Thread by @nicolefuller

Today, for the first time, one of the detectives in the room when former @SCPDHq Chief James Burke assaulted a handcuffed Christopher Loeb in a 4th precinct interview room, detailed the assault in open court. Thread to follow.

@SCPDHq Kenneth Bombace, a criminal intelligence section detective, described the 2012 assault of Loeb as one of four cops in the room who slapped Loeb in the face in an attempt to get a confession out of him. He said Burke punched Loeb in the face and grabbed him by his ears.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he got a call on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012 from his boss, Det. Lt. James Hickey, the commanding officer of criminal intelligence, telling him that Burke’s car was broken into and he needed “all hands on deck.”

@SCPDHq Bombace called other criminal intelligence detectives Cliff Lent and John O’Brady and they met on Fifty Acre Road in Smithtown, near Burke’s home, at about 8 or 9 a.m. and they rolled down their windows and talked about the theft from Burke's car without leaving their cars.

@SCPDHq Then Bombace said he got a call from another detective saying there was a suspect in the Burke theft at the 4th precinct.

@SCPDHq When he got to the precinct, there were some 10 to 15 people in the detective squad room. He spoke to his criminal intelligence colleagues Dets. Mike Malone and Anthony Leto and he saw Loeb in an another interview room.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he Leto and Malone went into the room where Loeb was located and tried to get him to confess.
Loeb, who was handcuffed to a chain on the wall or floor, was “not compliant” and “belligerent,” Bombace said.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he remembered that Loeb was suddenly fall asleep as they tried to question him.
Bombace said they “screamed and cursed” at Loeb and each of the three detectives – Bombace, Leto and Malone slapped Loeb in the face.

@SCPDHq Asked by prosecutor Justina Geraci why he had done that, Bombace said: “I felt tremendous pressure do that, to get a confession, yes.”

@SCPDHq The three detectives left the interview room and Burke arrived. They spoke to Burke in a break room two doors down from where Loeb was, updating the chief on the interview they had just conducted.

@SCPDHq At some point the chief indicated he wanted to come in the room. Bombace said he Leto told Burke it was “not a good idea. We didn’t think he should go in.” Burke said he was going in anyway.
The three detectives walked into the room where Loeb was handcuffed and Burke followed.

@SCPDHq “When the door closed, it was almost immediately that the chief assaulted Loeb,” said Bombace.
Burke “punched” Loeb and grabbed him by his ears. Bombace described it as a “very chaotic” few minutes with the people in the room “cursing and screaming.”

@SCPDHq Loeb tried to stand up a few times, but Bombace said he and the other detectives pushed him down into his seat.
“At least one of us slapped him in the face,” said Bombace.
Then, according to Bombace, “Det. Leto said, ‘Chief, that’s enough.'”

@SCPDHq Bombace, who said he didn’t recall striking Loeb again while Burke was in the room -- just pushing him into his seat -- said he told Burke, “Chief, you should leave.”

@SCPDHq They all left the room. But that time, Bombace said, the crowd in the squad room had “thinned out” and there was only one person left inside.

@SCPDHq Burke left the precinct and the three detectives went back into the break room, at which point Bombace got news of the Sandy Hook school massacre and as part of his duties, he called Burke to alert him.

@SCPDHq The cover-up began soon thereafter, Bombace said.
In March 2013, Hickey alerted Bombace that there was a special prosecutor from Queens taking over the Loeb heroin possession and theft case.

@SCPDHq Hickey told Bombace and Leto together that they were going to have to talk to the special prosecutor, who was Queens ADA Peter Crusco, and he had to go speak to Burke in his office.

@SCPDHq Bombace said they went that same day and met with Burke in his office at police headquarters in Yaphank.
Bombace, Leto and Burke were at the meeting.

@SCPDHq “The chief said, ‘Look, nothing happened here. I may have poked my head in. The door may have been closed, may have been opened. We don’t remember because it wasn’t a big deal.'"
Asked by Geraci if he knew that statement by Burke was false, Bombace answered “yes.”

@SCPDHq “The implication to me was that’s what we should be telling the special prosecutor and we needed to be on the same page,” said Bombace.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he couldn’t tell the truth about what happened because “there would be retaliation.” He stressed that he didn’t perceive the retaliation to be just a transfer to an unpopular assignment, but a “targeted criminal prosecution.”

@SCPDHq Bombace added: “It was almost unfathomable to go there and tell the truth.”

@SCPDHq Bombace said around that time he heard from Malone that Crusco, the special prosecutor from the Queens DA's office, was not acting independently.
“He told me he heard Chief Burke and Christopher McPartland knew the special prosecutor and he was hand-picked,” Bombace said.

@SCPDHq Bombace said in the ensuing months he and Leto and Malone met often and when they were alone discussed the assault.

