Ex-Suffolk DA corruption chief Christopher McPartland, who served time for corruption, is working as prison adviser

A former top deputy to ex-Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota is offering his consultation services, advice and insights as an ex-inmate and disbarred attorney following his stint in a federal prison in Texas on corruption charges.

For a price.

Christopher McPartland, who fronted the Suffolk district attorney's public corruption bureau while corruptly helping to subvert a federal investigation into an infamous police beating, has launched McPartland Federal Prison Strategies, according to his LinkedIn profile.

"I bring 26 years experience in law enforcement as a prosecutor and personal experience with the workings of the Federal Bureau of Prisons as well as knowledge of life in one of the country’s worst run prisons," McPartland wrote on his profile.

The Georgetown-educated McPartland was released in December 2023 from a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas. He served about two years of his 5-year sentence for conspiring with Spota and ex-Suffolk police chief James Burke to cover up Burke’s beating of a handcuffed prisoner. Spota was also sentenced to 5 years.

McPartland did not respond to a Newsday interview request.

McPartland, 60, of Northport, registered the company as a domestic business corporation last year with the New York Secretary of State Division of Corporations, according to state records, which lists the entity as "active."

"No one should go to federal prison unprepared," the website for his consulting company says.

New career after prison

McPartland credits Joel Sickler, a prisoner advocate for more than 30 years and the founder of Justice Advocacy Group LLC in Alexandria, Virginia, who hired McPartland after his release from prison and "further mentored [McPartland] in prison consulting," with helping him chart a new career after prison, McPartland said on his company website.

Sickler, in an interview, said he worked for both McPartland and Spota in his role as a prisoner advocate who assists convicted felons with prison placement in the federal system.

"I got him designated to a good camp in West Virginia," Sickler said of McPartland. "But they decided, the powers that be, unbeknownst at this point to me and others, they go, 'Oh, no, no, no, no, no, that’s too cozy a place. We’re sending him to a real prison.’"

Sickler said McPartland wrote to him a lot during his incarceration.

"Bad location, but you know what, he’s a stand-up guy," said Sickler. "He’s got a lot of strength of character. He went down there and did extraordinarily well. Worked, programmed. He mentored other inmates. Followed the staff’s direction in terms of how best to get adjusted and settled here and he did everything to get through it with his sanity attached and his health in place."

Sickler, a former correction officer at a notorious and long-shuttered prison in Lorton, Virginia, said he suggested to McPartland that he get into his line of work.

"He came out and I said, ‘You know Chris, you did so well down there and you know a lot of lawyers on Long Island obviously, maybe you can do a little soft thing like I do, on a different level, and I’ll help you out.’ And I’m very impressed with him. In my opinion, Chris is as honest as the day is long."

How the downfall began

McPartland’s legal troubles can be traced back to December 2012, when Christopher Loeb, then a heroin addict, broke into Burke's unmarked police vehicle in St. James. Loeb stole Burke’s Police Athletic League duffel bag, which prosecutors dubbed Burke’s "party bag." Inside was Burke’s gun belt, ammunition, a box of cigars, police union cards, sex toys, pornography and Viagra, testimony showed.

The theft enraged Burke, whose first call after realizing his vehicle was burglarized was to McPartland, his close friend.

Burke, along with a group of detectives who were dubbed his "palace guard," beat a shackled Loeb inside an interrogation room in the Fourth Precinct in Hauppauge. Burke, who was Spota’s protégé, threatened to give Loeb a "hot shot," a fatal dose of heroin, according to testimony at Spota and McPartland's joint trial. Burke pleaded guilty to a civil rights violation and conspiracy to obstruct justice in February 2016 and served most of a 46-month sentence.

McPartland, Spota and Burke conspired to obstruct the federal investigation into the beating, and were initially successful after authorities closed the case after an eight-month inquiry. It was later reopened.

