The Connecticut State Police Union on Thursday issued a "no confidence" vote in the leadership of the state's largest police force over its handling of the ongoing fake ticket scandal.

The union accused James Rovella, commissioner of the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, and State Police Col. Stravros Mellekas, who commands the force, of failing to defend troopers against claims that they faked tickets for personal gain.

"We no longer have any confidence in you [Rovella] or Colonel Mellekas, who stood by idly, as you allowed others to publicly make false allegations, destroy the morale of our troopers, and dismantle the reputation of the State Police," Union President Todd Fedigan wrote in a letter to Rovella.

"Rather than going public to vigorously defend the good names of your troopers, you decided to make public comments that our troopers have committed criminal conduct and implied that our senior troopers have discriminatory 'habits' when interacting with the public," said Fedigan, who represents nearly 900 rank and file troopers.

A spokesperson for the state police said "the agency will not be speaking on this matter" when asked for comment. A spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont did not immediately offer comment.

The no confidence vote follows a similar vote by the 27-member union representing supervisors and lieutenants issued July 25. That union did not include Mellekas in its no confidence vote.

The union's statement is directed at the state police leadership's handling of an audit released last month that found a "high likelihood" that hundreds of troopers may have written thousands of tickets for traffic stops that never happened.

The audit, conducted by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, identified 130 troopers with a significant rate of potentially false tickets and found that troopers may have entered at least 25,966 false traffic tickets into a State Police database that supervisors use to monitor ticket writing.

The audit did not address whether the falsified tickets were entered intentionally or why troopers might have entered them. No members of the public received false traffic tickets.

But the audit concluded the discrepancies mean some of the state's racial profiling database is likely inaccurate. Those statistics are gleaned from demographic information from motorists ticketed by police and used to spot trends in racial profiling.

The audit grew from a Hearst Connecticut Media investigation last year that uncovered four troopers who were disciplined in 2018 for faking more than 600 tickets to pad their production numbers and look better in the eyes of supervisors.

In his letter to Rovella, Fedigan cited statements by the commissioner during a recent hearing over the audit by the Legislature's judiciary and public safety committees during which Rovella told lawmakers "I take this very seriously," referring to the fake ticket allegations.

Fedigan questioned Rovella's intentions.

"If you took these allegations or the process seriously, you and Colonel Mellekas would have started the process of "scrubbing" and clearing the good names of your troopers. Instead, you have only assigned two members of command to "scrub" the list of Troopers and to date they have only been able to clear six wrongfully accused from the list of 130 Troopers," Fedigan said.

Fedigan also pointed out that "you assigned six troopers to work with the State's Attorney's Office to pursue criminal charges. As our Commissioner, your priorities are mis-aligned and you clearly do not take the protection of one's career, reputation and mental health seriously."

The Chief State's Attorney began a criminal investigation last year into the four officers previously found to have faked tickets and expanded that probe to include the recent audit. The investigation has now been taken over the federal Department of Justice, which is likely looking for misuse of federal funding for special initiatives such as seatbelt checks.

Fedigan said Rovella implied troopers are involved in illegal activity.

"You improperly and unfairly suggested to the Legislature and the public that our troopers were involved in unethical and illegal activity with regard to financial gain," Fedigan said. "Your suggestion is not only disrespectful, insulting, and defamatory, it shows that you are not impartial and do not have the proper character worthy of being our Commissioner."

Fedigan added "Without a shred of evidence of such misconduct, you intentionally suggested criminal conduct by our troopers to mislead the media and to please those who have the authority to remove you from office."