James Burke, Ex-Suffolk County Police Chief, Is Sentenced to 46 Months

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/nyregion/james-burke-ex-suffolk-county-police-chief-is-sentenced.html

James Burke, Ex-Suffolk County Police Chief, Is Sentenced to 46 Months
New York Times | Nov. 2, 2016

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — The once popular and swaggering chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, James Burke, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison on Wednesday for a series of misdeeds that began after a duffel bag belonging to him was stolen from his parked sport utility vehicle.

The duffel bag contained pornography and sex toys. Its disappearance in December 2012 set Mr. Burke off on a furious effort to find the thief, teach him a lesson, recover the bag and make sure the episode stayed quiet. It did not.

Mr. Burke’s efforts at a cover-up set in motion a scandal that reverberated through Long Island politics, making new enemies out of old allies and leading to an ever-widening inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is now scrutinizing not only the police, but also prosecutors and the judiciary.

That larger investigation showed no signs of having ended on Wednesday, even as the man at its center was given a stiff sentence by a federal judge who was unimpressed by Mr. Burke’s apology, or the more than 80 letters he had received from Mr. Burke’s friends and family, pleading for leniency.

The judge, Leonard D. Wexler of Federal District Court, compared Mr. Burke’s style as police chief to that of a dictator who commanded a loyal following. Judge Wexler said that Mr. Burke had “corrupted a system,” and that his crimes were not limited to a single episode.

“It did not take one day,” Judge Wexler said of Mr. Burke’s efforts to thwart the F.B.I.’s investigation. “It stretched over three years.”

Mr. Burke, 52, has been held in a federal jail for 11 months, ever since his arrest last December, on charges of violating the thief’s civil rights and conspiring to obstruct justice, ended a colorful three-decade career in law enforcement.

Mr. Burke had undergone an unusual introduction to the policing profession. As a teenager, he was a key witness in one of Long Island’s most notorious murders: the killing of a 13-year-old named John Pius, whose battered body was found in the woods in Smithtown, N.Y., in 1979 with six rocks jammed down his throat.

The prosecutor in that case was Thomas J. Spota, who would go on to become the district attorney in Suffolk County and a major supporter of Mr. Burke’s career. As a young police officer, Mr. Burke developed a reputation as an aggressive street cop with a knack for catching criminals and a streak of risky behavior. His career was almost derailed early on by a relationship with a prostitute, and his habit of losing his service weapon. But he kept rising through the ranks, ultimately becoming the top uniformed chief of the county police force on the eastern half of Long Island, a job he secured in 2011 with Mr. Spota’s support.

As chief, Mr. Burke adopted the latest crime-fighting strategies and was credited with some success in reducing crime. A cigar-smoking raconteur, Mr. Burke also ran his police department, with about 2,300 officers, in a manner at odds with the latest police management journals. In one recent legal filing, prosecutors say his office “was repurposed into a makeshift bar which was open every night for ‘drinks.’” Mr. Burke also had subordinates “conduct surveillance” on his girlfriend or his girlfriend’s exes, prosecutors claimed in the legal filing.

Initially, the case against Mr. Burke had a narrow focus: Had he punched, and even threatened to kill, the duffel-bag thief?

Mr. Burke pressured detectives to commit perjury in court and to lie to federal agents who were investigating the assault.

For a time, his cover-up did, in fact, stymie the F.B.I. But in 2015, after more than two years, federal agents gained the cooperation and testimony of at least 10 police officers, some of whom corroborated the details of Mr. Burke’s violent conduct after officers arrested the man who had snatched the duffel bag from his GMC Yukon.

The thief, Christopher Loeb, a young heroin addict who routinely broke into parked cars and pilfered whatever he could find, was brought to a station house and shackled to the floor of an interrogation room.

Mr. Burke barged into the room. The police chief punched Mr. Loeb and shook his head violently. At one point, prosecutors said, he threatened Mr. Loeb, telling him that he would receive a “hot shot,” slang for a fatal dose of heroin.

Mr. Loeb, still handcuffed and shackled to the floor, called Mr. Burke a pervert, apparently berating him about the pornography in the duffel bag. At that point, prosecutors wrote in a legal filing, Mr. Burke “went out of control,” screaming at and beating Mr. Loeb until one of the detectives said, “Boss, that’s enough, that’s enough.”

Mr. Loeb spoke at the sentencing, describing how Mr. Burke’s violent behavior had done more than just injure and frighten him. “Your crime is first against me and then against the entire system of justice,” Mr. Loeb said, looking directly at Mr. Burke. “The punishment for petty theft should never include a vicious beating by the chief of police.”

Mr. Loeb said he still worried that one of Mr. Burke’s subordinates would come after him. “I will never again feel comfortable in Suffolk County, the place I used to call home,” he said.

Mr. Loeb, who is currently imprisoned in connection with a parole violation, said he drew some satisfaction from the fact that Mr. Burke had been reduced to his own circumstances. “Now look at us both; we’re both incarcerated,” he said, his glance falling on the khaki jail uniform that Mr. Burke wore.

Mr. Burke had already spoken briefly, acknowledging that he had committed “a calamitous misdeed.” He apologized to Mr. Loeb.

From the judge, he simply asked for a “reasonable and just sentence.”

The courtroom was crowded with reporters and prosecutors, and, in keeping with Mr. Burke’s reputation as a polarizing figure, several benches were packed with friends and critics.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 51 months in prison, claiming in a legal filing this week that a severe sentence was appropriate because Mr. Burke’s conduct had “severely undermined the public’s trust in law enforcement at a time in which relations between law enforcement and the public are at an all-time low.”

Mr. Burke is the only person criminally charged in the case, and he has surprised a number of Suffolk County politicians and police officials by refusing to cooperate with prosecutors or help them build cases against his former colleagues.

In a recent court filing, prosecutors said their investigation was “ongoing with respect to other co-conspirators,” a hint that other lawmen could still face charges.

The federal investigation appears to be casting a wide net, looking at people outside Mr. Burke’s inner circle. Over the past year, the investigation, which is being handled by the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, has begun to look at the Suffolk County district attorney’s office, according to three law enforcement officials who were not authorized to speak about the investigation.

In particular, federal prosecutors have examined a number of cases handled by the top anticorruption prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, Christopher McPartland, for improprieties, including the possibility that political motivations had played a role, according to the three officials.

The district attorney’s office has said that Mr. McPartland has “conducted himself ethically, professionally and lawfully.”

The federal investigation has also led agents to seek evidence concerning the question of whether judgeships are for sale in Suffolk County, according to two people with knowledge of that aspect of the inquiry.

--A version of this article appears in print on November 3, 2016, on page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Ex-Suffolk County Police Chief Is Sentenced to 46 Months.