By Evan Lips, New Haven
Register
EAST HAVEN >> Convicted
former police Officer Jason Zullo arrived at Gilmer Federal Correctional
Institution in Glenville, W.Va., Thursday to begin his two-year sentence,
according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
Zullo, now also known as Inmate
20808-014, is scheduled for release on Oct. 10, 2015.
Gilmer FCI is about 545 miles
away from the East Haven Police Department, where Zullo had worked since 2005.
At Zullo’s December sentencing,
U.S. District Judge Alvin Thompson said the 24-month sentence was “the most
appropriate” given the plea deal Zullo reached with federal prosecutors and the
nature of the crime, which included ramming a motorcyclist at least three times
during a pursuit, causing a crash and then failing to mention in his incident
report the fact he struck the motorcycle.
He was one of three officers
named in a January 2012 federal indictment, the result of a lengthy Department
of Justice investigation into the practices of East Haven police officers.
Zullo, 35, was the first of the
four to be sentenced. Retired Officers David Cari and Dennis Spaulding,
convicted in October for a variety of civil rights abuses, will be sentenced
Tuesday. The fourth, retired Sgt. John Miller, will be sentenced in February.
Miller pleaded guilty to charges unrelated to racial profiling.
During his sentencing
appearance, Zullo told Thompson that as a police officer he “had been told and
trained to keep secrets.”
He said the motorcyclist,
Robert Salatto, who has been convicted of multiple crimes himself, was breaking
the law.
“I tried to stop him, and he
evaded. I chose to engage, and I will live with this decision forever,” Zullo
said.
Federal prosecutor Krishna
Patel called Zullo’s comments the “type of explanation we’ve heard all too
often from East Haven police — blaming the victim.”
“And the explanation of being
‘trained to keep secrets’ — that’s not what police officers are supposed to do,
police officers are supposed to be witnesses to the truth,” Patel said.
Zullo’s attorney, Norm Pattis,
urged leniency, citing that his client’s wife is suffering from a debilitating
kidney condition that has prompted Zullo to assume the role of “most active
parent” for the couple’s children.
As for the incident with
Salatto, Thompson also questioned Zullo’s explanation about how police officers
are “trained to keep secrets.”
“I don’t know what to make of
that,” Thompson said of Zullo’s comments. “The defendant saying he was taught
to lie does not reflect well on the East Haven Police Department.”
Outside federal court, Pattis
called the sentencing “fundamentally unfair” and criticized the notion that
information gleaned from the trial of Cari and Spaulding could be used against
his client.
Salatto was accompanied by his
girlfriend, who prosecutors stressed was an innocent victim of Zullo’s actions.
She was riding with Salatto on the back of his motorcycle at the time of the
incident. After Zullo’s sentencing, Salatto said he “respected the system.”
Spaulding was in attendance
during Zullo’s sentencing.
Zullo is also required to spend
one year under supervisory release.
