Paterson 'robbery squad' police sergeant Michael Cheff gets 33 months in federal prison

PATERSON — Former police Sgt. Michael Cheff didn’t get rich off the robberies committed by the rogue cops he supervised, said United States District Judge Katharine Hayden.

Nor did Cheff ever direct his underlings to shake somebody down when he needed cash, Hayden noted. In all, the evidence in the trial against Cheff cited just two specific instances of his taking money, the judge added.

But federal prosecutors asserted that the robbery squad of rogue cops would have been unable to prey upon the people of Paterson for so long and so often without Cheff looking out for them and helping conceal their crimes.

Hayden on Monday cited the “gravity” of the impact of the crimes on the Paterson community and Cheff’s “moral culpability” as a ranking officer in sentencing him to 33 months in federal prison, a longer term than those given to his subordinates who patrolled the streets looking for people in expensive cars to rob.

“Rather than make them good cops, he let them be bad cops,” the judge said.

The other convicted cops — Jonathan Bustios, Daniel Pent, Eudy Ramos, Frank Toledo and Matthew Torres — all pleaded guilty and eventually got reduced prison time in exchange for their testimony against Cheff. Bustios, Ramos and Toledo all were sentenced to two years, Pent to 18 months and Torres to probation instead of prison.

Cheff, who lives in Oakland, was the only Paterson police officer in the case who maintained his innocence, and he took his case to trial last May. But he was convicted by a jury that deliberated for more than 10 hours over two days.

The ex-cops whom Cheff supervised testified in his trial that he sometimes got a share of the ill-gotten money they took from people, looked the other way when they filed bogus police reports about their crimes and coached them on how to avoid getting caught.

Additional sentences:Two ex-Paterson cops in 'robbery squad' get 2 years in prison

Hayden on Monday pointed out that Cheff is in jeopardy of losing his state pension after serving in the Paterson Police Department since 1996. At his final city salary of $136,960, Cheff, who is 51, could have been eligible to get about $90,000 a year, Paterson Press calculated based on state formulas for retirement pay.

Hayden said she was impressed by the several dozen letters submitted on Cheff’s behalf, saying one described the convicted sergeant as “a person that people rally around.”

The judge also quoted a letter from Cheff’s wife: “I don’t know how we’re going to get through this as a family, but we will.”

But the judge also noted the impact that the robbery squad’s crimes had on its victims, describing the “sheer resignation” she saw in many of their faces from pictures shown during the trial.

Assistant United States Attorney Jihee Suh said Cheff was directly responsible for the “systematic and routine” corruption committed by those under his supervision. “This only happens when you have a sergeant who is perpetuating that conduct,” the prosecutor said.

Suh also cited one victim, Jose Acevedo, who testified at Cheff’s trial about an incident in which he said the sergeant took about $2,700 from his bedroom safe. Prosecutors said the bogus drug arrest of Acevedo resulted in his mother's eviction from her public housing apartment and left him homeless for seven months.

Bustios had sent Toledo a text message right after the Acevedo incident complaining about Cheff's not sharing the money. Toledo responded with a message asserting that the sergeant could be counted on to protect the self-proclaimed “robbery squad” of rogues, saying the sergeant “will look us out no matter what b.”

Suh noted that most of the robbery squad’s victims were young Black and Latino men, saying that by targeting that group, the crooked cops violated standards that people should be treated equally under the law.

Unlike like the five cops sentenced last week, Cheff decided not to speak on his own behalf on Monday. Cheff started to give an explanation for why he wasn’t speaking, but his lawyer, John Lynch, grabbed his arm and advised him not to say anything.

Lynch highlighted community work done by Cheff through the Knights of Columbus organization. “He led an exemplary life prior to this, both professionally and personally,” Lynch said of the convicted sergeant.

“Charity is his second nature,” Lynch added. “That’s the real Michael Cheff. He’s an honorable man.”

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Cheff faced a prison term ranging from 33 months to 41 months.

During the trial, his lawyers argued that the rogue cops had committed such heinous crimes that they lacked credibility and were lying about their sergeant to help themselves. Cheff’s lawyers maintained that all he was guilty of was being too easygoing a supervisor, who failed to notice the wrongdoing by the cops committing the crimes.

To support that argument, Cheff’s lawyers emphasized that none of the thousands of text messages used as evidence in the case had been written by Cheff or to him. But prosecutors asserted that Cheff’s lack of messages simply showed he was smarter than the others, who left an electronic trail of evidence of their crimes.

The FBI’s probe of the robbery squad produced the convictions of two other Paterson cops who were not part of the shakedown scheme. While investigating the cop shakedowns, the FBI learned about another officer, Ruben McAusland, who was selling drugs from his Paterson police vehicle while on duty.

When they arrested McAusland on the drug charges, FBI agents found on his phone a video recording of an emergency room beating that he and his police partner, Roger Then, inflicted on a suicide patient in March 2017.

McAusland was sentenced to 66 months in federal prison and currently is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan. He is scheduled for release in March 2024. Then served a six-month prison term for his role in the ER incident and was released in early 2020.

In an unrelated case, two other Paterson cops — Kevin Patino and Kendry Tineo — face federal civil rights crimes in connection with a video-recorded December 2020 incident in which Patino repeatedly struck a 19-year-old man in South Paterson.

Also, former city cop Spencer Finch faces state criminal charges for an allegedly unprovoked attack on a man involved in a domestic dispute in May 2021. The Finch incident was recorded by another Paterson officer’s body camera. City officials fired Finch, but Patino and Tineo remain on paid leave pending the outcome of the case against them.

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press.

Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ 'robbery squad' police sergeant sentenced