Career
Thomas J. Spota Career
- From 1963 to 1971 Tom served as a volunteer firefighter with the Garden City Park Fire Department,
- 1966 Tom voluntarily enlisted with the United States Marine Corps
- 1972 was honorably discharged in . Eager
- 1973 to 1974. Tom then re-enrolled as a volunteer firefighter, with Mount Sinai, Engine Company
- 1972, he joined the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office (the “SCDA”) as an assistant district attorney.
- 2002 District Attorney of Suffolk County, New York.
- November 10, 2017, Spota was indicted on federal charges of obstruction of justice in the investigation of Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke
Thomas J. Spota was born on September 6, 1941 in New Hyde Park to Thomas, a first-generation American and MetLife claims supervisor, and Mary, a Department of Motor Vehicles employee and typist.
As a teenager, Tom worked part-time jobs as a paper boy, potato picker, and grocery store clerk, all while pursuing admission to and then studying at the rigorous Chaminade High School in Mineola, with the goal of achieving his parents’ dream sending their children to college. (J. Carr Letter, Ex. 20; L. Spota Letter Ex. 109.) Tom realized that dream when he enrolled at Fairfield University in Connecticut, graduating in 1963, after which he attended St. John’s Law School in Queens, obtaining his J.D. in 1966. (A. Spota Letter, Ex. 106.) Tom was admitted to the New York State Bar the following year.
March 1969, Tom met Mary Ellen Delehanty. Tom and Mary Ellen “ they were engaged just three months later, in June 1969, and married in January 1970
1974, they welcomed their oldest child, Tom, followed by Kate in 1976 and Patty in 1981
About Thomas J. Spota DA
May 2013 the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office opened an investigation into alleged actions by James Burke, Chief of the Suffolk County Police Department: the alleged assault of a suspect in police custody, a subsequent cover-up, and
coercion of witnesses. The former chief pleaded guilty to reduced charges in February 2016
Case Background
2013 FBI Special Agents served members of the SCPD with federal grand jury subpoenas.
Burke, Spota and McPartland learned of the existence of the federal investigation. they instructed Hickey to debrief his Intel detectives and learn what was said by the FBI agents serving the subpoenas, and find out who might be cooperating with them. However, because of the threats and intimidation, none of the Intel detectives cooperated with the investigation, and it was closed eight months later, in December 2013. Through the efforts of the defendants and Burke, the initial grand jury investigation of Burke’s civil rights violation was successfully derailed.
2015, Burke, Spota and McPartland learned that the federal investigation had been reopened.
They reacted swiftly to obstruct it by stopping detectives to cooperate with the FBI. In early December 2015, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York indicted Burke. Burke pleaded guilty approximately two months later, admitting to his involvement in both the deprivation of Loeb’s civil rights and the conspiracy to obstruct justice. In November 2016, he was sentenced to 46 months’ in prison. Case Recap
2016 Arrest and resignations
February 2016 Spota and McPartland both resigned from the District Attorney’s Office in light of the charges against them and have since been disbarred and Burke was sentenced to 46 months’ imprisonment.
2016 McPartland took ex-police chief’s cash for legal defense
On February 18, 2016, D’Orazio received what he has described, in substance, as an out-of-the-blue phone call from defendant McPartland, who was seeking to meet with him. Per D’Orazio, and as supported by his phone records, this was the first time D’Orazio ever recalled McPartland calling him on the phone. In fact, McPartland did not even have D’Orazio’s phone number – in order to obtain it, McPartland had to contact another friend of Burke’s, who McPartland knew from the Suffolk County Police Department.
During this phone call, D’Orazio agreed to meet with McPartland. The two met at the Golden Dynasty (“Golden Dynasty”) restaurant in St. James. During the meeting, defendant McPartland asked D’Orazio if he would loan him $25,000 to aid defendant McPartland in paying his legal defense fees. Defendant McPartland promised that if D’Orazio made the Loan, McPartland would provide a promissory note and pay him back.
According to D’Orazio, he was stunned by this request, as the two were only acquaintances. D’Orazio was uncertain how to handle this, so he discussed the matter with Burke’s half-brother, John Toal (“Toal”), who had been placed in charge of handling Burke’s finances while he was incarcerated. The two men decided this should be brought to Burke’s attention.
