Sheriff’s attorney questions Fed’s probe

Howard Manly

In an extraordinary letter providing a behind-the-scenes look at the federal probe targeting one of the state’s highest elected black officials, Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral’s defense attorney strongly criticized the behavior of the local U.S. Attorney’s Office and concluded that the two-year investigation “raises serious questions of impropriety.”

The behavior of U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan was so troubling, wrote defense attorney Walter B. Prince, that he and Cabral filed a report to the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, which promptly opened an investigation. Within a week of opening that investigation into Sullivan’s Office, Sullivan unceremoniously ended his probe on Cabral — without an indictment or apology.

From the very beginning, Prince wrote, the U.S. Attorney’s Office appeared to be more interested in the inter-office policies of the newly elected sheriff rather than eradicating public corruption. During a meeting on June 16, 2003 supposedly aimed at ameliorating the historic tension between the FBI and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, Cabral was supposed to meet the new FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge Kenneth Kaiser.

But instead of talking about improving the relationship between the two agencies, the conversation focused on the firing of a prison nurse, Sheila Porter, who had worked as an FBI informant. After Cabral and her staff answered questions about Porter’s dismissal for violating departmental policies, Sullivan’s Chief of Public Corruption Steve Huggard “announced that he had already targeted the Sheriff’s Department for investigation.”

“The decision to invite Cabral to a meeting without first informing her that either she or members of her staff were being investigated was clearly improper,” Prince wrote in his Oct. 7 letter.

More troublesome was the relationship between Porter, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Five days before Cabral’s meeting in Sullivan’s Office, Porter met with Huggard, two FBI agents and Porter’s civil attorney Joseph Savage on June 11, 2003. Porter had been an FBI informant during the corrupt administration of Suffolk County Sheriff Richard Rouse. The meeting was unusual in that it occurred a day after Porter was fired.

In addition, during that meeting, Porter was told that she had been illegally barred and was advised to seek an employment attorney.

“In addition to the clear impropriety of advising a potential witness to hire a civil attorney, it is clear that Porter would not have independently retained her current attorney, Joe Savage (who does not specialize or routinely practice employment law), without the guidance of either the U.S. Attorney’s office or the FBI. Joe Savage is a former Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Public Corruption Bureau and a friend of Steve Huggard (who initiated the grand jury investigation [of Cabral] …”

“Throughout this investigation, we have been extremely concerned about the connection and communication between Sullivan’s Office and Sheila Porter’s civil attorney Joseph Savage,” prince wrote, pointing out that the almost immediate determination that Porter’s firing was “illegal” demonstrated “an appalling rush to judgment especially since there had been no communication with the Sheriff’s Department to determine the credibility of Ms. Porter’s version of the facts.”

It gets worse. According to Prince, Sullivan knew Cabral was not guilty of criminal behavior. “Based upon information provided to me and my client, sometime in the fall of 2004, Sullivan acknowledged to a number of his assistants that he did not believe that Cabral’s conduct in barring Porter was illegal,” Prince wrote. “Despite that, your office sought her testimony before the grand jury. (Indeed, it was the initial intention of your office that she be subpoenaed to testify on Sept. 14, 2004, the day of the primary election in the Sheriff’s race).”

To this date, Sullivan has never ascribed any motive to explain why Cabral, who had been appointed by then Gov. Jane Swift to clean up the sheriff’s office, would fire any employee for cooperating with the FBI.

In fact, Cabral, a former prosecutor, still worked with the FBI on joint investigations, despite being under federal investigation for nearly two years.