Former Det. Sgt. Robert Doyle alleges defendants Thomas Spota and James Burke violated federal Wiretap Act

A former Suffolk County police detective has filed a class-action lawsuit against Suffolk County, ex-District Attorney Thomas Spota and ex-police chief James Burke over Spota’s illegal wiretap of another detective’s phone that was part of a corrupt conspiracy that landed both former law enforcement officials in federal prison.

Retired Suffolk Det. Sgt. Robert Doyle, a 38½ year veteran who retired as a homicide detective, filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month claiming the defendants violated the federal Wiretap Act.

Other defendants include Christopher McPartland, who was Spota’s chief deputy in the district attorney’s office and Thomas Iacopelli, a detective investigator in the DA’s office. The complaint, filed by Garden City-based attorneys Bruce Barket and Alexander Klein, seeks a jury trial and both compensatory and punitive damages.

“This case seeks to vindicate the public interest in recognizing that when an illegal wiretap takes place it victimizes not only the target of an illegal investigation but also additionally innocent third-parties who have their private communications recorded by government agents,” the complaint said.

The 10-page document refers to the detective whose phone was wiretapped as “person 1” but the details exactly mirror the case of former Suffolk Det. John Oliva, whose phone was illegally wiretapped by Spota and McPartland, who used that material to force Oliva into pleading guilty to a crime for allegedly leaking information to a Newsday reporter and retiring from the police department.

Spota, McPartland and Burke, who had dubbed themselves “the Administration” and according to testimony at Spota and McPartland’s 2019 federal corruption trial, labeled Oliva an “enemy” and wiretapped his phone for months because Burke didn’t like that Oliva was working on a federal gang task force. Spota’s office prosecuted Oliva for allegedly giving information to a reporter. The judge who later vacated Oliva’s conviction called their actions a “vindictive conspiracy.”

Spota and McPartland are each serving 5-year sentences in federal prison after their convictions for orchestrating a cover-up with Burke after the then-chief beat a handcuffed suspect on Dec. 14, 2012. The suspect allegedly stole a duffel bag from Burke's police vehicle. Burke pleaded guilty to violating the man's civil rights and orchestrating a departmental cover-up of the crime. He served most of a 46-month federal prison sentence.

“The Administration,” according to the newly filed suit, viewed Doyle as one of its “principal enemies” and “unwilling to follow their illegal propensities and practices.”

Doyle and Oliva were “dear friends” and during the three months that Oliva’s phone was wiretapped, the complaint said “many hundreds, if not thousands, of communications between Person 1 and others, including the Named Plaintiff” were “listened to and recorded.”

Marykate Guilfoyle, a spokeswoman for Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, said in a statement: “Once served, the county will review yet another lawsuit allegedly arising out of the corruption of Spota and Burke."

Spota’s attorney did not respond to an inquiry. McPartland’s attorney declined to comment. Attorneys for Burke and Iacopelli could not be reached for comment.

Spota and McPartland were convicted in 2019 at a joint trial of carrying out a 3-year conspiracy to cover up Burke’s beating of a handcuffed suspect. Spota is currently serving a 5-year sentence in a federal prison in Connecticut while McPartland is serving five years in a Texas federal prison.

The suit called Burke “one of the ringleaders of the scheme” who “used the illegally wiretapped information in order to attempt to gain informational leverage against the Plaintiff, Person 1, and all other persons on the wiretap campaign whom he viewed as a threat to his corrupt regime or a potential leak of information about the beating.”

Spota was also “one of the ringleaders” and McPartland was a “high-level member of the scheme” and worked “at the immediate direction of Burke and Spota, who expressly made a point to use the wiretap bounties as a threat to enforce loyalty among others under his supervision.”

 Iacopelli “personally prepared and signed the affidavits in support of the wiretap applications and then agreed to, and did, eavesdrop on Person 1’s phone for three months while making constant reports to other co-conspirators about the content of what he was listening to,” the lawsuit said.

Suffolk County agreed to a $1.5 million settlement with Oliva last year. Judge Fernando Camacho, who overturned Oliva’s conviction, said of Spota and McPartland: “All of those who engaged in this vindictive conspiracy became the abusers and oppressors. … Shame on them.” 

Klein, in an interview Monday, said it was important for the many victims of the illegal wiretap to get justice.

“It’s very unusual for there to be a wiretap that is achieved through illegitimate means that is then thoroughly and clearly debunked as illegal and for that process to enable the victims of that wiretap to seek recourse,” said Klein. “The rarer it is for certain types of misconduct to be uncovered, the more important it is to shine a light on it.” 

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.