Following the request, and just one day prior to visiting Burke in jail, on February 24, 2016, Toal removed cash and jewelry from a safe deposit box he held jointly with Burke at a TD Bank in St. James (“Safe Deposit Box 1”). He then met D’Orazio at a different TD Bank located in Centereach, and they opened a new safe deposit box in both Toal’s and D’Orazio’s names, but not in Burke’s name (“Safe Deposit Box 2”).1 Toal placed most of the contents of Safe Deposit Box 1 into Safe Deposit Box 2.
The following day (February 25, 2016), D’Orazio, Toal and Burke’s two other brothers visited Burke at the MDC. During the visit, D’Orazio advised Burke of McPartland’s request for the Loan. D’Orazio told Burke that, although he had the money himself, he did not want to provide the Loan to defendant McPartland, as McPartland was Burke’s friend, not his. Burke told D’Orazio to inform defendant McPartland, in substance, not to worry; and further instructed D’Orazio to tell McPartland that D’Orazio would get him the money. Burke then directed D’Orazio and Toal to remove the $25,000 that had previously been in his safe deposit box (i.e., Safe Deposit Box 1), and provide McPartland the funds.
Four days later, on February 29, 2016, D’Orazio and Toal went to the TD Bank in Centereach and removed $25,000 in cash from Safe Deposit Box 2 – i.e., the box held jointly in Toal and D’Orazio’s names, but which contained Burke’s cash. D’Orazio then contacted defendant McPartland and arranged, once again, to meet at Golden Dynasty.
October 25, 2017 FBI agents arrested Spota and McPartland
October 25, 2017 FBI agents arrested Spota and McPartland on charges including witness tampering and deprivation of civil rights. Spota resigned his office in November.
Records
Corruption
District Attorney Spota Assistant District Attorney, Chief of Police Corruption
District Attorney Thomas J. Spota and Government Corruption Bureau Chief Christopher McPartland Convicted of Obstructing a Federal Civil Rights Investigation
1988, 1992 and 1996 hiring exam scandal.
Involved tests that awarded points for answers that matched profiles of ideal officers and allegations that senior staff who had answers ran a prep school. Hundreds of 37,000 applicants were found to have falsely answered questions in order to match profiles of ideal officers.
A grand jury indicted a Sergeant who taught a prep course for using stolen profile information to coach more than 700 applicants. A Lieutenant was indicted for destroying evidence of test cheating sought by the District Attorney’s Office. That Lieutenant ultimately retired and is now a practicing attorney on Long Island.
A Deputy Inspector admitted that he had answers to the 1996 test and faced departmental charges for coaching the sons of friends in the department for the 1988 test. Ultimately 55 officers averted dismissal. Then-Chief Gallagher offered: “I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.” Pursuant to an agreement negotiated by County attorneys, the officers and the PBA, three officers received six-month suspensions, 19 received shorter suspensions – some as little as two days, and ten were exonerated. A retired detective and spokesman for the Guardians, a fraternal organization of black officers, noted “It’s kind of strange that a lot of the names people were expecting on that list weren’t there,” saying that he believed that senior officers were protecting friends and family.
December 2007 Supreme Court Vacated Conviction of Martin Tankleff – DA Spota wrongfully convicted a 17-year-old.
The NYS Supreme Court Appellate Division Second Department unanimously vacated the conviction of Martin Tankleff for the 1988 murder of his parents and ordered his case back to Suffolk County for a retrial “to be conducted with all convenient speed,” stating “It is abhorrent to our sense of justice and fair play to countenance the possibility that someone innocent of a crime may be incarcerated or otherwise punished for a crime which he or she did not commit.”
A member of Tom Spota’s law firm is reported to have represented Seymour Tankleff’s business partner in the late 1980s in a matter related to the sale of cocaine out of the store. A baking supplies wholesaler is also reported to have testified in 2004 that he had frequently observed Detective James McReady and Seymour Tankleff’s business partner together in the store in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Tankleff ultimately spent 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He graduated Touro Law Center in 2014 and passed the New York State bar exam in 2017.
In April 2018, Tankleff reached a settlement with Suffolk County for $10 million.
2012 Chief of Police dismantles Task Force, Detective John Olivia files a complaint with the FBI and speaks to the press.
