https://nypost.com/2023/09/10/james-burke-forced-escort-into-oral-sex-she-says/
Former escort claims disgraced ex- LI police chief James Burke forced her into oral sex
Emily Crane, nypost.com, 9/10/2023
A former escort has alleged the disgraced ex-Suffolk County police chief who botched the Gilgo Beach murder probe once forced her to perform oral sex on him at a cocaine-fueled party near the scene of the killing spree — and then tossed money at her.
The woman, only identified as LeAnn, opened up about her “degrading” 2011 encounter with James Burke, 59, in a Sunday The Daily Mail interview — several years after she first went public with allegations she’d had “rough sex” with him.
LeAnn, who said she was 25 at the time, claims the alleged ordeal unfolded at a home in the exclusive Oak Beach community on Long Island back in August 2011 — just months before he was appointed as Suffolk County’s top cop.
She said Burke — who she recalled as being “pompous, arrogant and aggressive” — had been flirting with her and making small talk about one of his vacations in the lead up.
“We went to a bathroom and he tried to make me give him oral sex,” she reportedly said. “I felt like he was choking me with his penis…it was bizarre,” she continued.
A former escort has alleged disgraced ex-Suffolk County police chief James Burke, 59, allegedly forced her to have oral sex at a cocaine-fueled party in 2011 on Oak Beach.
“I just remember it causing me to tear up because he was that aggressive … and then he gave me money. I remember the bills. I don’t know if it was a $100 or $200. He just handed it to me and that was it.”
She added: “It was degrading.”
The former escort, who attended the party with some college friends, claimed Burke was immediately “dismissive” of her, adding that he was “very entitled … seemed to think that he could do anything.”
The escort offered up the new details of her alleged encounter just weeks after Burke was arrested on Aug. 22 for soliciting sex at the Suffolk County Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Farmingville at 10 a.m.
The woman, only identified as LeAnn, opened up about her “degrading” 2011 encounter with James Burke, 59, in a new interview.
LeAnn had previously come forward in 2016 to allege that Burke — who allegedly obstructed the FBI from investigating the unsolved Gilgo Beach murders, had a history of engaging with sex workers and attending sex parties on Oak Beach.
Her attorney, John Ray, told The Mail that LeAnn’s initial claim was the first time it became known Burke was publicly linked to prostitution in the region.
Ray also represents the family of one of the Gilgo Beach victims, Shannan Gilbert — a 27-year-old sex worker who vanished, and later turned up dead, after leaving a client’s house in Oak Beach on May 1, 2010.
The alleged encounter happened at an undisclosed home in the exclusive Oak Beach community on Long Island back in August 2011.
“He was investigating sex workers like a robber investigates robbers,” Ray said of Burke, who had previously served more than three years in federal prison after being convicted of beating a man who had stolen porn and a sex toy from his police vehicle.
Burke’s tainted history resurfaced this year after cops revealed they’d finally made an arrest in the long-unsolved Gilgo Beach slayings.
The bodies of nearly a dozen sex workers were discovered on Gilgo Beach in 2010 and 2011.
Rex Heuermann, 59, was charged in July in the deaths of three of them; Amber Lynn Costello, 27, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, and Megan Waterman, 22.
He is also the prime suspect in a fourth killing, that of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25 — with the victims known collectively as the “Gilgo Four.”
The accused serial killer pleaded not guilty on July 14.