FILE – This Oct. 25, 2017 file photo shows then – Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota, right, and his attorney Alan Vinegrad leaving the courthouse in Central Islip, N.Y. Former Suffolk County District Attorney Spota and a former top deputy in the DA’s office are now on trial, accused of conspiring with then-Chief James Burke to stifle a federal probe into whether Burke violated Christopher Loeb’s civil rights. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
A former Long Island prosecutor convicted of obstructing justice after a prisoner was beaten has begun serving a five-year federal prison sentence.
Former Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota and a former top aide, Christopher McPartland, surrendered at separate federal prisons Friday, prison officials told Newsday.
Spota and McPartland were convicted in December 2019 on counts of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and civil rights violations. They were accused of helping cover up the 2012 police beating of a prisoner suspected of stealing sex toys and other items from a police chief’s vehicle.
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WATCH HEREThe resulting scandal eventually engulfed the county’s law enforcement power structure.
Spota, 80, is now an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. McPartland, who also is serving a five-year sentence, is incarcerated at Beaumont Federal Correctional Complex in Texas, according to the newspaper.
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SIGN UP The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last month denied the defendants’ requests to remain free on bail while they appeal their convictions.
Spota told a judge at his sentencing in August that, “I hope not to die in prison alone.”