Burke, Spota, McPartland target Oliva conspried togetther in one of the meetings to target John Oliva ” because he had become an enemy of theirs and was suspected of revealing embarrassing information about them to the press” DA Spotta applied for a wiretap on Oliva’s phone, under the ruse of “officer safety,” and it was approved by a judge.
Following a four-month wiretap investigation, Oliva was charged by way of a Superior Court Information with Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree, a class E felony; Computer Trespass, a class E felony; and Official Misconduct, a
class A misdemeanor.
Sept. 9, 2014 John Olivia pleaded guilty on to Official Misconduct and was sentenced to a conditional discharge.
February 26, 2016 James Burke pleaded guilty to violating Christopher Loeb’s civil rights and conspiracy relating to efforts to conceal relevant evidence. He received a sentence of 46 months in federal prison.
October 25, 2017 FBI agents arrested Spota and McPartland on charges including witness tampering and deprivation of civil rights. Spota resigned his office in November.
2018 District Attorney Sini immediately upon his taking office in 2018, the CIB aims to achieve and ensure justice by investigating claims of innocence, remedying identified wrongful convictions, and providing proactive support and recommendations to the Office to prevent wrongful convictions.
December 17, 2019 After a six-week trial, a federal trial jury convicted former District Attorney Thomas J. Spota and former Government Corruption Bureau Chief Christopher McPartland of conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and obstruct an official proceeding, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and being accessories after-the-fact to former Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD) Chief of Department James Burke’s deprivation of a prisoner’s civil rights.
August 2021, Oliva, through counsel, submitted an application to the CIB for a review of his case. As detailed in the affirmation filed with the Court today, the investigation found that Oliva’s claims were substantiated. Overturned
his Conviction.
2022 – Suffolk County has agreed to pay $1.5 million to a former Suffolk police detective whose conviction for leaking information to a Newsday reporter wasoverturned.
1979
Thomas Spota met James Burke when He was a key witness in the 1979 trial of the murder of a young boy named John Pius, because Burke witnessed them stealing a bike.
TThomas Spota was a prosecutor And again testifying in 1990. 13-year-old named John Pius battered body was found in the woods in Smithtown, N.Y., in 1979 with six rocks jammed down his throat. Read Article
1993
Coverup: October 3, 1993 Burke had reported the loss or theft of his .380 caliber Beretta semiautomatic gun on, according to a Suffolk County Police Department field report. Oct. 4, 1993 A supplementary report was filed “reporting he located” his firearm. “The weapon was located in Sergeant Burke’s residence in a secure location,”
Internal Affair Report #152 was launched due to allegations surfaced that Burke, known to those on the streets as “Starsky,” it was reported he consumed drugs and failing to enter drugs as police property drugs seized from dealers. During this Investigation Detectives learned that James Burke was having relationship with Lorita Rickenbacke a known Felon.
November 1993. Rickenbacker in a sworn statement told investigators that Burke gave her his car keys while they were at a diner on Sunrise Highway in Babylon.” She told him she needed to run home because she left the house unlocked, so he gave her his car keys and he waited at the diner for her,”.
Rickenbacker’s sworn statement, says that Burke’s gun belt and uniform were in the backseat. “James’ gun was in his gun belt,” “I took the gun out of the holster and brought it in the house. I put the gun belt and his uniform in the trunk.
When she got home, she started doing drugs and did not return to the diner. He got the weapon back when he arrived at her house hours later. “When James and his partner came to my house I gave him the gun back.” Rickenbacker told investigators that the two broke off the relationship after that incident”
1994
April 27, 1994 Investigators interviewed Rickenbacker at the Nassau County, Rickenbacker was in jail on charges of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.
Rickenbacker told investigators she met James Burke in May 1992 when her girlfriend was hit by a car in North Amityville near Sunrise Highway and Albany Avenue.
She admitted to police that she was a crack user and Burke “seemed concerned for me and we became friends.” “After about six months I was comfortable enough to get in the police car number 137 with him,” Rickenbacker said Burke gave her small gifts such as roses, and money for food but admitted she used to buy crack, and that the two engaged in oral sex in his patrol car she said in her sworn statement.
1995
January 31, 1995, internal Affairs officers interviewed James Burke.
Burke told investigators that he had a six-month sexual relationship with Rickenbacker but denied he knew she was a criminal.
