Credit Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
Bristol Borough officials have insisted time and time again that a Bucks County District Attorney’s investigation of the police department has cleared the department of any wrong doing.
Not so fast, Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler said Tuesday.
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A memo titled “Bristol Borough Special Counsel” was obtained by LevittownNow.com on Monday evening from an anonymous source. The two paragraph statement penned by the prosecutor and written to Daniel P. Becker who is an attorney involved in the investigation on May 24, 2011 doesn’t support the claims made by the council members and officials.
The Heckler memo states:
“As to the earlier grand jury investigation into matters involving the Bristol Borough Police Department, I can confirm that the term of the grand jury has expired and at that this juncture we have not re-submitted the matter to our currently impaneled grand jury.”
Heckler goes on, ” This does not reflect our satisfaction that no criminal activity ever occurred but rather the circumstances that a sufficient amount of evidence has not been uncovered at this time to enable us to proceed.”
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On Tuesday afternoon, Heckler was asked to clarify whether the department had been cleared of any wrong doing in the letter because of the assertions made by council members.
“I’m not here to give any one in Bristol references,” he said , adding that letter was carefully worded and no where does it clear anyone of wrong doing.
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“At the time,” he reiterated, “the grand jury term was closing and that’s how investigators left it,” he said. “However, if new evidence were to come to light, and now that the civil matters have concluded you never know.”
“I can’t tell what the weather will be like next week,” the prosecutor offered.
When asked if it were fair to say the department has yet to be cleared, he said, “you’re barking up the right tree. I’m not convinced there was no criminal activity taking place in the department, just as I say in the letter.”
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Heckeler added, “lets not forget that Officer Webb was cleared by an investigation my office conducted and that’s also talked about in the letter dated May 24, 2011.”
Credit: Jeff Bohen/LevittownNow.com
Heckler did confirm there were a number of other communications between representatives of the borough and his office, but there weren’t others written in the same context as the May 24 communication.
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After nearly 1o minutes the interview concluded.
Four days before Officer Ritchie Webb was summoned to testify in Joanne Cipressi’s civil suit against the borough and now disgraced former Bristol Officer Sam Anderson, Webb was erroneously accused of threatening to “shoot someone.” A Bristol police officer substantiated for Webb, court papers say.
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Webb was suspended for 11 weeks, based on “erroneous memos” provided by fellow officers Maria Robles (no longer with Bristol police) and Dean Johnson. Bucks County detectives investigated those claims and found them to have “no merit” according to the civil suit he filed and settled in August for a sum of $440,000.
Joanne Cipressi, who has quietly observed the ongoings, since it was her case where all the subsequent filings and investigations arose out of, spoke to LevittownNow.com on Tuesday morning.
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Cipressi settled her case against Bristol in July for about $380,000, court records show.
She started where council left off last Monday night: “I believe that having a consultant come in to simply look over the policies and procedures of the police station and perhaps adjusting some or adding more will not lift this cloud, nor will it make me and others I know feel safer.”
“Policies and procedures,” she said, “can be broken again. Joe Saxton was mayor when one of his police officers, Sam Anderson, committed a crime on duty. According to all the depositions that were taken, Joe Saxton did nothing to follow up on his hiring, adjusting policies and procedures.”
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Council President Ralph DiGuiseppe said at last week’s council meeting, “there is nothing wrong with downstairs (the police department). I can assure you of that.” His comments were in response to calls for a open forum about the department and the civil settlements by Mayoral candidate Pat Sabatini and Councilman Tony Devine.
“Bogus” or not, Heckler was clear about what his letter said at the time and what it means now.
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