SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Root Of Spota - Bellone Battle Smithtown Men

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Suffolk County, which has known frequent governmental scandals through the decades, may or may not see a new big one erupt. And two Smithtown men are in the middle of it. 

Meanwhile, some are charging that a rush to judgement in regard to the culpability of governmental officials is happening.

“It’s like a lynch mob not interested in innocence or guilt, just the strength of the tree branch and thickness of the rope,” Suffolk County Legislator Thomas Barraga has declared about recent demands made by some county officials that other county officials resign.

The backdrop is a federal investigation into corruption in the criminal justice system in Suffolk. More about this probe will become clear if and/or when the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York (which includes Suffolk County) comes forward with what case or cases it might make. 

Mr. Barraga was a state assemblyman for 23 years before being elected to the county legislature in 2005.  He said “neither the DA nor the county executive has been charged with anything, so what gives other elected officials the right to call for their resignation?”

Also urging a “more cautious” approach to the situation is DuWayne Gregory, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature and thus the second highest official in Suffolk County government after county executive.  Says Mr. Gregory: “I’m of the mindset to trust but verify, not distrust and vilify.” Interestingly, he is the polar-opposite politically of conservative Republican Barraga, a Democrat in the highest governmental post an African-American has ever achieved in Suffolk.

Central to what’s been happening is James Burke of Smithtown, chief of the Suffolk County Police Department until his resignation and then arrest in December. That happened in front of his Smithtown house after an indictment of Mr. Burke brought by the office of the U.S. Attorney.  

“I find the corruption of an entire department by this defendant is shocking, “said U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Wexler at an initial hearing for Mr. Burke at the federal courthouse in Central Islip. In February, Mr. Burke pled guilty to the indictment of his beating up, in the Suffolk Police Fourth Precinct house in Hauppauge, a suspect, Christopher Loeb, also of Smithtown. Mr. Loeb had been arrested for breaking into Mr. Burke’s police vehicle.  

Mr. Burke was subsequently accused by the office of the U.S. Attorney of orchestrating a police cover-up of the beating and violating Mr. Loeb’s civil rights. Mr. Burke is now in jail awaiting sentencing.

Widely reported on has been an anonymous letter from “several long-time members” of the Suffolk Police Department relating other earlier misdeeds of Mr. Burke. “These have been personally witnessed by the writers or by first hand witnesses, these are not speculation, rumors or tall tales, they are facts,” it said. It was sent to Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone and his transition team in December 2011, just after his election, in an effort, to save the incoming “administration from scandal and embarrassment.” It described Mr. Burke as a “prolific spinner of facts” and “a master of winning people over and gaining their trust. He can and has had very high powered people do his bidding.”

Despite the letter and information it contained, Mr. Bellone appointed Mr. Burke police chief. Mr. Bellone says he discounted the letter because Suffolk DA Thomas Spota, for whom Mr. Burke worked as chief investigator and with whom he was close, discounted it to him. Mr. Bellone’s shift of blame to Mr. Spota expanded dramatically last month with his demand that Mr. Spota resign amid what has been a succession of investigative articles in Newsday highly critical of the Suffolk DA’s office. These have included articles describing the DA’s office as not taking appropriate action upon receiving evidence on wiretaps of crimes.  

Also calling for the DA to resign has been Suffolk Sheriff Vincent DeMarco. And several county legislators have demanded that both Messrs. Spota and Bellone resign. 

Mr. Spota shot back that Mr. Bellone’s demand “is not based on anything but a personal vendetta against me for investigating and prosecuting people that he is close to.” Mr. Spota specifically cited Mr. Bellone’s “multiple” pleas “in the presence of other prosecutors”  on behalf of his “childhood friend” Robert Stricoff and Donald Rodgers, the county’s information technology commissioner.  The DA said “I refused” to “discontinue my ongoing investigation” of Mr. Stricoff and financial improprieties when he was chairman of the Democratic committee in Mr. Bellone’s hometown of Babylon. That investigation has since been “referred to the chief law enforcement counsel for the state Board of Elections….And I did prosecute Rodgers…He pled guilty to official misconduct and offering a false instrument.” 

As to the Newsday reporting, Mr. Spota maintained it is “fundamentally flawed.” Since taking office in 2001, “I have tried my very, very best to do what is right…I have prosecuted probably over 100 public officials. I never shied away from one of them,” he said.

What might happen?  A wrinkle involves what directions Mr. Burke—with his ability to spin and at ”winning people over”—might send federal authorities. By making a deal with the office of the U.S. attorney and pleading guilty, he avoided a possible 20-year prison sentence if he went to trial. Ironically, it was Mr. Burke when he was a high Suffolk law enforcement official who started and continued a feud with the office of the U.S. Attorney that resulted in years of conflict between that office and the Suffolk DA’s office.

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Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.