“Sergeant Burke could not recall if he ever let Rickenbacker use his personal car, but he denied that Rickenbacker had ever possessed his weapon in the manner she described . . . ,” the detective said in the report. “He could not recall if he allowed Lowrita to sit in the police car, but he absolutely denies having engaged in any sexual activity while on duty.”
Burke said he ended the relationship “when he began to hear rumors about Lowrita,” according to his sworn statement.
Investigators found that Rickenbacker, who took a polygraph test, was telling the truth about the two times Burke failed to safeguard his weapon, the report and the sources said. In addition, the report found that Burke knew about Rickenbacker’s criminal history because her crimes occurred in Burke’s precinct.
“Given Sergeant Burke’s forte for being aware of the criminal element in his patrol zone, and his intimate association with Lowrita Rickenbacker, his claim that he knew nothing of her activities or background seems disingenuous. . . . Her professed admiration and support for Sergeant Burke also lend credence to her account of the incidents she described,”
But The drug use allegation was unfounded and the accusation of improperly returning drug was found to be unsubstantiated.
2005
“The Inner Circle,” group was created in November, included Chief of Detectives William Madigan. Hickey who was leading the police department’s criminal intelligence unit, Tom Spota – DA, Chris McPartland, Jimmy Burke, union official Russ McCormack also participated in the cover-up effort and the detectives as Bombace, Anthony Leto, Michael Malone, Hickey and Cliff Lent. Members of “The Inner Circle” would destroy enemies financially, personally and professionally, even going after a target’s family. As the group saw it, “if you crossed one, you crossed all,” according to Hickey.
The Inner Circle” moniker, Spota, Burke and McPartland called themselves “The Administration” as the three men in charge of law and order in the county.
2012
2012 Once Burke was promoted to Chief of Police he pulled Suffolk Police Detectives off a Federal Task Force. The three detectives on the task force were loyal to the feds, “who we hate,” Hickey recalled Burke saying. The witness said the real reason behind their removal was to cut Trotta’s ties to federal officials to minimize his power.
Detectives, John Oliva, went to news with information and also filed a complain with the FBI agents about Burke Internal Afair Investigation and Findings..
Spota, Burke and McPartland met to discuss Detective Oliva and decided to target Oliva for investigation and prosecution because he had become an enemy of theirs and was suspected of revealing embarrassing information about them to the press.
Spota applied for a wiretap on Oliva’s phone, under the false petences of “officer safety,”. A judge approved the wiretap, and it lasted for four months..
Following a four-month wiretap investigation, Oliva was charged by way of a Superior Court Information with Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree, a class E felony; Computer Trespass, a class E felony; and Official Misconduct, a class
A misdemeanor.
Read More
December 14, 2012 The civil rights violation related to Burke’s assault of a Smithtown man who had been arrested for breaking into Burke’s SCPD-issued vehicle and stealing his property.
Christopher Loeb, who was under arrest and being held in an interrogation room at the 4th Precinct in Hauppauge, New York. Loeb had broken into Burke’s official police vehicle and stolen his gun belt and ammunition, and a duffel bag containing cigars, sex toys, prescription Viagra and pornography.
2013
June 25, 2013, FBI Special Agents served members of the SCPD with federal grand jury subpoenas. That same day, defendants Spota and McPartland learned of the existence of the federal investigation. McPartland instructed Hickey to debrief his Intel detectives and learn what was said by the FBI agents serving the subpoenas, and find out who might be cooperating with them.
October 2013 , one of those detectives testified falsely under oath in a state pretrial hearing in the Loeb prosecution, denying that Loeb had been assaulted. The government’s case was being prosecuted by the Office’s Long Island Criminal Section.
December 2013, December Because of the threats and intimidation, none of the Intel detectives cooperated with the investigation, and it was closed eight months later, in December 2013. Through the efforts of the defendants and Burke, the initial grand jury investigation of Burke’s civil rights violation was successfully derailed.
2014
September 9, 2014 Detective Olivia pleaded guilty to Official Misconduct and was sentenced to a conditional discharge.
2012 – 2015 Following that assault, over almost three years, Burke and other Suffolk County law enforcement authorities took action to obstruct the federal civil rights investigation into the assault.
