NEW YORK: James Burke, a former Lengthy Island police chief who served federal jail time for beating a suspect, was arrested Tuesday for allegedly soliciting intercourse and exposing himself at a public park.
Burke, 58, was taken into custody by park rangers in a Farmingville, Lengthy Island park shortly after 10 a.m., in line with a spokesperson for Suffolk County Govt Steve Bellone. He faces costs of providing a intercourse act, public lewdness, indecent publicity, and legal solicitation, with extra potential costs pending, the spokesperson mentioned.
An legal professional for Burke couldn’t be reached. The Suffolk County District Lawyer didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Burke led the Suffolk County Police Division, one of many nation’s largest police forces, between 2012 and 2015, a tumultuous three-year interval that ended with the conviction of Burke and a number of different officers on federal costs of obstruction and assault.
Amid the federal inquiry into his conduct, Burke oversaw the high-profile investigation into the Gilgo Seashore killings, during which the our bodies of a number of intercourse staff have been found on a desolate stretch of Lengthy Island shoreline. His dealing with of the case, together with a choice to finish cooperation with the FBI, has been extensively criticized, drawing renewed scrutiny following the arrest of a suspect in a number of the killings earlier this summer time.
Burke resigned in late 2015, shortly earlier than federal prosecutors introduced costs towards him for assaulting a handcuffed man suspected of stealing embarrassing gadgets from his police division SUV, together with intercourse toys and pornography.
He pleaded responsible in 2016 to violating sufferer Christopher Loeb’s civil rights and obstructing justice for main a conspiracy to hide his involvement within the assault. He served 40 months in jail and was launched in April 2019.
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 field of cigars and a bag containing intercourse toys and pornography.
Loeb’s three-year jail sentence was vacated after Burke pleaded responsible. Authorities suspect he was stealing from vehicles to purchase heroin.
Former Suffolk County District Lawyer Thomas Spota and the chief of Spota’s anti-corruption bureau, Christopher McPartland, have been convicted in December 2019 of witness tampering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy costs for serving to cowl up the assault.
Spota, 81, and McPartland, 57, are each serving five-year jail sentences.
Based on federal prosecutors, Spota, McPartland, Burke and different cops met and spoke by cellphone to debate conceal Burke’s function within the assault on Loeb. Along with pressuring individuals to not cooperate, they requested witnesses to supply investigators with false info and withhold related info from investigators, federal prosecutors mentioned.