SOCom defense contractor gets prison time

He is sentenced to 10 months for lying under oath, but it's deferred until an appeals ruling.

By CARRIE WEIMAR
Published June 28, 2007

TAMPA - He appeared before three judges, participated in two trials and made multiple court appearances over the past two years. Through it all, William Burke eluded prison.

On Wednesday, his luck ran out.

Burke, a former private defense contractor for Special Operations Command, was sentenced to 10 months behind bars Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew for violating his probation.

However, Bucklew agreed to defer the sentence until after an appeals court rules on Burke's conviction on charges of uttering a false statement in court.

Burke, 51, bowed his head as the sentence was announced. Earlier, he told Bucklew he was deeply sorry for the problems he caused.

"If I could turn back the hands of time, I would have never gotten involved in what I did, " he said.

In October 2005, Burke, a former private contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command, told Bucklew he was guilty of accepting $4, 500 in bribes from Tom Spellissy, a retired Army colonel turned private defense contractor.

In exchange for his cooperation, prosecutors offered Burke a reduced sentence of six months of house arrest and three years of probation.

But at Spellissy's trial, Burke changed his story and denied any wrongdoing.

Despite Burke's recantation, a jury found Spellissy guilty of two counts each of bribery and wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy. Two months later, a federal judge threw out most of the jury's verdict, calling it a "serious miscarriage of justice."

In October 2006, prosecutors charged Burke with lying under oath. After a two-day trial, a jury found him guilty.

But at his April sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge James Moody said he had serious concerns about the case and would not have found Burke guilty. He did not throw out the jury's verdict but instead sentenced Burke to six months of home detention and three years of supervised release.

The case then was bumped back to Bucklew, who had to determine whether Burke violated his probation by lying under oath.

Prosecutor Robert O'Neill told Bucklew that Burke's flip-flop destroyed the case against Spellissy. He said he suspected the pair of conspiring together to undermine the prosecution.

Burke's lawyer, Daniel Hernandez, argued his client wasn't lying when he made the contradictory statements. His understanding of the truth changed dramatically after accepting the plea, Hernandez said.

But Bucklew said she was troubled by Burke's decision to change his testimony at the last minute.

"It does smell, " she said.

[Last modified June 28, 2007, 00:23:34]