Thomas Spota has been Suffolk County district attorney since 2002
CENTRAL ISLIP, New York — A county district attorney and his top deputy have been charged with trying to cover up the role of a disgraced police chief in the beating of a handcuffed junkie who had stolen the former top cop’s sex toys from a car.
Thomas Spota and assistant Christopher McPartland stood on the other side of the courtroom in Long Island Wednesday to face charges for trying to keep former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke out of jail for beating the suspect inside a police precinct in 2012.
Christopher Loeb’s crime had been breaking into Burke’s police-issued SUV and swiping a bag containing sex toys, a porn video, a gun belt, cigars and a humidor.
As Loeb was chained to a ring on the jailhouse floor, Burke threatened to give him a “hot shot” or a lethal dose of heroin and then beat him so severely that an officer told him, “Boss, leave it alone.”
Loeb admitted stealing the bag, but later said his confession had been coerced by the beating. The charge led the FBI to open a probe, which prompted Spota, 76, and McPartland, 51, to allegedly pressure witnesses not to cooperate.
Late last year, Burke was sentenced to 46 months in prison for the brutal beating and for conspiring to cover it up.
For three years the cover-up worked, but in 2015, the FBI managed to get a handful of officers to testify about what had really happened and Burke’s defense unraveled.
Spota was elected in 2002 after running a campaign in which he promised to clean up corruption in the county. He announced earlier this year that he would not run for reelection in November.
Both Spota and McPartland face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
