Gilgo att’y links cop to sex parties
A disgraced Long Island police chief is being connected to the infamous Gilgo Beach murders by a lawyer for one victim’s family and by a prostitute who claim the cop participated in area sex parties.
Former Suffolk County top cop James Burke, who allegedly obstructed the FBI from investigating the unsolved murders, attended parties with drugs and prostitution in Oak Beach, the lawyer said Thursday.
“This is the first time that there has been an actual connection made between . . . Burke, Oak Beach and prostitution,” attorney John Ray said.
He was joined by an escort, identified only as Leanne, who claimed she had “rough sex” with Burke.
The ex-chief was recently sentenced to 46 months in prison for trying to cover up his beating of a man who had stolen sex toys from his vehicle.
Leanne also said she witnessed Burke “grab a girl by her hair and drag her to the ground.”
Ray, the lawyer for the family of Gilgo Beach victim Shannan Gilbert, hopes to question Burke under oath.
Gilbert’s skeletal remains were discovered in December 2011 along a 15-mile stretch around Gilgo Beach.
About a year earlier, police found the first of 10 corpses — nearly all of them prostitutes and one an infant girl — wrapped in burlap sacks in the same marshy area.
Gilbert, 23, was last seen alive in the wee hours of May 1, 2010, after she visited a client in Oak Beach, LI, about a mile from where her body was found.
She called a 911 operator while she was fleeing to report that someone was trying to kill her.
Police believe that one, or possibly two, killers were responsible for the murders — and rumors abounded that a cop might be one of the culprits.