Oct 11
2023
More misdeeds involving Niagara Falls candidate
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Guns gone missing and an order to stay away from a former girlfriend are included in the past of Carlton Cain, GOP candidate for Niagara Falls mayor, who once was a top official in the city’s police department.
Cain said he doesn’t recall signing an administrative order of protection issued by Acting Police Superintendent Michael Trane in 2019.
“I guess if I signed it, it happened,” he said.
The woman in question, who was cooperating with an Internal Affairs investigation of Cain, did not return a phone call from Investigative Post. Trane has not responded to an interview request.
In a second incident, Cain’s department-issued pistol and badge were stolen from a car parked in the parking lot of an Illinois strip club he visited in 2011, according to a police report from Creve Coeur, a town near Peoria.
It was the second time Cain’s gun had been stolen. In 2007, he bought his gun back from a suspected heroin dealer after it was taken during a burglary of his apartment. He violated department policy by not reporting the theft.
On March 17, 2011, Cain reported his gun stolen from the trunk of a car parked outside Club Cabaret in Creve Coeur. Cain told Investigative Post that his gun was taken, but not his badge.
“We went into, what do you call those places, not a shopping mall – I’m trying to think of the name of it – my mind is somewhere else,” Cain said in an interview.
“It had a car wash, it had a clothing store, there was a strip club attached to it. Me and a friend went into a strip mall, when we came out, the (car) trunk was open. … I immediately reported it. I didn’t get in any trouble because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
The Creve Coeur police report shows that Cain reported the theft more than eight hours after realizing it. According to the report, Cain discovered a computer bag containing his gun, his badge, handcuffs and ammunition missing at 1:45 a.m. upon return to his hotel. Two dancers told police they’d noticed the trunk open at 9:30 p.m. the prior evening and had closed it.
Cain doesn’t deny patronizing Club Cabaret.
“I didn’t say I didn’t go in the strip club – I didn’t say that was my only purpose,” Cain told Investigative Post. “I also got my shoes shined and my hair cut. I got a car wash, too. I spent a few minutes in the strip club.”
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The new developments follow a report published Friday by Investigative Post on allegations of misconduct during Cain’s 29 years with the Niagara Falls police Department.
At the time of the 2019 order, Cain was under investigation for allegedly taking his own records from Internal Affairs while assigned to the unit. His former girlfriend had told a department investigator that she’d found police records concerning Cain in a closet at his home.
The administrative order of protection, signed by both Cain and Trane, since retired, does not indicate the underlying reason for the order.
Besides ordering Cain, then a deputy chief, to not contact the woman, Trane’s instructed him to not engage in witness tampering or witness intimidation.
In an interview, Cain denied any wrongdoing and said he committed no acts of domestic violence.
He accused incumbent Mayor Robert Restaino of recently summoning someone to his City Hall office and threatening to produce unflattering information about Cain for political reasons. Cain declined to name the person. He says the mayor’s actions amount to illegal electioneering with public resources.
Cain, a Republican, is challenging Restaino, a Democrat, in the Nov. 7 election for mayor.
Restaino has not responded to an interview request.
Capt. Kelly Rizzo, who conducted the 2019 Internal Affairs investigation, concluded that it was “obvious” Cain had removed the files. However, then Police Superintendent Thomas Licata, who has since retired, reached no conclusion on the matter.
