Records: Ex-Suffolk DA Thomas Spota, former top aide Christopher McPartland seeking pardons from President Donald Trump

Former Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota and his top aide are seeking pardons from President Donald Trump for their criminal convictions on corruption charges for orchestrating a cover-up of the beating of a shackled prisoner at a Long Island police precinct in 2012, records show.

Spota and Christopher McPartland, the former head of the Suffolk DA's anti-corruption bureau, who each served federal prison terms for conspiring to cover up the beating of a suspect by the then-powerful Suffolk Police Chief James Burke, have each petitioned the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney for clemency, its online database shows.

Neither McPartland, 60, of Northport, nor Spota, 84, of Mount Sinai, former attorneys barred from practicing law due to their convictions, responded to messages seeking comment Tuesday. 

Attorney Anthony La Pinta, a longtime friend of Spota who worked on his defense team and until recently had employed Spota as an administrative clerk as part of his post-prison work release, confirmed that Spota is seeking a pardon. 

"While I am not involved with Mr. Spota's pardon application, I am aware that the sole basis of his request is his personal and professional background and not the facts and circumstances of his criminal case," La Pinta said in a statement to Newsday. "Mr. Spota was a hard working public servant and a member of the New York State Bar in good standing for close to 50 years. He is now 84 years old. He served his time in custody as a model inmate and has been fully compliant and respectful during his supervisory sentence." 

Spota and McPartland — two of the highest-ranking law enforcement officials in Suffolk County at the time — were convicted at a 2019 joint trial of conspiring to cover up the beating of a shackled burglary suspect.

Burke, along with a group of detectives dubbed his "palace guard," beat Christopher Loeb, then a heroin addict, after Loeb stole a duffel bag from Burke’s department vehicle that contained Burke’s gun belt and ammunition, along with Viagra, sex toys and pornography. 

McPartland has taken his quest for a pardon public.

In an interview earlier this month with conservative influencer Nick Shirley on TikTok, McPartland painted himself and Spota, who ran as a Democrat over his 16 years as Suffolk's top prosecutor, as victims of a politicized Department of Justice under the administrations of two Democratic presidents — Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 

"It is a classic, textbook example of weaponization," McPartland said, adding: "The Trump administration is trying to uncover and expose this kind of weaponization." 

 "Prior to 2016, I stumbled across some very high-level federal law enforcement misconduct of people under the direction of Loretta Lynch," McPartland said, referring to the former attorney general. "I turned it immediately over to the FBI, but unfortunately after that I was threatened for quite a while with retribution for having found it and turned it over." 

McPartland didn't specify the alleged misconduct. Lynch was attorney general from 2015 until January 2017, and Spota and McPartland weren't indicted until 10 months after she left the DOJ — during the first administration of President Donald Trump. 

 "They kind of turned the tables on us," he said. "What came after that was a series of misconduct by the people in the Eastern District of New York, leaking grand jury information, misconduct in the grand jury, lying to the judge to hide exculpatory information on the record to the judge and ultimately sitting back when they knew that a witness was lying at the trial."  

A spokesman for Eastern District of New York prosecutors did not respond to a request for comment on their attempts for pardons and McPartland's assertions.

In 2019, a federal jury in Central Islip convicted Spota and McPartland of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and acting as accessories to the deprivation of Loeb's civil rights. Both were sentenced to 5 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack told Spota at sentencing that he did "incalculable damage" to the criminal justice system. 

"I hope it sends a clear message that no one is above the law and criminal conduct that betrays the public trust will be punished," Azrack said. 

A federal appeals court in 2023 upheld the convictions and denied an effort by McPartland for a new trial or an evidentiary hearing to determine if one witness, ex-Lt. James Hickey, lied on the stand. 

Burke pleaded guilty to federal charges connected to the beating and served most of a 46-month sentence. He was arrested in August 2023 after Suffolk park rangers said he solicited sex from a ranger during an undercover sting, but the charges are slated to be dropped later this year if he stays out of trouble. 

Spota, whom prosecutors called the "CEO" of the conspiracy, while McPartland was the scheme's "chief operating officer" and "architect of the lies," helped Burke craft a cover story, subverting the federal investigation into Loeb's beating, prosecutors said. 

Spota, McPartland and Burke had dubbed themselves “the administration,” and according to trial testimony, wiretapped the phone of Suffolk Det. John Oliva for months because Burke disapproved of Oliva working on a federal gang task force and later prosecuted Oliva for allegedly leaking information. The judge who later vacated Oliva’s conviction called their actions a “vindictive conspiracy.”

Bruce Barket, the Garden City attorney who won $1.5 million settlements from Suffolk for both Loeb and Oliva, criticized the pair for seeking clemency when reached by Newsday. 

"I wish Mr. Spota and Mr. McPartland well personally and professionally, but the suggestion that they deserve a pardon seems ridiculous," Barket said. "Everybody in the Suffolk law enforcement community knows what they did. They should go about their lives living as well as they can without pretending they were victims of something."

Barket said Trump's use of his pardon powers had emboldened Spota and McPartland to seek clemency. 

"It's as much a comment about the corrupt state of the pardon office as it is about them, that somebody who engaged in the conduct they engaged in thinks that the pardon office would be receptive to this," he said. 

Trump has historically bypassed Department of Justice norms, such as consulting career staff charged with helping to make clemency determinations, according to multiple news reports citing clemency scholars. 

The Office of the Pardon Attorney, created in 1894, reviews and investigates all of the clemency applications it receives and makes recommendations to the president on whether to approve or deny the requests.

Trump fired the previous head of the office and installed Edward R. Martin Jr., who has served in the post of pardon attorney since 2025. He was previously the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and led the Weaponization Working Group, a Justice Department task force aimed at removing alleged politicization from DOJ investigations and prosecutions. 

From 2022 to 2024, the office reviewed about 12,000 clemency petitions, according to its website. In Trump's second term in office, he has issued clemency to about 1,700 people, according to reports, including a controversial mass pardon to about 1,500 defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

 The New York Times reported on Monday that Trump rejected nearly 6,000 clemency applications earlier this month even as he has granted clemency to those who are politically connected.  

Spota was released from federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, after serving about 2 years and 7 months of his 5-year sentence. McPartland was released from prison in Beaumont, Texas, in December 2023 after serving about 2 years. 

Both men have embarked on second acts.

In August 2024, Spota began working as a non-lawyer administrative clerk at La Pinta's Hauppauge law firm as part of his release conditions, Newsday previously reported. 

Meanwhile, McPartland, who had worked at a liquor store making $16 an hour before his prison stint, launched a consulting business in 2024, offering his knowledge of the federal prison system to incoming inmates.