Support Your Local Police

Did you hear the one about the prosecutors who engaged in a massive years-long conspiracy to protect a corrupt cop? 

No, this is not the lead in for a joke, it's what actually happened in Long Island, and the DA and his assistant have now been sentenced to 5 years in prison for obstruction of justice:

For three years, a handful of Suffolk County detectives and police officials gathered in places public and private — a church parking lot, a high school gym, each other’s Long Island homes — in a concerted effort to conceal an incendiary secret: The chief of the county police department, James Burke, had assaulted a shackled prisoner.

The details of the clandestine meetings then made their way to the police chief’s powerful allies: Thomas Spota, the county’s top prosecutor, and his aide Christopher McPartland, a prosecutor focused on rooting out corruption.

But their plot to protect Mr. Burke fell apart. A grand jury indicted Mr. Burke in 2015, and he pleaded guilty to assault the following year. And on Tuesday, nearly two years after they were found guilty of obstruction of justice and other charges related to the scheme, a federal judge in Central Islip sentenced Mr. Spota and Mr. McPartland to five years each in prison; Mr. Spota was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.

In imposing the sentences, Judge Joan M. Azrack expressed shock that officials whose job was to uphold the law would seek to subvert it.

“During a years long conspiracy, the sitting district attorney — let me repeat, the sitting district attorney — conspired to tamper with witnesses,” Judge Azrack said, “in order to thwart a federal investigation into an assault committed by the head — the head — of the Suffolk County police department.”

………

Mr. Spota and Mr. McPartland, 55, had each requested sentences that included community service and no prison time. But they had thrown away the opportunity to serve their community, the judge said, when they chose to abuse their prosecutorial powers.

If prosecutions like this, and sentences like this were more common, we would have fewer problems with corrupt and out of control police officers.

Also, justice delayed is justice denied, and the fact that it took two years from when they were convicted to when they were sentenced is an embarrassment to the legal community. 

Finally, considering their positions, a district attorney is supposed to represent the people and the interests of justice, I do not think that this sentence was long enough.