Ex-cop goes bad

Jailed for 600G Social Security scam

A former NYPD sergeant was sentenced to three months in prison Tuesday for stealing more than $600,000 in Social Security disability benefits.

Thomas Shea, 56, retired from the force in 1993 due to a shoulder injury and submitted a false claim for disability two years later while working as a commercial driver for three companies from 1999 to 2014.

His claim was revised in 2015 after a finding that it was “based on tainted evi- dence submitted by a discredited physician,” according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Shea’s lawyer, Joseph Murray, asked for proba- tion, telling Judge Jed Rakoff, “To go in [to prison] and come out a convicted felon, where is he going to get a job? Tom Shea should be made to pay. Allow him to continue to work.”

Shea (left) made full restitution of the $622,843 before sentencing.

“He only came forward after Social Security sent him a notice they were gong to redetermine his case. He came forward because he thought he had been caught,” US Attorney Sagar Ravi Ravi said in arguing for prison time.

Shea told Rakoff, “Approximately 20 years ago I made the worst decision of my life. I knew I was committing fraud . . . I was looked up to and now I bow my head in shame.”

Rakoff replied, “Here’s the issue: You have the amount of money, over $600,000 — and the longevity — a couple of decades.

“As always with crimes of this nature, it exposes an inconsistency, even a hypocrisy, of the person holding themselves to others as doing right.”