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(Photo: Seth Harrison/The Journal News) http://www.lohud.com/story/news/investigations/2014/03/17/former-ramapo-officer-got-paid-nearly-million-disability-despite-arrests/6490863/ Read the profiles of six Lower Hudson Valley first responders who found themselves on state disability leave for very different reasons, from almost being killed in a car chase to falling at a construction site. Their stories are part of a two-part Journal News/lohud.com investigation into the state's disability leave and retirement system for police and fire and its cost to local taxpayers and impact on public safety services. James Curley has spent more time in court, rehabilitation and behind bars during nearly two decades on the Ramapo payroll than patrolling the streets as a police officer. Curley, 49, got injured while working as a town officer in August 1990, damaging his ankle at a construction site outside police headquarters. The injury evolved into neurological damage, the Suffern resident said. Over the next 18 years, while collecting an estimated $2 million in salary under the state disability law, Curley, the town of Ramapo and the New York state Comptroller's Office fought over whether he should be cleared to return to work or granted a 50 or 75 percent disability pension. While the bureaucrats battled, Curley's estranged wife accused him of stalking, assaulting and threatening to kill her. He spent nearly four years in prison after being convicted on a federal stalking charge in March 2009. A federal appeals panel overturned the conviction and a jury acquitted him in a 2012 retrial. Part one of this series: Police, firefighters off the job but on the payroll Interactive: Fire and police disability spending by town That was not the first time Curley ended up on the wrong side of the law while receiving his police officer's pay. In 2008, he ran from New Jersey police after they stopped his rental car and was later convicted of resisting arrest, weapons possession for having musket-type guns in the car, and other charges. Curley's conviction on the stalking charge is what finally got him fired in 2009 — at that time he was making $115,117 a year — and he is appealing the Jersey gun conviction as well. None of it, Curley says, should disqualify him from returning to the 102-member Ramapo police department. The town of Ramapo doesn't agree. "I think the best thing after all these years that Mr. Curley got paid close to $2 million tax-free while out on (disability) is for him and the town of Ramapo to part ways," Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence said. Brian Nugent, a retired Suffern police lieutenant representing Ramapo in the case, said Curley's request for a reinstatement hearing is a "dead issue" until he or his lawyer formally files an application. Curley said he has reapplied but the town says his application is incomplete, and does not provide information on his criminal record, where he's living and other personal details. "He's entitled to reapply and the vacating of his conviction triggers his right to seek reinstatement," Nugent said. "Reinstatement is discretionary." Curley said at first he wanted to retire on disability but that putting stents in his ankle and receiving epidural shots cured his nerve damage. By the time he was cleared to return to work — the town disputes he ever was — Ramapo did not want him and the state would not retire him, he said. "I think the (disability) policy is beneficial to everybody if people are willing to be reasonable," Curley said. "It protects the officer until he or she is rehabilitated for injuries sustained in the line of duty and gives the officer a chance to recover and go back to full duty. Ramapo has denied me my rights and has gone after me." SHARECONNECTTWEETCOMMENTEMAIL