Dump trucks, real estate, Venmo: Baltimore County executive’s ties to brother of firefighter who got settlement

Baltimore County has paid more than $4 million to buy dump trucks from the company that employs John Tirabassi, a personal friend of County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr.

Olszewski’s administration could spend up to $550,000 fighting in court to shield the details of a secret settlement paid to John Tirabassi’s brother Philip, a former county firefighter, in 2020.

The county paid $4.2 million to buy 16 dump trucks between April 2023 and January 2024 from Peterbilt of Baltimore. Purchase orders obtained through a Maryland Public Information Act request list John Tirabassi, a Peterbilt regional sales representative, as the supplier contact for the Dundalk business.

A county spokesperson said Olszewski was unaware that the county had bought the trucks from Tirabassi’s company.

In addition to the 16 trucks, which each cost between about $273,000 and $279,000, the county also bought $2,800 worth of truck parts and repairs from Peterbilt in November 2021, according to purchasing records. The trucks were purchased by the county property management office’s groundskeeping division and designed to carry bulk construction debris, according to a presentation package Tirabassi sent the county.

John Tirabassi is the younger brother of Philip Tirabassi, a retired firefighter who Baltimore County paid $83,675 in an April 2020 settlement after he asked to transfer Baltimore City retirement credits to his county pension. The county is paying outside lawyers to defend itself against a public records lawsuit related to that settlement brought by a former county administrator, Fred Homan.

Olszewski, who is now running for Congress, told The Baltimore Sun earlier this month that he did not have a “close, personal relationship” with Philip Tirabassi but said he was friends with John, a high school classmate.

Public records show how Olszewski’s financial relationship with both Tirabassi brothers goes beyond county business.

John Tirabassi is one of seven people the county executive is friends with on Venmo, a mobile payment app.

Real estate listings named Phillip Tirabassi and his brother as either listing agents or brokers on two homes Olszewski and his wife bought and sold in 2019 and 2020, and on a lot the couple bought in 2016 and now live on. The Baltimore Brew news website first reported John and Philip Tirabassi’s involvement in Olszewski’s real estate transactions.

County spokesperson Erica Palmisano said Olszewski only dealt directly with John Tirabassi on the real estate transactions.

Since 2006, Philip Tirabassi, the real estate company where he works, Advance Realty, and John Tirabassi have donated a combined $3,415 to Olszewski’s state political campaign fund, according to campaign finance records.

In an email, Palmisano called it a “mischaracterization” to say Olszewski and the Tirabassi brothers had close financial ties. She also said Olszewski was not aware of or involved with John Tirabassi’s company’s contract with Baltimore County.

The county bought the Peterbilt trucks using a cooperative contract, which underwent “the same competitive bid process that is utilized by the county,” Palmisano said. That agreement let the county procure the needed trucks sooner than if it had used other options, she said.

John and Philip Tirabassi did not respond to phone calls seeking comment Tuesday. It’s unclear if John Tirabassi earned a commission on the truck sales to the county.

After The Sun revealed the relationship between Olszewski and Philip Tirabassi, Tirabassi’s attorney Jay Miller, who initially declined to comment, responded with a statement.

Miller wrote July 19 that he felt “compelled to respond to the false assertion that the settlement I obtained on behalf of a dedicated 30-year firefighter, Philip Tirabassi, was obtained by virtue of the fact that the county executive is a friend of my client’s brother.”

Instead, Miller said, Tirabassi’s legal team “vigorously litigated” the matter. Under the terms of the confidential settlement, Tirabassi was only paid what he had earned, without reimbursement for attorney’s fees or expenses, Miller said.

“While your article falsely insinuates that the settlement was the result of a favoritism on the part of the county executive, the fact is that the county executive actually sought to renege on the settlement agreement by claiming that the county attorney had acted beyond the scope of his authority in negotiating the settlement,” wrote Miller, who did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Olszewski said his administration approved the settlement to avoid more litigation after Tirabassi threatened to sue for breach of contract.

When Tirabassi first asked the county to add about two years of retirement credits from working in the city to his county pension ahead of his retirement date, multiple officials turned him down.

Suzanne T. Berger, a then-assistant county attorney who had handled retirement cases for the county since 1996, wrote in a memorandum that the window for Tirabassi to transfer his time had closed in 1991. In what Berger called an “matter of unambiguous state law,” Tirabassi had no right to appeal, she wrote in the memo.

When the county signed a settlement agreement with Tirabassi on April 26, 2020, Berger told County Attorney James Benjamin that the settlement violated the law and would open the retirement board up to claims costing millions of dollars for the county, according to her complaint.

Soon after, Benjamin and Pat Murray, Olszewski’s former chief of staff, told Berger on May 15 that her position in the office of law was being eliminated.

In 2022, Berger sued the county in the U.S. District Court of Maryland, saying that Baltimore County discriminated against her and fired her because of her age and gender. She said in the suit that she was assigned a less experienced male attorney to work with her on the Tirabassi case because she was seen as “unlikely to ‘go along’ with the administration’s plan to acquiesce in Tirabassi’s unlawful claim to enhanced retirement benefits.”

Her lawsuit was dismissed and she lost an appeal in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023.

“I felt I was pushed out because of my stance in the Tirabassi matter and the fact that I insisted on relying on the law,” Berger said in an interview Tuesday.

Palmisano said the county is “generally unable to comment on personnel matters,” but noted be that Berger’s lawsuit was dismissed.

The county’s outside lawyers have said that the April 2020 settlement was replaced by another agreement, which they said was put in writing in September 2021, after Tirabassi was paid.

Murray, who has since left the county, redirected a request for comment to Baltimore County, calling it a “personnel matter.”

Since then, Berger has been named in Homan’s ongoing public records lawsuit against the county. The county has filed to subpoena her as a witness, according to court records.