@SCPDHq On April 16, 2013, Bombace said he met with Crusco at the Farmingdale barracks of the state police for an interview. He didn’t have a lawyer with him. A union representative and a state police investigator were there.

@SCPDHq He said he wasn’t asked about the assault and said only “exactly what we were told to say.”
“Everything I said there I believed was going to go back to Chief Burke and Chris McPartland.”

@SCPDHq Bombace described it as a “stressful time” for him and the other detectives, who he said were being “managed.”
Bombace said while there was a lot of internal gossip in the police department about the assault at the time, but “police personnel were very careful not to ask.”

@SCPDHq On June 25, 2013 Bombace was home when two FBI agents knocked on his door at 6 a.m. and said they wanted to talk to him. He told them “I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you.”
They gave him a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury and left.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he then called Hickey and texted or called Leto, Malone and another detective Cliff Lent.
Bombace said Hickey asked him: “Did you talk to them?”
Bombace told Hickey: “No, I did not.”
Hickey, who didn’t say whether he was subpoenaed or not, replied: “Good.”

@SCPDHq About two weeks later, Bombace, Leto + Malone met w/ PBA President Noel DiGerolamo + Russ McCormack, another union official, at the PBA office. DiGerolamo told them the union would cover expenses for the lawyers, but “at any time if you admit wrongdoing,” the union wouldn’t pay.

@SCPDHq DiGerolamo also said the union was “handpicking” their lawyers.
Bombace said he already had an attorney – Ed Jenks -- and DiGerolamo told him the union had to approve him. They ultimately did.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he also consulted a friend of his who’s an attorney separately and told him about the assault.
“He counseled me and all of us about going in and working with the government and telling the truth,” Bombace said.

@SCPDHq But Bombace said he didn’t tell the truth because he was so feared Burke’s legendary retaliation.

@SCPDHq Bombace said Burke was represented by Joe Conway, who was “working in sort of a joint agreement” with the other lawyers representing the detectives, which concerned him because he worried “anything I told my attorney would be shared.”

@SCPDHq In the summer of 2013, Bombace said, he and Hickey, Leto and Malone spoke about the assault and investigations all the time.
Hickey would ask: “How’s everyone doing? Is everyone holding up?”

@SCPDHq Leto, Bombace and Malone met with Hickey around the same time and Hickey told them: “They’re sending Tony [Leto] into testify at the state criminal trial against Loeb.”
Bombace said: “They were worried about Mike…he was nervous” and “shaky.”

@SCPDHq Asked by Geraci who decided Malone would testify in the case, Bombace said: “My understanding would be that it was Chris McPartland or Tom Spota. …They can’t send Burke in, so Tony’s going in.”
Bombace said Leto “didn’t want to do it.”

@SCPDHq In December 2013, they got what appeared to be a reprieve from the federal investigation.
Hickey invited Bombace, Leto and Malone to a meeting on a soccer field near police headquarters in Yaphank. They stayed in their cars and spoke with the windows rolled down.

@SCPDHq “They told me it’s over,” Bombace said, about the FBI probe. “April Brooks of the FBI called Chief Burke and said, ‘It’s over. …I hope we can work together. No hard feelings.”

@SCPDHq Asked about Burke’s role in the cover-up?
“Instrumental,” said Bombace. “Orchestrated the cover up is what I would say.”

@SCPDHq Bombace described his boss, Hickey, as having a close relationship with Burke. When Bombace got into a car accident one day, Burke responded.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he joked to Burke, “Chief, you’re responding to car accidents now?”
Bombace said Burke replied: “What are you kidding me? He’s my right arm.”

@SCPDHq Hickey’s role in the cover-up was “like a middleman.”
Hickey was not there and had no role in the assault.

@SCPDHq Bombace said he loved working for Hickey.
“He was a good boss,” said Bombace. “He definitely took care of his people. He was the best boss I worked for in the police department.”
Hickey was “very intelligent” and his memory was “very good,” Bombace said.

@SCPDHq Defense attorneys for Spota and McPartland derided Hickey as a raging alcoholic who suffered from "delusions" during their opening statements. So Geraci asked Bombace about Hickey's drinking habits.

@SCPDHq He only saw Hickey drunk at work once when in about Jan. 2012, Burke invited him and others up to his office for a celebratory drink. During the six years Bombace worked for Hickey, he drank at times, but around the late summer and fall of 2013, he stopped drinking alcohol.

@SCPDHq Bombace remembered because Hickey didn’t drink at a Christmas dinner that detectives had together. Bombace said while he and the other detectives would typically gift Hickey with a bottle of alcohol.

@SCPDHq But this year he recalled buying Bombace a tea set at a Teavana store in the mall because Bombace had taken to drinking tea in the office.

@SCPDHq Bombace is set to continue testifying Wednesday.

Oh and very important to add: Bombace has immunity.