Fairfax County Police Watch: Ex-Cop Sentenced To 10 Years Imprisonment For Brutal Sexual Fetish Fantasies

Mitch de Leon

A U.S. District Judge sentenced the former chief of police of a New York federal veterans hospital to 10 years of imprisonment due to his involvement in the conspiracy to torture, rape, and murder women. The alleged intentions of the convicted officer was identified to have stemmed from Internet fetish forums he reportedly frequently visited.

Richard Meltz, who worked as a police chief at a Massachusetts veteran affairs medical center, pleaded guilty to the charges connecting him with two conspiracies to abduct, torture, and kill women. He was charged with two other men who he allegedly established contact via online message boards. These websites reportedly encourage the sharing of brutal sexual fetishes.

"I conclude that Mr. Meltz presents a danger to the community," U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe said. "There could have been no question in his mind that these kidnapping plots were real."

The situation of the sentenced 66-year-old ex-cop is considered as one of the numerous cases in New York in which no person was actually abducted or hurt, but the possibility of the fantasy plots to turn into reality gradually becomes a tangible ploy.

Prior to reading the sentence, Peter Brill, the lawyer of the accused, tried to convince the judge to grant his client a lenient punishment. In addition, the attorney pointed out that Meltz needed mental counseling to treat his condition. Brill claimed that a prison sentence will not provide his client the help he badly needed.

"I don't mean to make this sound silly but this was a hobby of Mr. Meltz's for many, many, many years," Brill said in an attempt to explain his client's tendency to indulge in violent fantasizes. "And then, of course, the Internet gets invented," he added.

One of the targeted "victims" of the three conspiring men was an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. Investigators have verified that the FBI agent was the topic of the many email exchanges and phone calls among the men.

Court records show that Meltz was in the police and law enforcement industry for roughly 30 years prior to his arrest in 2013. He was taken into police custody after FBI agents began arresting suspected individuals who might be connected with Gilberto Valle, an ex-police officer charged with killing women then eating their body parts to satisfy his cannibalism fetish.

The two men who conspired with Meltz were identified as Michael Van Hise and Christopher Asch. Both were convicted by a federal jury in March.

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.