The Nassau County police commissioner was forced out Thursday for conducting a “politically motivated” witch hunt against a witness in an election-fraud case, officials said.
Thomas Dale, who spent only a year as Nassau’s top cop, personally ordered cops to board a county bus in October and arrest a witness in a case involving a local politician, the officials said.
Dale was ousted by the very person who hired him for the job — Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano. He will be replaced by Victor Politi, who was the head of Mangano’s public safety department, but Dale will not face criminal charges from Nassau DA Kathleen Rice.
Dale’s troubles began Oct. 7 when Mangano’s office got a complaint charging that a Roosevelt, LI, resident had been the victim of “unlawful conduct and inappropriate action” by Nassau cops, the DA’s Office said.
Days earlier, the resident, Randy White, had testified in a civil case that the campaign of Andrew Hardwick, who was seeking a spot on the ballot for county executive, had paid him to collect signatures in violation of state election law.
Hardwick’s campaign denied the allegations and subsequently recorded a phone call in which they claimed that White had admitted to using a legal method to gather the signatures.
Hardwick’s attorney tried unsuccessfully to introduce the phone conversation in court to discredit White.
Then Hardwick’s operatives called Dale in an effort to get him to file perjury charges against White based on the audio-taped phone call. But Dale refused because the tape was fuzzy.
His detectives, though, did a background check on White, who had an outstanding warrant for unpaid fines on a trademark counterfeiting conviction.
Dale immediately ordered that White be arrested on the warrant. White was busted Oct. 5 while on a bus from Roosevelt to Hempstead.
Following his arrest, he was served a civil subpoena by Hardwick’s attorney, which was the nail in Dale’s coffin.
“The fact that Mr. White was served a civil subpoena while in police custody is a deeply troubling aspect of this case,” Rice’s office said.
Republished with permission of The New York Post
