Spota and McPartland were both convicted on all charges, John Marzulli, a spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office, said. [14], The federal inquiry subsequently expanded beyond Burke to investigate a broader pattern of corruption in both the police department and the office of the Suffolk County district attorney, Thomas J. Spota and Burke had a kinship that dated to the ex-chief's teenage years in the late 1970s, when he was a star witness in a murder case that Spota was prosecuting. The U.S. attorney's office also argued that the defendants hadn't accepted responsibility for their actions and deserved more time in prison than sentencing guidelines recommended because of "the need for deterrence" and the "egregiousness" of their actions. Spota and. Federal prosecutors hinted at Spota and McPartland's alleged involvement in the cover up prior to Burke's sentencing, writing in court papers that "high-ranking officials" from other Suffolk County agencies had helped the former chief silence potential whistleblowers. A former Long Island prosecutor was sentenced to 5 years in prison on Tuesday for helping cover up the police beating of a prisoner suspected of stealing sex toys and other items from a police chief's vehicle. Have a question about Government Services? The administration panicked, prosecutors said. Ultimately, the 12 jurors chose to believe Mr. Hickey. Spota was convicted in December 2019 on federal charges of conspiracy . Spota, who served as DA for more than a decade before stepping down in 2017, worked to protect Burke by telling detectives who witnessed the assault to stay quiet as the feds probed the incident. Former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas J. Spota and Government Corruption Bureau Chief Christopher McPartland Each Sentenced to Five Years in Prison Tuesday, August 10, 2021 For Immediate Release U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York The Defendants Were Convicted of Obstructing a Federal Civil Rights Investigation You better find out fast, if its not too late," Hickey testified the district attorney also told him that day. Thomas Spota was the prosecutor. This story has been shared 137,412 times. Boeckmann also called their punishments fitting. "Thomas Spota and Christopher McPartland are guilty of ruining the lives of so many other families. They're guilty," Loeb wrote on Facebook in 2019. They were accompanied by other members of the Hispanic community. But Thomas J. Spota, the district attorney in New Yorks Suffolk County, had an Achilles heel. He was hospitalized in a stress-induced delirium, and was screaming, biting and spitting, according to medical records shown at trial. Christopher Loeb was kicked and punched while in police custody. The two remained close during Burke's rise, which culminated in 2012 when he was elevated to the top position in a department with more than 2,500 . But Spota, who knew of Burkes police disciplinary history, responded to the allegation by saying Burkes off-duty firearm was taken in a pattern of burglaries in his neighborhood, prosecutors told jurors. Uli Seit for The New York Times. His attorney, Larry Krantz, lobbied for leniency for a client he called "an honorable, decent, good man" who had "a brutal fall from grace.". He was convicted along with Christopher McPartland, 53, who paradoxically had been Suffolk Countys top anticorruption prosecutor. United States Attorneys Office He was smiling. He told jurors he acted as a middleman in a yearslong conspiracy to cover-up Loebs beating after being tasked with ensuring the silence of the three detectives. The unfortunate truth is that we will be paying for it for years to come. "Nobody should have this much power and be above the law.". Mr. In particular, Mr. Burke hated one of the police officials, Pat Cuff, who had conducted the internal investigation against him in the 1990s, witnesses said. In December 2012, then-Chief of the SCPD, James Burke the highest-ranking uniformed police official in Suffolk County physically and verbally assaulted a shackled prisoner, Christopher Loeb, who was under arrest and being held in an interrogation room at the 4th Precinct in Hauppauge, New York. Previously, he served as news editor of Stony Brooks student newspaper, The Statesman, and was a member of the campuss chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. But he insisted his memory wasnt compromised by his drinking and that he never consumed alcohol after his 2013 hospital discharge. Suffolk District Attorney Timothy Sini reflected on his predecessor's conviction Tuesday in a statement in which he said the agency he leads needs "to remain focused on continuing our progress and ensuring that the days of the past never happen again. [11] Spota was called to testify before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on September 9, 2003, at a hearing concerning "Pornography, Technology, and Process: Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks." "Somebodys talking. They also presented evidence that Spota, as part of his history of covering up for Burke, wrote a 2011 letter to County Executive-elect Steve Bellones transition team. . Burke was eventually found guilty in the incident andsentenced to 46 months in prison. In contrast, the U.S. attorneys office had sought 8-year sentences for both defendants. Mr. McPartland helped concoct a cover story that Chief Burke had just popped his head in to the interrogation room. Spota's attorney, Alan Vinegrad, told the judge his client is "a shadow" of his former self and a "fundamentally good" person who is devoted to his wife of 51 years, his three children and his grandchildren. In it, Spota raved about Burkes "outstanding leadership" in response to an anonymous letter that had surfaced as selection was underway for a new police chief. The jurors reached the guilty verdict after deliberating for about seven hours over two days. Spotas conduct, like Mr. McPartlands, was not a momentary moral lapse. The obstruction initially worked, thwarting federal agents for several months. While doing so, Azrack said Spota did "incalculable damage" to the criminal justice system after "not a momentary lapse" in judgment but a yearslong conspiracy that included threats against witnesses. ", In 2016, Bellone publicly called on Spota to step down with claims that Spota was "operating a criminal enterprise that