By ARIELLE DOLLINGER and MARC
SANTORAFEB. 26, 2016
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — The former
police chief of Suffolk County pleaded guilty on Friday to federal charges
stemming from accusations that he beat a suspect in custody, threatened to kill
him and then coerced his fellow officers into covering up the misconduct.
The former chief, James Burke,
51, who was known for his swaggering confidence as the leader of one of the
region’s largest police departments, was subdued in Federal District Court here
as the charges against him were read aloud.
“I plead guilty, Your Honor,”
said Mr. Burke, wearing a drab khaki prison uniform.
Since the federal inquiry into
Mr. Burke’s actions began some three years ago, investigators have expanded
their inquiries and are now examining the workings of the Police Department and
the district attorney’s office.
Robert L. Capers, the United
States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said the investigation
was continuing and would seek out those who might have been involved in
wrongdoing.
“The defendant violated his oath
and responsibilities as a law enforcement officer by exacting personal
vengeance, assaulting a handcuffed suspect and abusing his authority as the
highest ranking uniformed member of the Suffolk County Police Department,” Mr.
Capers said in a statement. “Despite the efforts of the defendant and his
co-conspirators to obstruct the federal investigation, he has been brought to
justice.”
Joseph Conway, Mr. Burke’s
lawyer, later told reporters that he planned to argue for a sentence of less
than five years in prison for violating the suspect’s civil rights and
conspiring to obstruct justice. The maximum possible sentence for the civil
rights charge is 10 years in prison; for the obstruction charge, it is 20
years.
“He realized what he did here,
and he wants to own up to it,” Mr. Conway said. “He’s very remorseful.”
The charges against Mr. Burke
stemmed from an episode in December 2012 when Christopher Loeb, a heroin addict
who financed his $100-a-day habit by breaking into cars, was arrested on
suspicion of stealing a duffel bag stuffed with cigars, pornographic DVDs and
sex toys from Mr. Burke’s police car.
He was brought to a precinct
house and shackled to the floor.
In a 2013 court hearing, Mr. Loeb
testified that when he asked for a lawyer, one detective told him, “This isn’t
‘Law & Order’; you’re not going to get an attorney.”
When Mr. Burke entered the
interrogation room, Mr. Loeb “was handcuffed and chained to an eyebolt fastened
to the floor,” according to prosecutors.
“Chief Burke grabbed me by my
cheeks and hit me on the top of my head,” Mr. Loeb testified during his 2013
trial, during which he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison.
Mr. Loeb responded to the
thrashing by calling Mr. Burke “a pervert” and mocking him for the pornography
he found in his car, according to federal prosecutors.
At that point, prosecutors said,
Mr. Burke “went out of control, screaming and cursing at Loeb and assaulting
him until a detective finally said, ‘Boss, that’s enough, that’s enough.’”
After the interrogation, Mr.
Burke pressured the detectives who witnessed the assault to conceal it.
“Those efforts continued even
after the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office opened an investigation of the
assault in May 2013,” according to a statement released by prosecutors
announcing Mr. Burke’s indictment in December.
After Mr. Burke was arrested,
Judge Leonard Wexler took the unusual step of denying him bail, saying he posed
a danger to the community.
“I find the corruption of an
entire department by this defendant is shocking,” Judge Wexler said in
December.
The federal inquiry has since
expanded beyond Mr. Burke to look into a broader pattern of possible corruption
in both the police department and the office of the Suffolk County district
attorney, Thomas J. Spota.
Investigators are looking into
the conduct of two of Mr. Spota’s protégés — Mr. Burke and the district
attorney’s top anticorruption prosecutor — and any role they may have had in
what federal prosecutors have described as a conspiracy to obstruct justice, three
officials familiar with the investigation told The New York Times earlier this
year.
The new Suffolk police
commissioner, Tim Sini, is a former assistant United States attorney from the
Southern District of New York, and he has hired a former federal corruption
investigator, John Barry, to review the department’s internal affairs files.
At a court hearing after Mr.
Burke’s arrest, a federal prosecutor, James Miskiewicz, described a pattern of
abuse, including the use of a contractor for the district attorney’s office to
install a GPS device on a deputy police commissioner’s car.
Mr. Burke was hoping to “to dig
up blackmail dirt on her,” Mr. Miskiewicz testified, calling the episode
“something out of the K.G.B.”
Mr. Spota and Mr. Burke have been
close for decades, and the district attorney helped Mr. Burke secure his job as
the top officer for much of Long Island, despite a sometimes checkered history.
Two decades ago, as a sergeant,
Mr. Burke had a sexual relationship with a prostitute, according to an internal
affairs investigation that accused Mr. Burke of accidentally leaving his
handgun with the woman, Newsday reported.
Mr. Burke not only survived that
incident but also thrived. He was named chief in 2012, the highest-ranking
uniformed position in the department, which, like New York City’s, is led by a
civilian commissioner.
With some 2,700 sworn officers
and over 600 civilian members, the department is one of the largest in the
region.
Compared with those in other
departments, officers in the Suffolk agency are well paid, making $125,000 in
base pay. That is about $50,000 more than their counterparts in New York City,
and it does not include overtime pay, which can be substantial, or the extra
money officers receive for each year on the job.
Detectives and sergeants have
been known to earn more than $200,000 a year. The police unions on Long Island
are so wealthy they have formed a “super PAC” to flood local elections with
campaign donations.
Correction: February 26, 2016
An earlier version of his article
misstated James Burke’s appearance when he was in court on Friday. He was
wearing a prison uniform, but not ankle chains.
Correction: February 26, 2016
An earlier version of this
article misstated what Mr. Burke’s lawyer, Joseph Conway, said about his
client’s prison sentence. He said he intended to argue for a sentence of less
than five years in prison; it was not the case that he expected that to be the
penalty.
Arielle Dollinger reported from
Central Islip, and Marc Santora from New York. William K. Rashbaum contributed
reporting from New York.
