Inside a Suffolk Wiretap

The public ending belonged to a different case.

In August 2021, U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack sentenced former District Attorney Thomas Spota and former Government Corruption Bureau chief Christopher McPartland to five years in prison. A federal jury had convicted them of obstructing the investigation of Burke’s assault of Loeb, tampering with witnesses, and acting as accessories after the fact to the civil-rights violation. Spota also received a $100,000 fine.¹⁷¹⁸

That judgment closed the separate Burke prosecution. The earlier Macedonio matter supplies context for what Rizzi and his investigative partners had already experienced inside the Suffolk County system.

Nonpublic information had reached a defense attorney.

Rizzi was working in a Suffolk County narcotics squad when an undercover drug purchase led to an arrest. During a later proffer, a meeting in which a defendant gives information to investigators and prosecutors, the defendant said Macedonio already knew details about the arrest and seizures that had not been made public. The investigators’ firsthand account identifies that disclosure as the starting point of the inquiry.¹

Protecting undercover identities was an immediate concern. Investigators received information alleging that Macedonio helped drug dealers avoid arrest, identified undercover detectives, facilitated large cocaine transactions, and helped gang members evade law enforcement. Those claims were leads requiring corroboration, not established findings.¹²

Macedonio had been a Suffolk County prosecutor before becoming a veteran criminal-defense attorney. He was also a player in county Republican politics. Newsday later described a courthouse figure with relationships extending across the defense bar, public offices, law enforcement, and local politics.³⁴

In early 2007, Rizzi and his partner transferred to the Government Corruption Bureau to continue the case. Rizzi served as the lead investigator. A judge authorized telephone interception under Title III, and the surveillance expanded to nearly a dozen phones.¹

Title III controlled how investigators intercepted, reviewed, minimized, documented, and used private communications. Monitors identified speakers and coded language while surveillance teams, witnesses, financial records, and searches supplied independent context. Supervisors and prosecutors reviewed the developing leads to decide what additional legal process or fieldwork was justified.

Released records described mortgage, bank, escrow, property, narcotics, and witness-related allegations. Judges authorized a search of Macedonio’s law office and the seizure of accounts and property. Court filings later placed alleged proceeds associated with financial schemes above $4 million.²³

Doors Behind Doors

Newsday later reported allegations that intercepted conversations involved cocaine purchases, warnings about informants, campaign-contribution laundering, patronage positions, judgeships, gang members, drug traffickers, and public officials. Each was an investigative lead requiring separate proof and a separate charging decision.⁴

According to the investigators’ firsthand account, the team disrupted two planned robberies. One was a proposed home invasion targeting a drug dealer. Newsday reported that investigators built dossiers involving cocaine dealers, armed robbers, and public officials, and that the case appeared to be moving toward possible charges involving drug trafficking, mortgage fraud, public corruption, and cocaine distribution in Long Island high schools. Much of that alleged conduct did not result in public charges.¹⁴

According to a released search-warrant affidavit, Macedonio allegedly allowed people with criminal records to work as mortgage brokers under his license, received portions of their commissions, made a false filing to banking authorities, and participated in fraudulent mortgage activity through a business at his law office. The affidavit also described narcotics allegations. Some information came from an informant, and the later records did not establish that every claim was verified or adjudicated.²

The expanding scope did not mean every lead belonged in one prosecution. Each possible offense required its own evidence, legal theory, subjects, and charging review. Investigators had to preserve matters that were still developing while acting immediately on threats such as the planned robberies. That combination of urgent fieldwork and long-term documentation made the case operationally demanding.

A broad investigation ended in one felony drug plea.

In December 2008, Macedonio pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession. The conviction cost him his law license. Records later unsealed at Newsday’s request described allegations the prosecution agreed not to charge, including mortgage fraud, cocaine sales, grand larceny, witness tampering, and related conduct.²³

Names and details remained redacted to protect uncharged people, undercover officers, informants, and other sensitive information. The plea resolved the prosecution without trials on the wider body of alleged conduct investigators had examined.

The investigators’ assessment was that other developed matters also supported charges. They identified the disrupted robberies, drug activity involving a high school, and possible crimes involving public officials. McPartland declined to prosecute multiple people whom the investigators believed the evidence supplied probable cause to charge.¹

Those decisions shaped the investigators’ later conclusion about how the wiretap had been used. They believed it had served not only to establish evidence of suspected crimes, but also to gather intelligence involving political operatives aligned against Spota. This was their assessment based on the work and the decisions they observed, not a finding in the public court record.¹

A negotiated plea may reflect proof problems, witness concerns, legal limits, or a prosecutor’s judgment about the public interest. The existence of uncharged allegations does not establish that every available charge should have been filed. Here, the investigators’ concern arose from the combination of evidence they believed had been corroborated, limits placed on follow-up, and the breadth of conduct omitted from the final disposition.

