Disgraced NYPD Cop Asks Bush For Pardon

Justin Volpe, the disgraced former NYPD officer who brutally assaulted a handcuffed man in 1997, has asked President George “Shoe-Dodger” Bush to commute his 30-year sentence.

For those of you that don’t remember Volpe, he’s the 36-year-old ex-cop who notoriously sodomized Haitian immigrant Abner Louima with a broken broomstick in a precinct station house.

Volpe sent a formal request - along with a small mound of letters of support - to the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney, which handles referrals to the president for rare reductions of sentences (like the one granted to rapper John Forte).

Sentenced to the 30 years without parole under a federal guideline that allows harsher penalties for cops than for ordinary citizens, Volpe has been behind bars for about 12 years without chance of parole. He is set to be released from a Minnesota federal prison in 2025.

He has received support from his family’s Staten Island church. In a recent letter to the congregation in support of Volpe, the church's pastor, Father Travers, noted that a "commutation is a reduction" of a penalty and "not an exemption or a pardon or an excuse.

"We all know that some people guilty of taking human life serve far less time than 30 years," the priest wrote. "And if they are not in the federal system, they may have the possibility of parole."

A look at penitentiary records shows that, statistically speaking, Travers is right -- murderers serve an average 24 years. First-degree manslaughter convicts serve about 12 years, while murderers found guilty of second-degree-manslaughter spend only an average of 6.6 years in jail. Other killers, however, serve little more than three.

That’s all well and good, but does that justify a commutation. The key difference between Volpe and the aforementioned murderers is that Volpe was a police officer, whose job it was to “protect and serve,” not “beat and sodomize.” We must also remember that Louima never committed a crime – he was an innocent bystander at an altercation outside a Brooklyn nightclub. And sure, you can hear sob stories about Volpe and how he’s a reformed man, and how he used to feed the homeless, and how he only made one “mistake.” But it was an enormous “mistake,” and one that was callous and calculated.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the night in question:


On August 9, 1997, Louima visited "Club Rendez-Vous", a popular nightclub in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Late in the night, he and several other men interceded in a fight between two women. The police were called and several officers from the 70th precinct were dispatched to the scene. There was a confrontation between the police, patrons and bystanders involved in the scuffle outside the club. The responding patrol officers included Justin Volpe, among others. In the ensuing scuffle, Volpe thought he was struck by a "sucker-punch" and for reasons that remain unclear, identified Louima as his assailant. Volpe arrested Louima on charges of disorderly conduct, obstructing government administration, and resisting arrest.

The arresting officers beat Louima with their fists, nightsticks, and hand-held police radios on the ride to the station. On arriving at the station house, he was strip-searched and put in a holding cell. The beating continued later, culminating with Louima being raped in a bathroom at the 70th Precinct station house in Brooklyn. Officer Justin Volpe kicked Louima in the testicles, then, while Louima's hands were cuffed behind his back, he first grabbed onto and squeezed his testicles and then sodomized him with a broomstick, causing severe internal damage to his colon and bladder that required several operations to repair. Volpe then walked through the precinct holding the bloody, excrement-stained instrument in his hand, indicating that he had "broke a man down."

Louima's teeth were also badly damaged in the attack by having the broomstick jammed into his mouth. He testified to the presence of a second officer in the bathroom helping Volpe in the assault but he could not positively identify him. The identity of the second attacker became a point of serious contention during the trial and appeals. Louima also initially claimed that the officers involved in the attack called him a "nigger" and shouted, "This is Giuliani-time" during the beating. Louima later recanted this claim, and the reversal was used by defense lawyers to cast doubt on the entirety of his testimony.

The day after the incident, Louima was transferred to the Coney Island Hospital emergency room. Escorting officers explained away his serious injuries being a result of "abnormal homosexual activities". An emergency room nurse, Magalie Laurent, suspecting the nature of Louima's extreme injuries were not the result of gay sex, notified Louima's family and the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau of the likelihood of sexual assault and battery.Louima was hospitalized for two months after the incident.

Initially, Volpe plead innocent, but changed his plea to guilty when he realized that he wasn’t going to be acquitted. He admitted to sodomizing Louima, but denied putting the broomstick in the victim’s mouth even though Louima’s teeth were severely broken. On December 13, 1999, Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole, a $525 fine and restitution in the amount of $277,495.

So there you have it. To me, Volpe’s actions are unforgivable and I think he should rot in prison until 2025. In fact, I hope he gets sodomized every day. Sure, that sounds harsh, and I’m not usually for hellfire and brimstone, and the Biblical notion of “an eye for an eye,” but this is different.

This is a man who was paid with tax dollars to protect us, but acted like an omnipotent, vengeful, unremorseful, Caligula-esque brute. Cops like Volpe are the reason why I feel nervous instead of safe when I see the police. He’s the reason I always have and always will refer to police officers as “pigs.” That term is a vast generalization for sure, but I don’t care. And it’s not just the extreme and grotesque Volpes of the police world who I denigrate, it’s the cop who tails my piece of shit ’93 Toyota Corolla because it doesn’t look like it belongs in a certain neighborhood; it’s the cop who pulls me over for no reason and then illegally searches my car; it’s the cop who stops me on a late-night walk home and demands to know where I live and why I’m out this late; it’s the cop who skips me in line at the deli.

These are all small things that point to the general thirst and bloodlust for power exhibited by 9 out of 10 cops. And most of the time, the piggies get away with all their indiscretions -- whether it be an illegal search and seizure, or the murder of an innocent man. In Volpe’s case, the evidence was too daunting, and a New York City judicial system that usually gets it wrong when it comes to polices court cases, got this one right.

I don’t know about you, but if Volpe’s sentence is commuted, I’m taking to the streets with a head full of uppers and a shovel.