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ALBANY---It appears that Capt. Frank Pace of the New York State Police is the sacrificial lamb for Congressman John Sweeney's defeat at the polls on Election Day.
Pace, a 28-year veteran of the State Police, has been demoted from his position in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation effective Dec. 7 back down to the uniformed ranks after his superiors claimed that Pace was responsible for the release of an internal report about an incident of domestic violence at the Sweeney home. They said his demotion, which was reportedly determined the day before the election, was in the "best interests of the Division of the State Police".
Pace headed the Troop G unit of the BCI and while he will retain the rank of captain, he will take a $2,000 cut in his annual salary.
Sweeney's attorney E. Stewart Jones says that Pace carried a grudge against the Sweeney family after he investigated an assault case against Sweeney's son which occurred in Stillwater in August 2004.
The police report from a 911 call made after midnight on Dec. 2, 2005, by Sweeney's wife, Gaia "Gayle" Sweeney was publicized by several news organizations just days before the election.
Sweeney and his wife maintained that the report wasn't accurate and blamed the political camp of his opponent Kirsten Gillibrand for leaking the information.
The report said Sweeney's wife told the trooper who responded to the call at their Clifton Park home that they got into an argument and that the Congressman had grabbed her by the neck and pushed her around the house.
No arrests were made.
Officials of the Police Benevolent Association say that the State Police have blamed the wrong man. Union officials say they will challenge Pace's demotion.
Jones, the Troy attorney who represented Sweeney's son in the assault charge which resulted in Sweeney receiving no jail time, says that Pace led the investigation of Sweeney's son and has a "long-standing grudge" against Sweeney. He says there's "no question" that Pace is the one who leaked the report.
There were numerous allegations of ethics violations against Sweeney who was first elected to the Congress in 1998. While they admitted that a call to police had been made, they said the parts of the report publicized were false. Although they claimed that they were going to release the "real" one, it was never forthcoming because they said that Jones had advised against releasing it.
Pace had investigated the case of John Sweeney Jr., 18 at the time, who was charged with second degree assault along with a co-defendant for the brutal assault of another teenager. Sweeney and the co-defendant had pleaded guilty to second degree assault in a plea bargain negotiated with the Montgomery County district attorney's office of Jeb Conboy, a Republican, in exchange for a sentence of months of weekends in jail or 45 consecutive days in jail plus probation and community service. The charge is a class D felony and he could have received up to seven years in state prison.
But Republican Fulton County Judge Richard Giardino then reversed his decision to jail Sweeney and negated the plea agreement, suspending the jail time, granted Sweeney Jr. youthful offender status and sealed the court records. Sweeney was sentenced to five years of probation, 240 hours of community service and ordered to pay the victim's medical costs.
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Jones says that Sweeney Jr. never should have been charged in the incident. 11-16-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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