The felony was replaced with a misdemeanor.

With support from the district attorney’s office, Macedonio’s felony conviction was vacated, meaning set aside as a legal judgment, and replaced with a misdemeanor. Removing the felony cleared the principal obstacle to restoring his law license. Newsday later reported that its review of more than 400,000 Long Island felony cases found no other matter following the same pattern. The district attorney’s office, Macedonio, and his attorney denied that anything improper had occurred.³

Investigators later learned of an alleged arrangement connected to Macedonio regaining his law license. According to the information they received, part of the arrangement was that he would stop communicating with a political adversary of Burke and abandon a book he was preparing about Burke. The available court record did not establish those conditions as terms of the disposition.¹

Newsday reported that attorneys familiar with criminal practice regarded the sequence as highly unusual. Much of the relevant proceeding remained sealed or absent from the ordinary public file, and the available record did not disclose a publicly tested finding that explained the change. The unusual sequence, the incomplete file, and the competing accounts became central to the newspaper’s later examination.³

Reporters reconstructed a case from incomplete and sealed records.

Newsday’s February 2016 investigation traced the narcotics and financial inquiry, the law-office search, seized assets, the felony plea, the misdemeanor substitution, and the restoration of Macedonio’s license. Reporters used court papers, interviews, database analysis, and records requests to examine gaps in the public file.³

The underlying materials were not released through routine requests. Suffolk County produced none of the wiretap records Newsday sought under the Freedom of Information Law. The newspaper went to court and formally moved to unseal the search-warrant affidavit and plea agreement. The district attorney’s office opposed their release, but Judge James Hudson ruled in Newsday’s favor and unsealed the records in May 2016.²⁵

No single open file supplied the complete chronology. The reporting reconstructed the matter from fragments and treated missing or sealed records as questions requiring examination. It asked what the original investigation encompassed, who approved the disposition, and what became of alleged conduct that never appeared as a public charge.

The reporting and federal investigation developed in parallel, using different powers. Newsday could pursue records, interviews, and public accountability. Federal investigators could issue subpoenas, compel testimony, and evaluate evidence for criminal prosecution. In March 2016, Newsday reported that federal prosecutors subpoenaed Macedonio materials, including wiretap audio and transcripts, and people connected to the original matter.⁵

Investigators carried their institutional knowledge outside the county chain.

Four Government Corruption Bureau personnel formed a core group they called “the Resistance.” They compared patterns across cases and developed what they considered a roadmap connecting people, relationships, evidence, charging outcomes, unexplained decisions, and the hierarchy through which those decisions moved. County officials later joined the group.¹

Its members worked inside the district attorney’s Government Corruption Bureau, where their work moved through McPartland and Burke to Spota. They saw both the evidence developed in sensitive investigations and the decisions made after it moved upward. They came to believe that relationships and political value influenced which matters advanced, which were narrowed, and which received little follow-up. That was their assessment of patterns across cases, not a conclusion established by one intercepted call or court ruling.¹

Burke’s federal indictment and arrest in December 2015 showed the Resistance that Eastern District prosecutors were willing to pursue corruption involving Suffolk’s law-enforcement leadership. Members made contact covertly with prosecutors working the Burke case and met them outside government offices to share their firsthand experience and explain the roadmap. Burke pleaded guilty in February 2016. In March, Newsday reported that federal prosecutors subpoenaed Macedonio wiretap materials and people connected to the original matter.¹⁵¹⁹²⁰

Newsday reported in May that detectives assigned to the Government Corruption Bureau had requested transfers. Sources told the newspaper that investigators feared McPartland’s continued role could compromise ongoing cases while he was reportedly a federal grand-jury target.⁸

The investigators’ assessment was that cases developed under McPartland could later be challenged if his conduct became an issue. Rizzi and his partner returned to narcotics rather than continue investing in work they believed might be compromised. Rizzi later became a Homeland Security task-force officer in the same federal building as the prosecutors handling the developing case.¹

Taking information outside the county command structure carried professional risk. The people implicated by the roadmap controlled assignments, access, reputations, and careers within the same system where the investigators worked. The transfers made that break visible while members of the Resistance were assisting outside authorities.

Reporting brought disputed relationships and decisions into the open.

