Background and experience
Sinagra began his police career in 1986 with the Palisades Park Police. He served a stint as a paramedic for Mobile Life Support Services in Newburgh in 1986 and 1987, followed by two years in the Montgomery Police Department and one year as an undercover narcotics officer with the Orange County District Attorney’s office. He joined the Town of Ulster Police in 1989, beginning as a patrolman and working his way up to deputy chief, a post he’s held since 2008.
Now in a master’s program at Marist, Sinagra is a graduate of Empire State College and has taken courses at the University of Virginia, Onondaga Community College, Frederick Community College in Maryland, State University of New York at Corning and Saint Bonaventure University.
He holds the following certifications: New York State firefighter, arson awareness, chemical agent instructor and hostage crisis negotiator. He’s chair of the Ulster County Substance Abuse Prevention Board, PTA president at Meagher Elementary School, a member of the New York Police Chief’s Association, secretary of the Ulster County Police Chief’s Association, religious education teacher at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Kingston, a member of the East Kingston Volunteer Fire Company, of which he is a past president, and a member of the Hurley Volunteer Fire Department.
A high point for Sinagra was the three-month live-in study at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA. The academy trains police leaders from all over the world, he said, pointing to a display of miniature departmental seals he collected there. His academy class included police leaders from Kuwait, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Taiwan, as well as many European countries. Sinagra said meeting police from other countries helped him appreciate our system; in particular the presumption that a person is innocent until he is proved guilty in court. “That is not how it is in many countries,” he said.
Sinagra has a wife, Diedre, and four daughters, ranging in age from 8 to 23 years old. He comes from a law enforcement family: his father, Phillip Sinagra Sr., served as police chief in Hurley, and his brother Phillip Sinagra serves in the Cornwall