During Spota and McPartland’s six-week trial in 2019, prosecutors dubbed Spota the "CEO" of the conspiracy while McPartland, Spota’s former right-hand man, was the scheme’s "chief operating officer." Both McPartland and Spota were convicted of conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and obstruct an official proceeding, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and being accessories after the fact to Burke’s deprivation of a prisoner’s civil rights.

Before he was sentenced, McPartland’s attorney had asked for a sentence that would avoid any prison time.

"Chris has lost almost everything: his reputation, his feeling of self-worth; his job; his ability to practice law; his ability to earn a living, and his life savings," McPartland's sentencing memorandum said, Newsday previously reported. "Since 2018, he has been reduced to working as a sales clerk in a liquor store (the only place he has been able to find work) and presently earns $16 an hour. The fallout has been life changing and catastrophic, and he has endured this brutal punishment for five years."

Multiple recommendations

In his new career venture, McPartland describes himself on his company website as "a consultant for individuals facing post-conviction issues, including sentence mitigation, First Step Act credit and application, preparing defendants and their families for a prison sentence, challenges during incarceration, administrative remedies, BOP sentence calculation errors, Compassionate Release, training prospective inmates for life in federal prison, and working toward early prerelease placement and reentry."

His biography on his website summarizes his long career as a prosecutor, noting he "rose through the ranks of that office from a line Assistant District Attorney to Deputy Bureau Chief and Bureau Chief. He later became the Division Chief of Investigations, supervising the investigative bureaus."

His federal conviction on multiple charges is boiled down on his website to "obstruction of justice," but he said he "became fully familiar with the workings of the Federal Bureau of Prisons from firsthand exposure," adding: "Mr. McPartland learned firsthand the administrative remedy process within the Bureau of Prisons and the many procedural aspects of a federal prison sentence. He no longer practices law and does not provide legal advice."

John F. Lauro, a Tampa, Florida-based trial attorney, gave McPartland a rousing recommendation on LinkedIn in August.

"I cannot recommend him strongly enough," Lauro wrote. "He is a superstar who should be on every criminal defense team."

Lisa Schiff, who said she was a client of McPartland’s after she was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for wire fraud, wrote in a recommendation on LinkedIn in June that she "cannot overstate how deeply grateful I am to Chris McPartland for the clarity, stability, and dignity he brought to one of the most destabilizing moments of my life."

Schiff, a Manhattan-based art adviser, defrauded clients of her art advisory business in connection with the purchases and sales of about 55 pieces of art, to the tune of approximately $6.5 million, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said.

Some of McPartland’s former lawyer colleagues on Long Island had kind words for McPartland when contacted by Newsday about his new career.

"Chris has turned lemons into lemon aide by helping people facing federal prison and their families cope with what is coming their way," said attorney Anthony La Pinta, of La Pinta, Lesko & Miskiewicz PC, in Mineola and Hauppauge.

La Pinta, who was on Spota's defense team and has employed him as an administrative clerk as part of his work release, added: "Having represented many federal defendants over the years, I know that no one should go to prison unprepared. His years as a prosecutor and the time he served in custody makes Chris uniquely qualified as a prison consultant. Chris should be given a lot of credit for moving on with life by helping others and establishing a successful business for himself."

Bruce Barket, who won a $1.5 million settlement from Suffolk County for his client Loeb — the handcuffed prisoner who was beaten by Burke and a group of detectives — said there’s value in advice from consultants like McPartland.

"The state and federal prisons systems are a universe unto themselves — where you go, the programs that are available to you, the opportunities for early release — all can dramatically impact the quality of your life while you’re in and impact when you get out," said Barket, of Barket Epstein Kearon Aldea & LoTurco LLP in Garden City, Huntington and Manhattan. "So somebody who doesn’t understand the system is left to kind of the good graces of prison officials. And that may not be the best strategy."

As for McPartland, Barket said: "He served his time. He’s got to earn a living. I kinda wish him well."