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“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”

“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”
“It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America - mentally unstable cops”

Ex-East Haven cop who cooperated in fed probe seeks to avoid jail


By Evan Lips, New Haven Register

EAST HAVEN >> Former Sgt. John Miller, the last of four police officers to be sentenced following a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights probe, a federal indictment and resulting convictions, will learn his fate Wednesday.
He and his lawyer are hoping that his cooperation with investigators and post-traumatic stress disorder will keep him out of prison.
Miller, set to appear before U.S. District Judge Alvin Thompson in Hartford, pleaded guilty in September 2012 to an excessive-force count in a deal that wiped away a charge of engaging in a conspiracy with three other officers to violate the rights of members of the community.
In exchange, Miller agreed to talk to prosecutors.
“Mr. Miller has provided substantial assistance to the government in the investigation and prosecution of other persons who have committed offenses,” his attorney, Donald Cretella Jr. of Bridgeport, wrote in a pre-sentencing memorandum.
On Jan. 24, 2012, FBI agents arrested Miller and Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo. Miller was led out of the police station in handcuffs. The other three were netted in predawn raids at their homes.
The ensuing federal indictment referred to the three officers as “Miller’s Boys,” a moniker Miller takes umbrage with in his three-page pre-sentencing statement submitted last week to Thompson.
All four were originally slapped with the civil rights conspiracy count. Zullo, like Miller, pleaded guilty to an excessive-force charge that was unrelated to the racial-profiling allegations laid out in the indictment.
Miller’s excessive-force charge stems from an incident Jan. 3, 2010, in which he admitted to punching a handcuffed, detained suspect in the stomach. The charge carries a maximum 10-year sentence, but federal sentencing guidelines call for 1 to 1½ years in prison.
Cretella’s memorandum argues his client deserves probation.
“Amongst police officers there has always been a code of silence that exists and yet John (Miller) decided to do the right thing, knowing that he would be ostracized not just by those he was cooperating against, but the entire Police Department and many other law enforcement officers would look on him as a rat,” Cretella wrote.
The federal indictment accuses Miller, then head of the local police officers’ union, as the one who drew the outline of a rat on the department’s union bulletin board in September 2010 after suspecting there was another officer cooperating with the investigation.
In Miller’s three-page letter to Thompson, he apologized to the man he hit and said he was “sorry for embarrassing myself, my family and the East Haven Police Department.”
He points to his four police Medals of Honor and to three instances in which, during the line of duty, he fired his handgun. He recalled the time in March 2006 when he fatally shot Christopher Morro after a pursuit that ended atop the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge. Morrow had shot and wounded Cari and another officer during the standoff.
Miller also told of the time he fatally shot Brian Batten, 32, a town resident who led officers on a chase into New Haven in March 2008. A state police investigation determined Batten aimed a gun at officers seconds before Miller shot him.
Miller’s letter states the two shootings, as well as a third in 2010 when he killed a charging pit bull, led to PTSD.
“It changed me from within,” Miller wrote. “I became angry, numb, irritable, short-tempered, depressed, narrow-minded, suffered from anxiety, unable to sleep and eventually led me to push people away.”
According to Cretella’s memorandum, Miller began therapy for PTSD in 2011, a decision he made on his own.
“John (Miller) was allowed to return to work without treatment,” Cretella wrote. “He dealt with his feelings like a good ‘Irish cop’; he suppressed them and the East Haven Police Department fostered this neglect, this abuse.”
Miller does not address in his three-page statement an accusation in the indictment noting how he reprimanded an officer who saw the Jan. 3, 2010, assault and reported it to a supervisor. The indictment also sheds light on the relationship between Miller and former Police Chief Leonard Gallo.
Gallo, whose attorney has acknowledged appears in the indictment as “co-conspirator-1,” “refused to comply with the (Board of Police Commissioners’) request to investigate misconduct involving defendant Miller,” the indictment states.
“On or about Nov. 30, 2011, co-conspirator-1 ordered all EHPD personnel not to permit Police Commissioners on the premises of the EHPD station without his prior approval, and threatened discipline for failure to comply with the order.”
Gallo has not been charged.
Other accusations in the indictment state that it was Miller who supervised Cari, Spaulding and Zullo as they “conducted an illegal search of the back room of My Country Store in an effort to unlawfully seize the store’s video recording.”
The store was the site in February 2009 of Cari’s arrest of a New Haven priest whose complaints sparked the U.S. Department of Justice investigation. The Rev. James Manship, who testified for the government in the cases against Cari and Spaulding, filmed a brief encounter with Cari, evidence that a jury determined showed Cari unlawfully arrested Manship before filing a false report.
Miller’s letter criticizes prosecutors’ use of the term “Miller’s Boys” to describe his relationship with Cari, Spaulding and Zullo.
“I have never treated some of my co-workers different than anyone else I supervised,” he wrote. “The only time I have used the phrase ‘Miller’s Boys’ is when I am referring to my two sons who bring me great pride.
“It upsets me that it made its way into this investigation.”
Miller also disputes accusations of racism.
“Never in my life or career have I treated someone different because of their race,” he wrote.
During Miller’s Sept. 21, 2012, guilty plea filing appearance, U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly said that if federal investigators determine Miller provided enough information, “the government will file a motion under Section 5k1.1 of the sentencing guidelines advising the court and probation of the nature and extent of defendant’s cooperation.”
Cretella makes several references in his sentencing memorandum to “the government’s 5k letter,” where “Mr. Miller has provided significant and useful assistance.”
The “5k letter” is sealed.
“Mr. Miller risked injury to himself and his family,” Cretella wrote. “His assistance has been timely.”
Zullo, the first of the four to be sentenced, is serving his two-year sentence at a federal prison in West Virginia. On Jan. 21, Thompson sentenced Cari to 30 months in prison. He is getting credit for time served, meaning he will serve a maximum of 27 months.
On Jan. 22, Thompson handed Spaulding the stiffest sentence of all. He will spend a maximum of five years in federal prison and is scheduled to report March 4 to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Call Evan Lips at 203-789-5727. Have questions, feedback or ideas about our news coverage? Connect directly with the editors of the New Haven Register at AskTheRegister.com.