must be stopped. Their behavior was outrageous, and their sentences today prove as much. In a rage, Chief Burke kicked and punched him. Spota, 79, of Mount Sinai and McPartland, 55, of Northport, were sentenced by United States District Judge Joan M. Azrack; Spota was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine, officials said. Loeb was paid $1.5 million after he filed a federal lawsuit against Suffolk County, a report by 1010wins said. The assault of the burglary suspect happened about a year into Mr. Burkes tenure as police chief. We are a small family-owned operation. Despite that,. On Tuesday, after the verdict was read, Mr. Loeb, the man who was assaulted by the police chief, poked his head into the emptying courtroom. Greg Blass CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. He was one of the most powerful men on Long Island, serving as the top prosecutor in a suburban county with 1.5 million people. They're guilty," Loeb wrote on Facebook in 2019. The judge told Spota to surrender to prison officials on Dec. 10 and also sentenced him to pay a $100,000 fine. The convictions of Mr. Spota and Mr. McPartland make it clear that the days of Long Islands good old boy networks combining politics, power and policing to benefit a select few, at the expense of the taxpaying public, are dead and gone, said Richard Donoghue, the United States attorney in the Eastern District of New York. Mr. Spotas family members, seated in the first row of the courtroom, appeared emotional, with teary eyes and their arms around one another. We've received your submission. Four days after his release from the hospital in October 2015, he received a grand jury subpoena, he said. Both men denied the charges, multiple reports said. After the meeting, Chief Burke threatened that if the police detectives failed to stay in line, he would expose that Mr. Hickey was cheating on his wife, Mr. Hickey said. A federal appeals court found Wednesday that nurses who abruptly resigned from a Smithtown facility in 2006 over working conditions, then faced child-endangerment charges that were thrown out,. She said that Burke had pleaded guilty quickly after his separate arrest and that, as prosecutors, Spota and McPartland were supposed to be an "essential bulwark against police misconduct.". Both men had faced up to 20 years behind bars. . Burke pleaded guilty in February 2016 to violating punch victim Christopher Loeb's civil rights and obstructing justice for leading a conspiracy to conceal his involvement in the assault. The anonymous communication had issued a warning about Burkes internal affairs history, and made reference to a prostitute stealing Burkes service weapon. Spota represented Burke years later as a private attorney when Burke faced internal police discipline after 1995 allegations which were substantiated that Burke engaged in sex acts with a known prostitute in police vehicles and failed to safeguard his service weapon. [8] He was reelected in 2005,[9] and again in 2009 without any major-party opposition. This culture of corruption has had a real and profound impact. Burke also enlisted the help of his long-time mentor, then-District Attorney Spota, and McPartland, his personal friend and then-Chief of both Investigations and the Government Corruption Bureau, to ensure that the witnesses kept quiet. Among the successful cases prosecuted by his office was the conviction in May 2017 of John Bittrolff, a Manorville carpenter charged with the homicides of prostitutes Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee, whose bodies were found on area South Shore beaches in 1993 and 1994, respectively. U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack meted out the penalties after a jury previously found Spota and Christopher McPartland, his former anti-corruption chief, tried to conceal that brutality and impede a federal probe to protect then-Police Chief James Burke. [10] With todays sentences, justice has been served and the defendants have learned the consequences of their crimes, just like anyone else who has broken the law.". McPartland, who also is serving a five-year sentence, is incarcerated at Beaumont Federal Correctional Complex in Texas, according to the newspaper. Mr. Loeb was held on $500,000 bail, an unusually high amount for a car break-in. August 10, 2021 CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) A former Long Island prosecutor was sentenced to 5 years in prison on Tuesday for helping cover up the police beating of a prisoner suspected of stealing sex toys and other items from a police chief's vehicle. Mr. Burke, 55, had already pleaded guilty in 2016 to the assault and the subsequent cover-up, a year after resigning from the force. At an August 2015 meeting involving some of the people involved in the alleged cover-up, prosecutors said, McPartland warned that Loeb "did not get beaten badly and there were no marks and that nothing would happen as long as the people that were in the room with (Loeb) did not talk. U.S. District Court Judge Joan Azrack told Spota and McPartland that they violated the public's trust and described their actions as "unconscionable" and as "shocking criminal conduct." Oct. 25, 2017. Having served as the Suffolk County D.A. He was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and conspiracy charges in December 2019 [17] and disbarred in June 2020. Mount Sinai, New York, CHRISTOPHER McPARTLAND document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. He then arranged for Burke to be transferred to serve as commanding officer of the squad of police officials who worked directly for him as district attorney, prosecutors said during the trial. McPartland was also part of the pressure campaign to get cops to cover for the chief. They have three grown children. Assistant United States Attorneys Nicole Boeckmann, Lara Treinis Gatz, Justina L. Geraci and Michael R. Maffei are in charge of the prosecution. The prosecution told jurors during the trial that Spota was the "CEO" of the conspiracy, while McPartland was the scheme's "chief operating officer" as they broke the law they were supposed to uphold. "These sentences send the right message to the public that they can have faith in their criminal justice system - that the system is not broken," she said. [5], Spota was born in 1941 and grew up in New Hyde Park, New York, on Long Island. ", Bellone said