After the assault, Burke ordered high-ranking lieutenants of the SCPD to ensure that the detectives and officers who had witnessed the assault would never reveal what they had observed.
Burke also enlisted the help of his long-time mentor, then-District Attorney Spota, and McPartland, his personal friend and then-Chief of both Investigations and the Government Corruption Bureau, to ensure that the witnesses kept quiet. Having served as the Suffolk County D.A. for over a decade, Spota had successfully helped Burke avoid legal trouble regularly during their decades-long friendship. McPartland, who worked directly under Spota, also had built a close friendship with Burke, and was the first person who Burke called the morning he discovered that his vehicle had been burglarized.
Burke summoned detectives under his command to SCPD headquarters in Yaphank, New York, to persuade the detectives to agree to a false version of events that would conceal the assault.
2015
June 4, 2015, District Attorney Spota brought Hickey into his office and asked him, “Who do you think has flipped?” In discussing which of the detectives might be a “rat,” cooperating with federal investigators, Spota said about one of the likely cooperators, “If he talks, he’s dead. He will never work in Suffolk County again.” In that same meeting, McPartland told Hickey to pass along a message to the Intel detectives, threatening them with prosecution if they cooperated with the investigation.
December 9, 2015 Burke was arrested and arraigned. Burke was Suffolk’s County highest-ranking officer for four years, was arrested and indicted on charges of obstruction of justice and violating the civil rights of Christopher Loeb, then 26, of Smithtown, and then orchestrating a departmental cover-up of the crime in 2012. He was deemed by a federal judge as a danger to the community, bail was denied, and Burke remained in federal custody till his sentencing.
Burke and others pressured the detectives who witnessed the assault to conceal the event. Those efforts continued even after the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office opened an investigation of the assault in 2013.
2016
February 26, 2016, Burke pleaded guilty to a civil rights violation and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
November 2, 2016, Burke was sentenced to 46 months in prison.
2021
August 10, 2021 Spota and Government Corruption Bureau Chief Christopher McPartland Each Sentenced to Five Years in Prison
Thomas Spota and James Burke
Thomas Spota was the Suffolk County District Attorney. He was elected in 2001 and held that position until the end of 2017. (Tr. 2405–07.) Christopher McPartland worked with Spota at the District Attorney’s Office until December 2017. During the events in question, McPartland was the Chief of the Government Corruption Bureau and the Investigations Division.. Documents here
2012 – How it Strated
December 2012 Man Broke into Burke’s SUV
Man who broke into his SUV in 2012 and made off with a gun belt, handcuffs, ammunition, a box of cigars, a humidor and a canvas bag that contained, among other items, sex toys and video pornography.
Loeb was attacked after being arrested at his mother’s home in Smithtown, New York, in December 2012 on a variety of parole violations.
During a search there, police found a cache of stolen merchandise, including Burke’s duffel bag, which contained his gun belt, several magazines of ammunition, a box of cigars, a humidor, and a canvas bag with toiletries, clothing, sex toys and pornographic videos. Burke punched and kicked Loeb in the head and body after his arrest, as revenge when Loeb called him a “pervert” during a police interrogation.
During the attack, Loeb was handcuffed and chained to an eyebolt fastened to the floor. Burke also threatened to kill Loeb with a tainted heroin overdose.
Burke along with Spota then masterminded a years-long cover-up of the assault and pressured detectives to keep it quiet when federal authorities began investigating.
“During his tenure as the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the Suffolk County Police Department, James Burke considered himself untouchable,” United States Attorney Robert Capers said in a statement. “He abused his authority by brazenly assaulting a handcuffed prisoner, he pressured subordinates to lie to cover up his criminal acts, and he attempted to thwart the civil rights investigation into his conduct
About James Burke
2021 – Suffolk County DA Thomas J. Spota were to five years in prison.
ormer Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas J. Spota and Christopher McPartland, the former Chief of Investigations and Chief of the Government Corruption Bureau of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office (SCDAO), were each sentenced today by United States District Judge Joan M. Azrack, to five years in prison. Additionally, Spota was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.
The sentences stem from the defendants’ December 17, 2019 convictions, following a six-week federal jury trial, on all four counts of the Indictment; specifically, of conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and obstruct an official proceeding, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and being accessories after-the-fact to former Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD) Chief of Department James Burke’s deprivation of a prisoner’s civil rights.