Newsday’s April 2016 reporting examined payments by defense attorneys to a corporation controlled by a veteran prosecutor for gatherings and fishing charters on his 47-foot boat. Some attorneys described renting the boat as a way to curry favor. The district attorney’s office said the payments covered ordinary operating, food, and beverage costs. Ethics specialists identified a potential conflict.⁶

Officials told Newsday that investigators had received information alleging Macedonio made a $2,500 payment disguised as a boat charter to thank the prosecutor for supporting an offender’s early release. They said investigators corroborated aspects of the account by examining the release and the claimed cooperation. The reported payment remained an allegation and did not result in a charge.⁴⁶

The suspected arrangement was among the matters investigators intended to monitor during the wiretap. Early calls referred to the boat, then the contact stopped. Newsday reported that telephone records showed frequent earlier contact and that Macedonio later complained the prosecutor was no longer returning his calls. Officials quoted by the newspaper said the team was not permitted to interview key people and suspected someone inside the district attorney’s office had warned the prosecutor. Spota rejected the account. The investigators’ firsthand account states that the available lead was not meaningfully pursued.¹⁴

A separate Forkin wiretap investigation raised another concern. During the post-arrest phase, Rizzi received information indicating that investigative details may have reached people outside the authorized team, including targets of the investigation. The information also identified a family connection linking a target’s associate to a police lieutenant who had been a close friend and former partner of Burke. That relationship did not establish who disclosed the information. It gave investigators a reason to examine whether the case had been compromised. The assigned prosecutor was advised, but the district attorney’s office showed no interest in pursuing the possible leak.¹

In May 2016, County Executive Steve Bellone publicly demanded Spota’s resignation. He accused the district attorney of protecting political friends and punishing enemies, and cited possible crimes heard during the Macedonio wiretaps but not prosecuted. Spota refused to resign, called Newsday’s reporting flawed, and accused Bellone of a personal vendetta tied to cases involving Bellone’s associates. Bellone denied seeking favors. Their competing accusations did not resolve the underlying claims, but they placed disputes about selective enforcement and political influence before the public.⁷

Bellone delivered a resignation letter at the district attorney’s Hauppauge office and also criticized Spota’s support for Burke. About an hour later, Spota held his own news conference. He said his office had supplied federal prosecutors with records and recordings, then alleged that Bellone had asked him not to pursue people close to the county executive. Bellone denied the allegation and said the dispute concerned corruption and public trust. The exchange widened as county lawmakers divided over responsibility and whether either official should leave office.⁷

Spota and McPartland were charged in the Burke cover-up.

In October 2017, a federal grand jury indicted Spota and McPartland. The indictment alleged that they joined an effort to protect Burke by identifying possible cooperators, pressuring witnesses, promoting false accounts, and obstructing the federal investigation. Both men pleaded not guilty. Spota announced the next day that he would leave office.⁹¹⁰

Pretrial filings described meetings, telephone and cell-site records, witness pressure, efforts to identify a federal source, and alleged money for legal expenses. These were the government’s allegations before trial, and the defendants continued to deny them.¹¹¹²

The case concerned the Burke assault and obstruction, not the Macedonio wiretap. Its institutional significance was that senior officials who had held authority over the earlier matter were now being examined by an outside prosecution.

Later testimony gave a public name to the leadership environment.

Former police lieutenant James Hickey testified about warnings concerning anyone who went against what members of the leadership circle called “The Administration.” The term described the network and influence surrounding senior officials. Hickey testified about threats to careers and efforts to find the person cooperating with federal authorities. Other testimony described surveillance of perceived enemies and the use of official power for personal or political purposes.¹³¹⁶

That testimony concerned participants in the Burke cover-up. It did not establish a threat made specifically to Rizzi or his partner. It did corroborate important features of the environment members of the Resistance had described to federal authorities, including retaliation, career pressure, and the use of institutional power against perceived enemies.¹

Prosecutors used Hickey’s testimony with telephone evidence, records, other witnesses, and the history of the relationships among the men. Defense attorneys attacked Hickey’s credibility and argued that neither Spota nor McPartland knowingly joined a conspiracy.¹⁴

Hickey described a June 2015 meeting after the participants learned that federal authorities had reopened the Loeb investigation. According to the trial reporting, the response centered on identifying the person who had cooperated and controlling the damage. The defense emphasized Hickey’s incentives, challenged inconsistencies, and asked jurors to reject the government’s account of a leadership-directed cover-up.¹³¹⁴

The jury convicted Spota and McPartland on all counts.

On December 17, 2019, after a six-week trial, the jury convicted Spota and McPartland of conspiracy, obstruction, witness tampering, and accessory-after-the-fact liability for the deprivation of Loeb’s civil rights. The verdict established their criminal responsibility in the Burke case. It did not adjudicate the allegations reported from the Macedonio matter.¹⁵

The five-year sentences imposed in 2021 completed the federal chronology described in this archive. The original wiretap and the federal prosecution remained legally separate. Together, the records show why source type, chronology, corroboration, and preserved documentation matter when institutional decisions change how an investigation is later understood.¹⁷¹⁸