Op-Ed: Putnam Sheriff Misled Residents About Lawmaker's Comment

From Putnam County Legislator Neal Sullivan

I am issuing this press release in order to correct a misunderstanding that Putnam County Sheriff Robert L. Langley perpetrated in a press release issued on August 18, 2020. (SEE: Op-Ed: Lawmaker Wrong On Sheriff's Office Policy.)

Specifically, he stated that “Legislator Sullivan alleged that a Putnam County Sheriff’s Department employee admitted to ‘having a policy at the Sheriff’s Department of not adhering to the requirement of turning over evidence which could have been helpful to the defense’.” This comment, however, is taken out of context and therefore provides a misleading and false narrative of what in fact took place.

The entirety of my statement is as follows: “various sheriff Department personnel involved in the case provided contradictory and troubling testimony regarding their investigation of the crime and actually admitted to having a policy at the Sheriff's Department of not adhering to the requirements of turning over evidence which could have been helpful to the defense”. Nowhere did I state that the current Sheriff’s Department, its officers or personnel were guilty of adhering to such a policy. In fact, none of the Sheriff’s Department employees involved in the DiPippo matter, including the actual Sheriff and Undersheriff, are current employees of the Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff Langley also mentions in his press release that “Since I took office in 2018 as Sheriff, my appointed Command Staff has been committed to reviewing and updating the existing Policies and Procedures of the Department. They are working alongside many other Supervisors, Investigators and Deputies who all have been diligently ensuring that our updated policies and procedures conform to State and Federal Law and contain the best practices for Law Enforcement”.

Sheriff Langley can review as many policies as he would like, however, such a review has been rendered moot by Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order 203. Such Executive Order now requires the County Executive to work with the Sheriff in order to review all existing policies and procedures to ensure that they are not only satisfactory, but that they also include best practices and all lawful means of conducting police work.

In fact, the County Executive has already organized a County-wide Police Policy Review Panel which includes members of the Legislature, and which already met on August 13, 2020 and which will be meeting again on September 15, 2020. Once the policies are finalized, Executive Order 203 then vests the Legislature with the authority to adopt the revised policies and procedures. It will then be incumbent upon the Sheriff’s Department to comply with and adhere to those policies.

As such, I went on to state in my comments that, “As many people may be aware, we have been reviewing the policies and procedures of the Sheriff's Department. It behooves us as a Legislature to review many of the policies and procedures of the Sheriff's Department to mitigate future risks to the County”.

This will be an ongoing review in accordance with Executive Order 203, as well as the guidelines issued by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services, the results of which will determine if the Sheriff’s Department policies and procedures in fact “conform to State and Federal law and contain the best practices for Law Enforcement”.

Sheriff’s Langley’s conclusions regarding Department policies and procedures are therefore inconsequential.