Re: 6/21/00 - Lawyers: Cops on leave are scapegoats
Lawyers: Cops on leave are scapegoats
By William Kaempffer, Register Staff June 21, 2000
NEW HAVEN ? A defense attorney has charged that two top police officers placed on leave amid allegations of police misconduct were political scapegoats of a police administration trying to quell the fires of controversy.
Attorney Hugh F. Keefe assailed the department Tuesday for putting his client, former head of detectives Capt. Brian Sullivan, and Sgt. Edward Kendall, head of the department?s forensic unit, on paid administrative leave while the police internal affairs unit investigated alleged wrongdoing.
"It?s outrageous what they?ve done to these men," Keefe said. "It was a casual and a careless way to do really irreparable injury to their careers. These are, by anyone?s definition, two of the best cops in New Haven."
Police Chief Melvin H. Wearing ordered the pair off work May 30, citing their contradictory statements to internal affairs investigators probing whether they hid evidence from North Haven detectives in a murder case.
A grand jury is investigating whether any New Haven officers acted criminally in the case.
Keefe and Joseph M. Wicklow III, Kendall?s attorney, argued that the chief acted improperly by punishing the officers before they were even accused of anything.
"On the basis of an incomplete internal affairs investigation, he put them on administrative leave," Wicklow said.
The city maintains that administrative leave is not a form of punishment. Sullivan and Kendall are receiving full pay during the leave.
But Sgt. Louis G. Cavalier, police union president, said it amounted to punishment because the city was depriving Sullivan and Kendall of their rights to work.
"They want to work," he said. "It?s unprecedented to send someone home with pay because of conflicting stories."
Contacted Tuesday, Wearing declined comment on the attorneys? statements.
At the center of the controversy is a witness statement tape recorded in February 1998 by two New Haven detectives.
The alleged witness named a possible suspect in the 1996 murder of North Haven resident Matthew Cusick, 23.
The investigation was being led by police in North Haven, where the body was located. Police believe Cusick was shot in New Haven and his body later dropped outside his house.
The audiotape is now missing and New Haven police allegedly never told North Haven investigators of the new evidence. A transcript languished in Kendall?s drawer for more than two years.
Last month, Kendall and three other members of the detective bureau told investigators that Sullivan told them in 1998 to end the Cusick investigation per orders of the chief. Wearing denied giving the order.
Sullivan maintained he told Kendall to forward the evidence. Kendall says he didn?t.
None have been formally accused of wrongdoing.
Keefe said the chief succumbed to pressure from the media and Mayor John DeStefano Jr. when he placed the two on leave.
"The media was hounding them (Wearing and DeStefano) with rumor and innuendo and to stop the bleeding temporarily, they found two fall guys and they got rid of them," Keefe said. "It?s a cheap way of taking the pressure off."
DeStefano said the paid leaves have nothing to do with political pressure or scapegoats.
"This isn?t about anything other than evidence apparently being withheld from a murder investigation," DeStefano said through a spokesperson. "It is the topic of an ongoing internal investigation and the idea that police officers would do this is abhorrent to everything that the vast majority of the men and women of the police department believe."
Keefe said he was confident Sullivan would be exonerated and would return to work.
¸New Haven Register 2000
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