Edward Walsh trial may spotlight DA Thomas Spota

James Burke, the former Suffolk police chief of department who pleaded guilty last month to charges of violating the civil rights of a suspect and orchestrating a cover-up of the suspect’s beating, was alleged to have had friends in key places.

So much so that federal prosecutors, in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Leonard D. Wexler, argued that Burke’s “long association with some law enforcement officials insures his ability to continue to intimidate witnesses while awaiting trial.”

The argument was enough to persuade Wexler to deny Burke bail in December, and Burke remains in custody pending sentencing.

In a motion filed this week in U.S. District Court before Wexler in a different Suffolk-related case, federal prosecutors hit upon the friends-in-key-places theme again.

This time, they alleged that efforts to investigate Edward Walsh, Suffolk’s Conservative Party leader and a recently retired lieutenant in the Suffolk sheriff’s office, were “thwarted” repeatedly by Thomas Spota, the county’s district attorney.

A 27-page pretrial motion, backed by 31 pages of exhibits, stacks up allegations against Spota, who has been charged with no crime. The motion says county Sheriff Vincent DeMarco sought federal help because of his “inability to find an audience for the case with the local state prosecutor because of the influence and power yielded by . . . [Walsh].”

Walsh is slated to go on trial next week on charges of theft of government funds and wire fraud for collecting more than $80,000 in straight and overtime pay, allegedly by claiming that he was working for the sheriff’s department when he actually was golfing, gambling, working on political activities, having a fitting with a tailor or relaxing at home.

He has denied the charges.

Still, Walsh seems almost a side player in the government’s pretrial motion. For the first time since the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York began investigating possible local government corruption on Long Island, Spota was cited by name in public federal documents.

And Spota wasn’t the only one alleged to have passed on responding to DeMarco’s requests for help in investigating allegations of theft of funds and fraud involving Walsh in the sheriff’s department. The motion says Dennis Brown, who as Suffolk County attorney acts as chief legal adviser to County Executive Steve Bellone, declined DeMarco’s request for assistance in 2014.

The pretrial motion — an attempt by prosecutors to mitigate challenges by Walsh’s attorneys on cross-examination to DeMarco’s expected testimony — also makes reference to testimony that is expected to come from Brian Baisley, supervisor of the sheriff’s internal affairs unit.

According to the motion, Baisley gave Walsh what federal prosecutors termed “certain administrative warnings” about his alleged conduct.

Prosecutors allege that in response, Walsh “stated in sum and substance, ‘If you think that the agency across the river is going to do anything about this, you’re wrong . . . that guy is not going to do anything about this.’ ”

The guy in the office across the river, prosecutors say Baisley will testify, was Spota.

Prosecutors contend that at one point, DeMarco obtained Walsh’s cellphone records, which showed 15 calls between Spota and Walsh between April 22 and June 11, 2014 — including one on the same day that DeMarco met with Brown.

In a statement this week, a spokesman for Spota said it was not the district attorney’s place to do DeMarco’s job of investigating allegations of wrongdoing within the sheriff’s department. The statement said DeMarco “provided no information to support a prosecution of Walsh,” noting that in July 2014 DeMarco’s office canceled several appointments with district attorney investigators to discuss Walsh.

On July 23, prosecutors say, DeMarco brought the results of his investigation to the feds instead.