Fairfax County Police Watch: East Haven cop Jason Zullo to be sentenced for obstruction on Monday

EAST HAVEN >> Former town police Officer Jason Zullo is expected to be sentenced Monday in federal court for obstruction of justice and could be sent to prison for 24 months.

According to sentencing documents from the U.S. attorney’s office, “the government respectfully requests that Zullo be sentenced to the term of incarceration that his criminal conduct warrants — 24 months. Zullo stands before this court having pled to one count of obstruction and undoubtedly will seek to excuse his conduct as an isolated incident. The evidence obtained during the course of the investigation, however, demonstrates that Zullo repeatedly abused his position of power as an East Haven police officer and that his actions were premeditated and intended to injure those that he deemed should not be permitted in his town.”

Zullo pleaded guilty in October 2012 to one charge of obstruction of justice after admitting that he purposely left out of a police report the fact that his cruiser had repeatedly hit a motorcycle driven by Robert Salatto, with Salatto’s helmetless girlfriend riding on the back, when he was chasing them on Oct. 18, 2008.

As part of the plea agreement, the prosecution agreed not to push for more than 24 months in prison, while Zullo, 35, and his attorney, Norm Pattis, agreed not to seek less than 12 months, according to Pattis.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Zullo would face either 18 to 24 or 12 to 16 months in prison, depending on which side’s version of the applicable issues the judge accepts. He also faces up to three years of supervised release and up to a $250,000 fine, plus possible restitution.

The charge is a felony, which means Zullo will lose his rights to vote, hold office and carry a firearm. He also will be required to give up a sample of his DNA.

Zullo’s plea deals only with the motorcycle incident and “does not address” the “ethnic-based” allegations that had been at the center of a federal criminal and civil rights investigation of the East Haven Police Department, said Pattis.

Those allegations included a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Latinos and other residents, including ethnic profiling, disparate treatment and use of excessive force. i

The plea made Zullo the second of four former East Haven police officers indicted in January 2012 to plead guilty, following Sgt. John Miller, who changed his plea on Sept. 21. Miller will be sentenced Feb. 1. According to his plea agreement, Miller could avoid jail time if he fully cooperates with prosecutors.

Two other former officers, David Cari and Dennis Spaulding, decided to go to trial. A jury found both guilty in October of numerous charges including conspiracy to violate civil rights, deprivation of rights for making arrests without probable cause and obstruction of justice.

Spaulding was additionally convicted on an unreasonable force charge. Both will be sentenced Jan. 21.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.