Originally Posted - November 21, 2006

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ALBANY-A dozen or so years ago, the New York State Police were involved in a huge scandal involving the fabrication of evidence used to wrongly convict suspects in various cases.

The scandal unfolded when New York State Police Trooper David Harding was interviewing for a job with the Central Intelligence Agency and when he was asked if he was willing to break the law for his country, he said yes and then bragged about how he had fabricated evidence in order to secure convictions against people who he "thought" were guilty of the crime. He thought the CIA would be ecstatic about his tactics. They weren't. They instead reported him.

Harding was charged as was another trooper from Troop C, Lt. Craig Harvey who headed the SP identification unit in Troop C which encompasses Broome, Chenago, Cortland, Delaware, Otsego, Tioga and Tompkins Counties.

Harvey admitted that he and another trooper had lifted fingerprints from objects that a suspect had touched while he was being interviewed in their station. They then planted those fingerprints at the scene of a murder and secured a wrongful conviction. They felt pressured to close out the case with an arrest, any arrest.

Harvey, a 16-year veteran of the State Police, pleaded guilty in July, 1993 and agreed to serve 2 ½ to 7 years in prison. Harding was sentenced to 4 to 12 years and fined $20,000 for fabricating evidence in four documented cases. It was estimated that the State Police had fabricated evidence in at least 40 cases.

Eventually three other members of the state police were charged in the evidence tampering scheme as the result of a four-year investigation.

Included in the scandal was Lt. Patrick O'Hara who worked out of the Troop G headquarters in Loudonville, supervising drug and organized crime investigations. Harvey testified that he had been assisted in fabricating evidence by O'Hara. O'Hara served one year in prison and as part of his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped a charge that O'Hara had helped Harvey fake a fingerprint in a double murder case.

The special prosecutor who conducted the investigation, Ithaca attorney Nelson Roth, said that troopers were able to plant evidence routinely in criminal cases because they had no fear of detection by supervisors. Roth said that some corrupt troopers escaped prosecution because their colleagues "have done everything they possibly can to frustrate the investigation".

And that leads us to the case of Congressman John Sweeney, the subject of a 911 call made from his Clifton Park home last Dec. 2 by his wife, Gaia "Gayle" Sweeney Ford, alleging domestic violence, saying that he was "pushing her around the house".

In the days immediately preceding the Nov. 7 election, three news outlets publicized an incident report concerning an alleged instance of domestic violence at the Sweeney home. The media organizations said the report had been obtained from the State Police.

Sweeney was embroiled in a contentious race for Congressman in the 20th District, said the report was fabricated and although he claimed he would produce what he said was the real thing, he failed to do so, later claiming that the attorney he had hired to represent him in the matter, E. Stewart Jones, had advised him not to do so.

Then he suddenly changed his tune and said he had hired Jones to find out who in the State Police had "leaked" the report, no longer denying allegations of domestic abuse.

Sweeney lost his seat in Congress to Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and claimed that her political camp was responsible for leaking the police report.

According to the report, Mrs. Sweeney told a trooper who responded to the call that they got into an argument, apparently fueled by alcohol, that "turned a little physical by her being grabbed by the neck and pushed around the house" by Sweeney. The report relates that the couple appeared calm when the trooper arrived but that the Congressman had scratches on his face. No one was arrested.

Now it has been revealed that there are TWO versions of the police report, that the State Police allegedly fabricated a second police report in an attempt to cover up the domestic violence allegations in their attempt to protect Sweeney during his reelection bid.

The Times-Union, one of the media outlets who released the real report, says that sources have told them that the full report on the domestic incident was concealed because individuals in the State Police hierarchy was concerned it could be used against Sweeney in his re-election bid. No names have been revealed but it is known that State Police Supt. Wayne Bennett and Sweeney are friends. The source told the Times-Union that the full report was considered a "political document".

Thus emerges proof of a cover-up, yet another situation of falsification within the State Police and would certainly serve as a basis to ask how many other reports have been "doctored", how much else has the State Police covered up, who else have they "protected"?

The state trooper's union has charged that the five month manhunt for fugitive Ralph "Bucky" Phillips was grossly mismanaged by the State Police hierarchy which of course, Supt Bennett has denied. He claims that there is already an internal investigation underway but few would have any confidence in the State Police investigating themselves, especially after the demotion of Troop G BCI Inv. Frank Pace who has been made the scapegoat in the Sweeney affair.

Bennett is slated for retirement. Will all allegations of mismanagement disappear with his replacement?

The PBA has asked for an independent investigation of the Phillips manhunt during which Tpr. Joseph Longobardo was killed and Tpr. Donald Baker critically wounded.

While politics should have no role in law enforcement, that seems to be only in theory, that the State Police in practice lean to protect Republicans. The Democrat-controlled Assembly seems to have no problem in calling for an independent investigation of the State Police while the state Republican controlled sentate and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno are strangely silent, more anxious to remove Democratic comptroller Alan Hevesi from office for using state tax dollars to chauffeur his wife. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/092106ManhuntMishandling.html

The PBA is also contesting BCI Inv. Frank Pace's demotion, effective Dec. 7, after his superiors claimed that Pace was responsible for the release of the "real" Sweeney report. Pace has been replaced in the BCI in Troop G by William Sprague. That's like putting the fox to guard the henhouse as there are prior allegations about Sprague and cover-ups within the State Police and Troop G, especially involving allegations of trooper misconduct.

There needs to be a full-fledged investigation of Troop G of the New York State Police, headquartered in Loudonville and it's long overdue.

Daniel De Federicis, president of the troopers' PBA says that "there appears to be a cover-up…..This is really starting to smell". He says that "there appears to be an abuse of power here (referring to the Pace demotion) a certain amount of mean-spiritedness and just a clear lack of effective leadership".

Let's not forget that Kern Swoboda is the "public information officer" and as such controlled what was and was not related. Swoboda and Sprague both have past connections to the Chestertown barracks and previous allegations of police misconduct which got swept under the rug by the State Police hierarchy.

The State Police are infamous for their handling of public information requests and have been the subject of several lawsuits by news organizations for their attempts to hide information from the public.

And then we have the matter that retired State Police bomb expert John J. Curry works for former state Republican chairman Bill Powers as does Sweeney's wife. The Times-Union has reported that Curry attempted to use his influence to call state police investigators, headed by Pace, who were handling the 2004 assault investigation involving Sweeney's son, John Jr., who was criminally charged as the result of a fight that left another teenager seriously injured. Although initially sentenced in a plea bargain deal that would have resulted in jail time, Republican Fulton County judge Richard Giardino reversed his decision to sentence Sweeney Jr., imposing only probation. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/121805ReverseJailSentence.html

The State Police have smelled for a very long time.

This time, thanks to the high profile of the case and the advocacy of the PBA, it's highly doubtful it will be swept under the rug. Perhaps Nelson Roth would be available to head up another investigation of the State Police and it can't happen too soon. 11-21-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette