The Southampton Town Board is
poised on Tuesday to suspend police officer Eric Sickles, who had been assigned
to the Town Police Departments’s now-defunct undercover drug investigation
team.
Officer Sickles has been served
with a handful of non-criminal departmental disciplinary charges stemming from
his time as a Street Crime Unit officer, including his working under the
influence of drugs and falling asleep while on duty, a source said.
Police Chief William Wilson Jr.
filed the series of disciplinary charges against the 12-year police veteran who
had been on the department’s Street Crime Unit for nine years, according to a
Town Board resolution.
The suspension is for an
indefinite time period, pending the disposition of the disciplinary charges.
The resolution states that
officer Sickles would be suspended immediately without pay, but would be
allowed to utilize personal, vacation and compensatory leave time during his
suspension. His base salary for 2012 is $109,882.
Several sources had previously
confirmed that officer Sickles was the officer whose “credibility” had been
called into question by the Suffolk County district attorney’s office in late
May, which led to the D.A.’s office taking the unprecedented move of
exonerating two convicted drug dealers and releasing them from prison.
Officer Sickles’s direct
supervisor, Lieutenant James Kiernan, then a sergeant, was suspended without
pay in early May, pending the outcome of more than 30 disciplinary charges
against him. Lt. Kiernan’s charges include giving tacit approval to officer
Sickles to continue to carry a sidearm, drive police cars and make arrests, despite
having been aware of his drug problem. He is also accused of trying to cover up
for officer Sickles’s drug use.