The city of New Haven is freezing a police bank account used to fund its confidential informant program after former police chief Karl Jacobson admitted to stealing thousands of dollars from it.
City officials shared new details about the investigation Wednesday.
The scandal began on Monday, when a group of assistant chiefs questioned Jacobson about discrepancies in withdrawals from the city’s confidential informant fund.
Mayor Justin Elicker says the former police chief admitted to stealing $10,000 from the city, but the amount could actually be more.
“Everything I’ve heard from everyone is just how shocked they are,” Mayor Elicker says. “I want to make it clear: we do not know how much money was taken.”
Jacobsen oversaw the account as assistant chief.
Despite calls for him to relinquish control when he was promoted to chief, city officials say Jacobson continued to make authorized routine withdrawals of $5,000 each month from the account to pay confidential informants.
“What the chief had done was basically make it where he would be the sole holder of the money,” acting police chief David Zannelli says, “and what he would say to us commonly is that he was doing that to protect us from any kind of liability.”
The preliminary investigation uncovered two extra $5,000 withdrawals were made by Jacobson at the end of 2025: one in November, and another in December.
Mayor Elicker was originally going to place him on administrative leave, but Jacobson said he was retiring instead.
The confidential informant program has been paused as state investigators work to find out if any other city bank accounts were affected and if any other police officers were involved.
“No one is above the law, and we are all held accountable,” acting police chief David Zannelli says. “We will move forward as a police department.”
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