It wasnt just the word of Loeb that saw it; it was the word of the other guy that was arrested with Loeb. Not only did Loeb and the other guy see it the detectives saw it, too. That is why Burke went to the house to arrest Loeb so he could get to it before too many people saw it.
One poster said on another thread: HAWK said Loeb said he called Burke a pedophile, and not a pervert. I DIDNT SAY IT, LOEB SAID IT AND HE SAID IT LIVE, ON VIDEOTAPE, and in living color!
When Loeb was asked at the hearing if he could describe what he meant by nasty *advertiser censored*, he said he couldnt do it. When asked WHY he couldnt describe it he said, The US attorney told me not to.
What continues to mystifies me to this day is why PEDOPHILE has been replaced with PERVERT in the various news accounts when it is VERY CLEAR what Loeb said.
Burke was there. He took the evidence home with him. It is clearly a violation of police procedure. They kept Loeb in the precinct for TWO DAYS without bringing him to court again, clearly a violation of procedure. Why did they do that? They did it to get their stories straight before Loeb was at their immediate control. Then they put $500,000.00 bail on him when most people would have considered $10,000 would be excessive. They needed to keep as much control and terrify him into silence as they possibly could. And for two months they did just that until a courageous Newsday reporter wrote the story in her column. And that was the beginning of the end for James Burke and his band of scoundrels.
IF I WERE BURKE what would I have done? Loeb burglarized up to 10 cars that night and he could have taken the *advertiser censored* from any other car and put it in the duffle bag and carry the entire haul as one package. If I was Burke I would have said something like: How the hell did that happen and let it go at that. Would the rumors with the cops spread throughout the department; who would have the guts to put the truth out there when Burke was their boss? The rumors would have eventually died and the remnants of those rumors would have dissipated like a fart in the wind. But Burke couldnt risk that because he knew there were many other rumors out there that would be revived once this story began circulating throughout the PD.
So what does Spota do? He passes it all off to a special prosecutor. The SP doesnt investigate anything other than the theft of the bag, not the contents of the bag. Loeb convicts himself at the hearing by admitting he stole the bag. What was the need for a SP?