Burke, a former Long Island police commander who had previously served time in federal prison for assaulting a suspect, was detained on Tuesday for allegedly soliciting sex and making himself vulnerable in a public park.
Burke, 58, was apprehended by park rangers just after 10 a.m. in a Farmingville, Long Island park, according to a representative for Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. According to the spokesman, he is currently being prosecuted on allegations of offering a sex act, indecent exposure, public lewdness, and criminal solicitation, with additional charges perhaps forthcoming.
Burke’s legal counsel was unavailable. Requests for a response from the Suffolk County District Attorney went unanswered.
Between 2012 and 2015, Burke oversaw the Suffolk County Police Department, one of the biggest police departments in the country. This turbulent three-year period ended with Burke and numerous other officials’ convictions on federal charges of obstruction and assault.
Burke oversaw the prominent investigation into the Gilgo Beach homicides, in which many sex workers’ remains were found on a remote stretch of Long Island shoreline, during the federal investigation into his behavior. Following earlier this summer’s arrest of a suspect in some of the homicides, his handling of the case, especially his choice to stop working with the FBI, has come under increased fire.
Late in 2015, just before federal prosecutors filed charges against him for punching a restrained man who was allegedly stealing embarrassing items from his police department SUV, such as sex toys and pornography, Burke announced his resignation.
As the leader of a plot to hide his role in the assault, he entered a guilty plea in 2016 to violate the civil rights of the victim Christopher Loeb and obstruct justice. He was released in April 2019 after serving 40 months in prison.
Following Loeb’s arrest for breaking into the former chief’s open, department-issued GMC Yukon and taking a bag containing his pistol belt, ammo, a box of cigars, and a bag containing sex toys and pornography, Burke attacked Loeb in a police station interrogation room.
Following Burke’s admission of guilt, Loeb’s three-year prison term was overturned. He may have been robbing cars to obtain heroin, according to authorities.
Thomas Spota, a former Suffolk County district attorney, and Christopher McPartland, the director of Spota’s anti-corruption office, were found guilty in December 2019 of evidence tampering, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy for their roles in the assault’s cover-up.
Both Spota, 81, and McPartland, 57, are currently in prison for five years each.
Federal prosecutors claim that Spota, McPartland, Burke, and other police officers got together and communicated over the phone to plan how to hide Burke’s involvement in the assault on Loeb. Federal prosecutors claimed that in addition to putting pressure on persons to refuse cooperation, they asked witnesses to give investigators misleading information and suppress pertinent information.