By The newspaper
Aug 25, 2023, 01:08 AM EDT
James Burke, a controversial former Long Island (NY) Suffolk County police chief, was arrested in Brookhaven and charged with offering oral sex to an undercover ranger, authorities said.
“Rangers determined that our involved perpetrator was James Burke, former Suffolk County Department Chief,” current Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said at a news conference Tuesday. Pix11.
Burke, 58, was on probation after serving time in federal prison for beating a handcuffed suspect. On Tuesday he allegedly pleaded with park rangers not to arrest him for indecent exposure and public lewdness, asking them, “Do you know who I am?”
Commissioner Harrison reported that Burke’s sexual solicitation occurred at 10:15 am Tuesday inside Veterans Memorial Park in Brookhaven, near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The Suffolk County chief ranger told reporters that the arresting officer did not initially realize it was Burke. Another officer from the Directed Response Unit commented that the detainee: “He was telling us that this would be a public humiliation for him.”
Burke had a checkered career with the Suffolk County Police Department that began with an Internal Affairs investigation in the 1990s into allegations that he associated with and used drugs with a sex worker in his police vehicle and failed to secure the gun that he carried. provided the department.
Despite the serious allegations, former Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota named Burke his head of investigations when he came to power in the early 2000s. Spota had mentored Burke since he was 13 years old.
Burke and Spota were later criticized for blocking FBI involvement in the Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation in 2011, after Burke took over as head of the Suffolk Police Department.
It was then said that Burke and Spota did not want federal agents snooping on their territory. Years later, finally last month a suspect was arrested and charged with first degree murder for the deaths of three women whose bodies were found in Gilgo Beach.
A woman also accused Burke of sexually assaulting her inside a bathroom at a party in Oak Beach. Those allegations were never proven and no criminal charges were filed.
In 2016 Burke pleaded guilty to beating robbery suspect Christopher Loeb while handcuffed inside a Suffolk police station. Loeb said Burke became enraged after he broke into his police vehicle and took sex toys and pornographic tapes that were there. Burke was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison.
The Democrat Spota, then the district attorney, was later forced to resign and was convicted in federal court of trying to cover up Burke’s assault. Spota and an assistant were sentenced to five years in prison in the summer of 2021.
In Tuesday’s incident, Burke was charged with offering a sexual act, public lewdness, indecent exposure and criminal solicitation, with possible additional charges pending. Sources told her that he had a small amount of marijuana and a muscle relaxant with him when police arrested him. He has not been charged with any drug charges, he said. Daily Mail.
All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.