Karl Jacobson, who served three years as New Haven's top cop, turned himself in Friday on an arrest warrant charging him with two counts of larceny after investigators say he siphoned more than $85,000 from two police department funds. He was released on a $150,000 bond.
One of those funds compensates confidential informants. The other supports the police activity league. The man entrusted to oversee both allegedly treated them as his personal checking account.
According to a news release from the Connecticut state prosecutor's office, $81,500 went unaccounted for or was misappropriated from the department's narcotic enforcement fund between January 1, 2024, and January 5, 2026. Separately, two checks totaling $4,000 were withdrawn from the police activity league fund between December 23 and 24, 2025, and deposited into Jacobson's personal bank account.
A Career That Ended in Handcuffs
According to The Guardian, Jacobson spent 15 years with the New Haven police department before being named chief, and nine years before that with the East Providence police department in Rhode Island. By any measure, this was a law enforcement lifer. That history makes the allegations worse, not better.
He abruptly retired in January after New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker announced that Jacobson had admitted he took money from the city's confidential informant fund. According to Elicker, Jacobson acknowledged taking the funds for personal use when three of his own deputies confronted him over financial irregularities.
The mayor called the allegations "shocking" and a "betrayal of public trust." That second phrase does more work than the first. Shocking implies surprise. Betrayal implies a violation of something that was freely given. New Haven gave Jacobson authority over sensitive accounts, including funds that protect the identities and safety of people cooperating with police, and the allegation is that he looted them.
The Informant Fund Problem
The narcotic enforcement fund exists for a specific and serious purpose: compensating confidential informants who help police build drug cases. These are people who take real risks, sometimes life-threatening ones, to assist law enforcement. The integrity of that fund is not a bookkeeping abstraction. It is a safety issue.
When $81,500 vanishes from an account like that, the damage extends far beyond the dollar amount. Every informant who worked with New Haven police during those two years now has reason to wonder whether their cooperation was handled with the same care as the money. Every drug case built with that fund's support faces a credibility question. Defense attorneys will have a field day.
Chief State's Attorney Patrick J. Griffin acknowledged the stakes:
"An allegation of embezzlement by a police official is a serious matter and potentially undermines public confidence in the criminal justice system."
"Potentially undermines" is doing some generous lifting in that sentence. When the chief of police allegedly steals from a fund meant to protect informants, public confidence doesn't face a potential problem. It faces an actual one.
The Defense Says Wait
Jacobson's attorney, Gregory Cerritelli, urged patience in an emailed statement, noting that "an arrest is not evidence of guilt and allegations are not proof." He added:
"This is the beginning of a very long process. I urge everyone to keep an open mind and avoid a rush to judgment."
Fair enough. Presumption of innocence is a bedrock principle, and it applies even to police chiefs accused of stealing from their own departments. Cerritelli said he could not yet respond to the specific allegations.
But the facts already in the public record are not ambiguous. The mayor of New Haven said Jacobson admitted to taking the money when confronted by his deputies. Bank records, according to the prosecutor's office, show checks from the police activity league fund deposited into Jacobson's personal account. These aren't whispered rumors. They are documented claims from officials willing to attach their names.
Accountability Starts at the Top
Conservatives have long argued that public institutions rot from the inside when accountability mechanisms fail. This case is a textbook example. The alleged theft spanned two years. That means either oversight was absent, or it existed and no one acted on what it revealed until deputies finally forced the issue.
New Haven is a city that, like many others, asks taxpayers to fund law enforcement generously while trusting that the money goes where it's supposed to go. When a police chief allegedly diverts tens of thousands of dollars for personal use, it corrodes the case for that trust. It hands ammunition to every activist who argues that police departments can't be trusted to manage their own budgets.
The people most harmed by that narrative are the officers who show up every day, do their jobs honestly, and now have to carry the weight of their former chief's alleged crimes. They deserve better leadership, and New Haven's residents deserve better stewardship of their money.
Jacobson faces two counts of larceny related to defrauding a public community. Connecticut state police investigated after the city reported the allegations on January 5. The legal process will play out on its own timeline.
But the damage to New Haven's police department is already done. You don't get that trust back with a press release.
