PETER GHATTAS. This is such a fantastic story that even I have a hard time putting it down. While starting this post something just occurred to me that I didn’t see before, and I have been doing this for 8 years.
Ghattas was pretty much the driver for the crime crew of Joe Careccia. Peter had an older Lincoln automobile. He pretty much took them to and fro from the targets. He acted as a look-out while he was there. Most of the folks I talked to said they thought he was a pretty nice guy. He had a full-time job at a Coram Chevy dealer.
In Mid-August, 2003, he is picked up by SCPD detectives. He will give them multiple statements on the crime crew, what jobs they did and who was present. Joe Careccia appeared to be the leader of the gang of a dozen or so misfits that alternated on heists.
It has been said that Careccia, Eddie Wright, Peter, and others shared a good looking gal with each other. She is believed to be the sister of a lawyer in the SCDA office. We have a document that Careccia gave to the detectives that he hid his swag in her apartment and gave her some of the jewelry. We would hear later that a certain ranking police official started sniffing around her at the bars and restaurant she worked at. All one big happy family.
Well, Peter concludes his business with the detectives and it is now time to take him to the DA office to sign up as a witness against this crime crew. They bring him there on 9/3/03, and he is murdered outside of Rob’s Pro Tow on 9/24/03.
Now these thugs he was talking about are some very dangerous people. Eddie Wright, a big drug dealer and a illegal weapons distributer, and probably a contract killer is doing 40+ years in a federal prison. Eddie got 40+ years after he pled out. If he went to trial and was convicted he probably would have got 140 years, if not the death penalty if the FEDS could connect him to a RICO Drug murder(s).
The DA’s office just let Peter go on his own way and presumably without any kind of protection. I think they may not have even told him ‘be careful.’
According to my information, and I believe it to be highly reliable that Rob’s was the center of a large cocaine distribution ring. That it was owned and operated by Robert S., Careccia, and Wright were partners. They were selling drugs out of that place from around 1998 until the time when Ghattas gets murdered.
The story went out that everybody knew Ghattas was talking to the cops and the DA. Ghattas was telling anyone that would listen. He just told his criminal friends he wasn’t talking about them. Is Ghattas blabbing about this on every street corner that got him killed, or did someone tell someone they knew that you better shut this guy up?
At the SIL trial in 2006, Det.Stephan’s partner was asked by the defense counsel if he thought Careccia was a good suspect. The detective, now a sergeant said, “I would say he IS a good suspect.”. Not WAS, but IS. Three years later Careccia was still a suspect in at least one detective’s eyes, and he certainly remained a suspect in my eyes. Better yet, Careccia remains a suspect in the district attorney’s eyes because when they drew up the agreement it didn’t cover the murders of Ghattas and another fellow called Ronmarine. Not investigating the murder is just as good, or almost as good as immunity.
The problem with charging, or even investigating Careccia for the murders is because he is a certified informer. If he is ‘inconvenienced’ with a murder investigation it would disturb his mortgage and bank fraud business in Boca Raton. Placing Careccia in witness protection or as a material witness in a holding facility would make it very difficult for him to run his operation out of a cell. There was also the possibility someone would be able to talk to him. So they put him in area hotels and motels for almost one year. He had room and board on the taxpayer’s dime.
If I ran that murder investigation I would have made a bee-line to Careccia’s door and ask him if his neighbor Jimmy Burke tell you that Peter Ghattas was ratting him out. If Careccia needs an out and he thinks he could get some relief by giving up a corrupt cop, guess who is living only a few short doors away from him?
The homicide detectives are sure going to want to know why one of their top suspects is not going to jail for the many crimes he admitted to – 38 Violent crimes, including a stick-up, two home invasions with torture and injury, and throw in arson for hire of an occupied building. But to let a guy go on a murder when another murder is involved is going to raise a lot of eyebrows. What better way to explain that than to lock up a cop?
I am sure Careccia had a small stable of crooked cops to give up and would have given them up if he had to. Better to pick an honest cop because an honest cop knows very little about crooked cops, therefore, he can’t bring anyone else down with him.
SCPD has been well known to avoid arresting crooked cops if they can possibly avoid it. Why arrest the SIL for a crime committed 5 years in the past and he was retired. Why bring scandal to the Department if they didn’t have to? Even if he was guilty it was better to leave it alone and forget it. But IAB didn’t have a choice because the DA/Burke NEVER told IAB and the police commissioner they were investigating one of their own for very serious crimes. They didn’t tell IAB because they didn’t want another agency meddling in their dirty work and expose them for the criminals that they are. Instead, the SIL went free with a ¾ tax free pension on 3/15/04, or after Careccia told them 4 months earlier (11/13/03) the SIL was part of a stick-up of Strathmore Bagels, and whatever else Careccia told them ( he would tell them the SIL did at least 8 burglaries with them) and let him retire, take his guns with him, and send him a ‘good guy’ letter thanking him for his loyal and dedicated service to the People of Suffolk County.
One reason they didn’t tell IAB was because they had not yet decided if they needed to frame him. They never bothered to check where the SIL was on the day of the Strathmore robbery because they believed if they charged him he couldn’t prove where he was 5 years earlier. That lie stood for 8 months, or until, at least July 2, 2004 when Careccia pled out to Judge Hudson that my son in law was at the armed robbery acting as a look-out and using a stolen police radio to warn them if the cops were coming while they were robbing an innocent man and put a gun in his mouth threatening to blow his brains out if he didn’t open the safe. That lie was allowed to stand until they finally got their act together and procured his credit card records ( first without a warrant on a phone call to Citibank) and then a subpoena, absent the time he would be found to have been in Europe, spending money and taking money out of ATM machines.
The bottom line, Fred and Edna, and All The Ships at Sea, can you really trust this police department, specifically those assigned to Spota to undertake a fair and open investigation of the Gilgo Beach murders. Can you trust the investigation to the same man who led the frame job against my SIL, who is now the Chief of Department, the top uniformed officer in the PD to undertake such a vital investigation when he is now being investigated by the FBI for what now only appears to be a civil rights investigation? Do you really believe the FBI is investigating Burke for a civil rights investigation, or is it something else far more grievous that has been published in the papers and TV?
I wouldn't trust this guy to take my garbage out, let alone a murder case where 10 people were found dead
