Re: 12/13/00 - YDN: Top detective could be indicted; Grand jury recommends indictment
Published Wednesday, December 13, 2000
Top detective could be indicted
Grand jury recommends indictment
BY ANDREW PACIOREK
YDN Staff Reporter
The former top detective of the New Haven Police Department should be indicted for obstructing the investigation of a 1996 murder, a grand jury recommended Monday.
Judge Carmen Espinosa, serving as sole grand juror, said NHPD Capt. Brian Sullivan deliberately hid evidence from North Haven detectives investigating the November 1996 murder of Philip Cusick.
And Tuesday night, Mayor John DeStefano brought administrative ethics charges against Sullivan, based on a report of the department's internal affairs unit presented at a closed meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners. The commission voted to hold a hearing into the administrative charges Dec. 27. But lawyers on both sides said the hearing will likely be put off until the criminal case is resolved.
The decision on whether or not to prosecute Sullivan, based on Espinosa's ruling, now rests with Chief State's Attorney John Bailey, who must determine if there is enough evidence to seek a warrant for Sullivan's arrest.
"We are reading the report now," Bailey said. "We are looking at the testimony, we are looking at the law, and then we'll take some action, I believe."
The two charges of hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence recommend sentences of one to five years in prison each.
In her report, Espinosa did not suggest a motive for Sullivan's actions, a fact that his lawyer, Hugh Keefe, was quick to point out.
"Why would someone cover up a murder investigation when they have no reason to?" Keefe asked.
The grand jury also investigated Sullivan's second-in-command, Sgt. Edward Kendall, but found no cause to recommend his indictment. However, Kendall retired Tuesday.
New Haven Police Chief Melvin Wearing placed both Sullivan and Kendall on paid leave in May pending the result of the grand jury investigation.
"It is never acceptable for a police officer to be charged, just as it is never acceptable for a case to be handled improperly," Wearing said in a written statement. "There are standards that should be expected of us from the residents we serve, and the officers of the New Haven Police Department and I stand committed to meeting those standards."
Espinosa called dozens of witnesses to testify during the six-month grand jury investigation into the NHPD's handling of the Cusick case.
Cusick was a passenger in a car when he was shot in November 1996.
The car's driver dropped the body in front of the house of Cusick's mother in North Haven, giving police there jurisdiction, although New Haven police believe he was killed in New Haven.
In 1998, a witness to the murder came forward and gave a statement to New Haven police, in which he described a person fleeing the scene of the shooting.
But the NHPD never turned over a tape and transcript of the statement to North Haven police. Kendall had the transcript in his desk for over a year.
In his testimony before the grand jury, Kendall first said Sullivan ordered him to turn over the report but that he forgot to do so.
Kendall later reversed himself and said Sullivan had never ordered him to inform the North Haven department.
Sullivan took the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify on the grounds that his own testimony might incriminate him.
Wearing, Assistant Police Chief Douglas MacDonald and former New Haven Police Chief Nicholas Pastore all testified before the grand jury they had not ordered Sullivan to end the investigation.
On Monday, Wearing spoke with North Haven Police Chief James DiCarlo and promised to fully assist the Cusick investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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