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.
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