Suffolk District Attorney Tim Sini has "restored integrity to the office. This story has been shared 121,843 times. He described it as a coalition of five high-powered, corrupt insiders who were behind the cover-up and would take collective aim to discredit and punish their enemies. McPartland also asked the judge to consider how a severe punishment would impact his family and the suffering he said they already have endured. Krantz had argued that McPartland already had lost his reputation, life savings and like Spota his law license. Loeb spoke before Tuesdays sentencing, saying, Spota should spend the rest of his life behind bars for all the lives he has ruined.. Spota's career ended with his disbarment in 2020 and his sentencing to five years in federal prison in 2021. August 10, 2021 / 7:09 PM / CBS New York CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota was sentenced Tuesday for a cover-up involving the county's. Burke attacked Loeb in a police station interrogation room after Loeb was arrested for breaking into the ex-chief's unlocked, department-issued GMC Yukon and stealing a bag containing his gun belt, ammunition, a box of cigars and a bag containing sex toys and pornography. Anthony Leto testified at the trial that Burke punched, kneed and shook Loeb during the beating he also took part in, with Burke also threatening to give Loeb a "hot shot" or deadly drug dose. Prosecutors said Spota and McPartland did "the exact opposite" of their jobs so they could protect Burke in a nefarious plot aimed at maintaining a power structure controlled by those who believed they were above the law. A four-count indictment was returned this morning by a federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging Thomas J. Spota, the Suffolk County District Attorney, and Christopher McPartland, the Chief of Investigations and Chief of the Government Corruption Bureau of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office (SCDAO), with (1) Conspiracy to . Spota: Yes, I met with them. It was written by Murphy. In addition to pressuring people not to cooperate, they asked witnesses to provide investigators with false information and withhold relevant information from investigators, federal prosecutors said. Rather, he engaged in a years-long cover-up.. Lock "Thomas Spota and Christopher McPartland are guilty of ruining the lives of so many other families. Official websites use .gov The verdict came after the jury sat for five weeks listening to evidence, including reports of secret meetings between Spota and McPartland, cell phone tower data, and phone records; Burke previously pleaded guilty and was sentenced, News 12 said. Senator John Flanagan (2 nd Senate District) and Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota joined the families of four men and women killed by hit-and-run drivers to renew the call to increase the maximum punishment for those convicted of that crime from 7 to 15 years imprisonment. With todays sentences, justice has been served and the defendants have learned the consequences of their crimes, just like anyone else who has broken the law. In the 1990s, an internal investigation found that he had violated several police protocols, including having sex in his patrol car while in uniform with a prostitute who used crack cocaine. LONG ISLAND, NY Former Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota, 79, and his chief investigator, found guilty of obstruction by a jury in 2019 for covering up an incident during which a man was beaten after he stole a duffel bag from a former police chief filled with sex toys and pornography are set for sentencing. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York, the pair will be sentenced on August 10 at 10:30 a.m. at the courthouse in Central Islip. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/nyregion/tom-spota-trial-verdict.html. Burke, Spota and McPartland used the power and influence of their official positions, and the threat of retaliatory arrest and prosecution, to keep anyone from cooperating with that investigation. /. Krantz cited what he said was McPartlands history of public service and good deeds, calling him a loving husband and father and someone who worked his way through college and law school before earning accolades throughout his career. A Long Island jury on Tuesday found former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota guilty of obstructing a federal probe into a police chief who bashed a handcuffed prisoner over stolen porn . A year later prosecutors from U.S. Attorneys Long Island criminal division reopened the investigation. He finished his prison sentence in April. [15][16] Spota resigned from office on November 10, 2017. [1] Spota resigned November 10, 2017, after he was indicted on federal charges of obstruction of justice in the investigation of Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke. The disbarred lawyer, who will turn 80 next month, also shared a simple wish: "I hope not to die in prison alone," Spota told the judge. Prosecutors want a federal judge to deny bail for ex-Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota and his former aide while . "For well over a decade, I've personally endured horrendous crimes committed by and under this man," Loeb said referring to Spota. Expand. US Eastern District Judge Joan Azrack handed down the 60-month stint behind bars and $100,000 in fines for the 79-year-old Spota aftera jury found the ex-district attorney guiltyof charges ranging from conspiracy to witness-tampering in 2019. Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Jacqueline Maguire, Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the sentences. The jury determined Spota conspired with Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke and former anti-corruption bureau chief Christopher McPartland to pressure witnesses to not cooperate with an FBI investigation into the 2012 assault. "When a sitting District Attorney and one of his top prosecutors are corrupt and use their power to intimidate witnesses and cover up a brutal assault by a high-ranking law enforcement official, they not only jeopardize the safety of citizens who are entitled to the protection of the law, they also undermine confidence in the integrity and fairness of our criminal justice system," she said. just for me texturizer, nudist hotel sacramento, genius craft lager net worth,