zannelli’s legal responsibility for the fund. Instead he responded, “I considered a lot of options. I’m confident in my choice. I’ve gotten to know and watch Chief Zannelli. He’s a strong leader. In every experience I have had with him, he has strong integrity. He and the two other assistant chiefs came forward under what any of us would imagine is a difficult situation [to challenge] someone who was their mentor, who promoted them to their positions.” Elicker said that, over the course of 2025, funds were regularly withdrawn each month from the CI bank account in $5,000 increments by Chief Jacobson. “The only exceptions” to that, Elicker noted, are that Jacobson withdrew a total of $10,000 — in two separate $5,000 increments — in both November and December. There is currently a total of $50,766.09 in the CI fund bank account. The city has frozen the account pending the ongoing investigation, which is being led by the New Britain state’s attorney’s office. Who was responsible for audits? The general order for the running of the CI program specifies that the assistant chief of investigations — not the chief — shall “keep a case account log reflecting all case expenditures.” That assistant chief — not the chief — is also directed to conduct “an annual audit” of expenditures. The general orders do give both the chief and the assistant chief power to prepare a separate annual audit — not of cash expenditures, but of “confidential informant files.” It also gives both the assistant chief and the chief the power to approve reactivating inactive confidential informants. Because the chief is given those powers in the general orders, that created ambiguity about whether the chief in fact had control over and responsibility for all required reports, Zannelli claimed. “I don’t know how you can do one without the other,” he said of the conflicting language about handling CI files and handling CI cash. Just to be clear, Zannelli referred to two separate parts of the CI general order delineating two separate responsibilities: Section 4.04.04 has a section entitled “CONFIDENTAL INFORMANT MANAGEMENT.” That refers to an audit specifically related to handling of CI files: “An annual audit of the Department’s confidential informant files shall be conducted by the Chief of Police or his/her designee to ensure that they are being properly maintained, and that they contain all the necessary documentation.” A separate section is entitled “MANAGEMENT OF CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS” with a subsection, 4.04.07, entitled “ACCOUNTING PROCEDURES.” It reads in part: “The Assistant Chief of Investigations will establish an accounting system for the Confidential Funds Account.  … An annual audit will be performed by the Assistant Chief of Investigations.” The police chief is not mentioned in the second part. By design. In order to build safeguards into the system. Would policy tweaks help? Mayor Elicker said at Wednesday’s presser that the city plans to engage outside experts to help explore updating CI program guidelines. He said it’s too early to specify what changes would take place. “We’re committed to making sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said. Acting Chief Zannelli said he plans to recommend to the Board of Police Commissioners that it make language in the general order more specific, to spell out which official has which responsibility. It’s an important question: New Haven crafted its current CI policy in response to scandals over top cops stealing CI cash. (Click here for a previous Independent story about that.) National criminal justice experts in 2008 helped New Haven craft that policy, which was updated in 2016. A central tenet is that control over the CI cash and files should not rest with a single person without safeguards and multiple responsibilities. The intention was to prevent top cops from doing what Chief Jacobson allegedly admitted to doing. University of New Haven criminal justice Professor John DeCarlo said that policy “reflects pretty much standard practice in the industry” with a reliance on “internal trust and annual audits.” Studies from federal research agencies like the National Institute of Justice have shown that even with those policies, “cash-based funds are vulnerable when senior leadership of the department has authority that is concentrated and oversight is just internal,” DeCarlo said, without speaking specifically about what happened in New Haven. New best practices include adding “independent audits, segregation of financial duties and surprise cash counts” to the mix, DeCarlo said. “Without those, well-written policies like the one New Haven has in place could fail,” he said. As just happened. This story was first published on Jan. 7, 2026 by New Haven Independent. ...read more read less