MINEOLA, N.Y. – Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced the third and final sentence in a case involving a police cover-up to avoid the arrest of the teenaged son of a police benefactor and personal friend of former Nassau County Police Deputy Commissioner William Flanagan.
Alan Sharpe, 54, a former detective sergeant, pleaded guilty to one count of Official Misconduct (an A misdemeanor) today. Sharpe was sentenced by Acting Supreme Court Judge Mark D. Cohen to 150 hours of community service, a $1,000 fine, and two years’ probation.
“After the third and final conviction in this case, our prosecution has shown once again that there shouldn’t be one set of rules for public officials and another set of rules for everyone else,” DA Rice said. “These defendants betrayed the public and the hard-working members of the Nassau County Police Department who put their lives on the line every day and we’re grateful for today’s sentence.”
DA Rice also thanked Judge Cohen and the jury members who served in Flanagan and Sharpe’s cases for their service.
DA Rice said that on June 15, 2009, NCPD Deputy Chief of Patrol John Hunter directed Sharpe to have more than $10,000 in electronic equipment stolen by a student of John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore during the 2008-2009 school year returned to the school in an effort to prevent an arrest. The student is the son of Gary Parker, a personal friend of Flanagan and Hunter who also donated large sums of money to the Nassau County Police Department Foundation.
On June 18, 2009, Gary Parker reached out to Flanagan to ask for his assistance. During July and August, Flanagan worked with Sharpe to coordinate the return of the stolen property to the school administrator and to prevent Parker's arrest, with Flanagan assuring Gary Parker in an email that he had “no doubt about the outcome.”
On September 1, 2009, Sharpe directed one of his detectives to return the stolen property to the school administrator and to obtain her signature on a withdrawal of prosecution form. She accepted the property, but refused to sign the withdrawal form.
Despite her refusal, however, Sharpe instructed a subordinate to enter a “close out” memo in the NCPD computer system on September 19, 2010, falsely claiming that the school administrator did not want Zachary Parker arrested.
Sharpe, Hunter and Flanagan were arrested and charged after an investigation that began in the wake of a Long Island Press story documenting allegations of preferential treatment for those with personal connections to the police department and its private foundation. The DA’s investigation would later find no criminality on the part of the Nassau County Police Department Foundation itself.
A jury convicted Flanagan of two counts of Official Misconduct and one count of Conspiracy in the 6th Degree in February 2013. In July 2013, he was sentenced by Judge Cohen to 60 days in jail, 420 hours of non-law enforcement community service, plus a $1,000 fine.
Hunter pleaded guilty in May 2013 to two counts of Official Misconduct and Conspiracy in the 6th Degree and was sentenced by Judge Cohen to three years’ probation, 500 hours of non-law enforcement related community service, and was required to film a police training video to help recruits avoid his illegal mistakes.
Assistant District Attorneys Bernadette Ford, chief of DA Rice’s Public Corruption Bureau, and Christiana McSloy are prosecuting the cases. Sharpe is represented by Anthony Grandinette, Esq.
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