THE disgraced police chief who once spearheaded the investigation into the Long Island serial killer murders has been arrested.
James Burke, 59, was arrested at 10.15am on Tuesday for soliciting a sex worker at Suffolk County Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Selden, New York, on Long Island.
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Burke was charged with offering a sex act, public lewdness, indecent exposure, and criminal solicitation, with additional charges pending, county police said.
He has not been charged with anything related to the Gilgo Beach murders investigation.
Burke previously served prison time after confessing to beating up thief Christopher Loeb in 2012 for snatching a duffel bag from his car, which contained ammunition, sex toys, and pornography, according to court records.
Burke admitted that he brutalized Loeb and threatened to give him a lethal “hot dose” of heroin for stealing his bag from a department-issued SUV, court docs said.
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Prosecutors said he beat Loeb at the fourth precinct in Hauppauge, New York.
He resigned from the force in October 2015 following the controversy.
Burke is accused of botching the Long Island serial killer investigation during his time as chief of police.
He is accused of blocking the FBI and other police agencies from getting involved in the investigation, attorney John Ray, who represents the families of Gilgo Beach victims, Jessica Taylor and Shannan Gilbert, has previously claimed.
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REX HEUERMANN ARRESTED
Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect from Massapequa Park, New York, was arrested on July 13 outside his midtown Manhattan office and charged with the murders of three sex workers found along the south shore of Long Island.
He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the killings of Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010.
The prominent New York City architect is considered the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Known collectively as the Gilgo Four, all of the women were sex workers in their 20s whose remains were found wrapped in burlap and dumped within a quarter-mile of each other near Gilgo Beach, on Long Island, in late 2010.
The Massapequa father of two first landed on the radar of investigators last year, just weeks after the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office launched a new task force to investigate the women's deaths.
He was partly linked to the murders by DNA recovered from a discarded pizza crust that was positively matched to DNA left on the body of Waterman.
Prosecutors said hair belonging to Heuermann's wife was found with the remains of three women. One of his hairs was also found on one victim.
Various calls made from a burner phone - including to one victim's sister - were traced back to his office, home, and a Tinder profile of his operated under a fake name.
Heuermann also made a series of disturbing and incriminating internet searches in the months preceding his arrest, including searches for child pornography, images of the Gilgo victims, and updates about the investigation, police say.
GILGO BEACH MURDERS
The grim discovery along the remote stretch on Long Island began in December 2010 while investigators were searching for missing 23-year-old escort Shannan Gilbert, who vanished in March of that year.
Her disappearance led to a search that uncovered 10 other bodies along the remote beach highway.
The bodies of Barthelemy, Waterman, and Costello were all discovered at the time.
In March 2011, remains belonging to Jessica Taylor, a 20-year-old woman who worked as an escort in New York City, were found in a wooded area in Manorville, New York.
Days later, investigators found the remains of Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old who worked as an escort under the alias Melissa Taylor.
On April 4, 2011, the remains of a yet-to-be-identified Asian man between the age of 17 and 23 were found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
Investigators also uncovered the remains of a toddler, who was about two years old at the time of her death, linking the victim as the daughter of an African American woman who was found in 1997.
The woman is known only as "Peaches" because of a bitten tattoo of a peach on her left breast.
On August 4, authorities identified Jane Doe No. 7 as Karen Vergata, a victim whose remains were first uncovered at Davis Park on Fire Island's Blue Point Beach on April 20, 1996.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said that a skull found at Tobay Beach on Ocean Parkway in 2011 was that of Vergata, 34.
Tierney said Vergata went missing on February 14, 1996, but a missing persons report was never filed.
At the time, the 34-year-old lived on West 45th Street in Manhattan and was an escort, Tierney said.
The FBI was able to positively identify Vergata after taking a swab from a relative.
Heuermann has not been charged or named a suspect in connection with Vergata's death.
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He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
Heuermann is due back in court on September 27.
