Oct. 19—LOCKPORT — New York State Police say they have conducted an internal investigation following the dismissal of a two-year theft case against an animal shelter owner accused of returning two cows lost in July walked around her property. 2022.
An Oct. 2 hearing in the Town of Wheatfield District Court found that New York State Police troopers and investigators from the Troop A barracks committed multiple errors in executing a search warrant at the shelter.
These mistakes have Paul Beakman, former Lockport 1st Ward alderman and current president of the WNY Association of Retired Law Enforcement Personnel, calling for the resignation of New York State Police Chief Steven G. James following the “shoddy investigation.”
Murphy was originally charged with grand larceny, a misdemeanor, after being indicted by a Niagara County grand jury. She was accused of stealing two cows that her defense team said strayed onto her property. When confronted by the owner, a beef farmer and state trooper, she asked for proof of ownership and attempted to purchase the cattle at a discounted price due to her difficulty in caring for the animals. She had also contacted the SPCA of Niagara County to report her find and followed her attorney’s advice, but was ultimately arrested by New York State Police on August 2, 2022.
Beakman also shared some of his own cases with state police, who failed him in a background check in the fall of 2023 to work for the Genessee Valley Railroad Transportation Co. to work and denied him the right to appeal the decision, as well as the right to see what was in his background that justified the failure.
Although he said he was “terrified” of political retaliation for speaking out against the chief and has since lost all hope of regaining his career as a police officer, Beakman said he was “raised to do the right thing.”
“I believe he is unfit to lead the New York State Police. He demanded reforms and instead it’s the same sloppy nonsense we get from the New York State Police. Bad research. “If you talk to police officers all around you, they will tell you the Road Troopers are good people, but the upper management of the New York State Police is completely dysfunctional,” he said.
The charges against Murphy were dismissed earlier this month after the latest hearing discovered that the brother-in-law of the cows’ owner was involved.
Lawyers for Murphy said the relationship and the late disclosure to the defense posed “serious constitutional issues” and possible violations of state law.
Murphy’s defense also said a search warrant signed by Niagara County Court Judge Caroline Wojtaszaek called for the “return of the seized livestock” to the court. Lawyers said state police instead returned the cattle to Gregson, who “destroyed” them.
When contacted Friday, New York State Police officials said an “investigation had been conducted.”
“Trooper Gregson’s brother-in-law was not the lead investigator assigned to this case. He was the lead investigator for the agency that handled the complaint and was not involved in overseeing the investigation,” according to an email from Beau Duffy of the New York Police Department. State Police Public Information Bureau.
This nuance did nothing to diminish Beakman’s anger.
‘It should have been sent to another barracks. It should have gone outside of Troop A,” he said.
As for his own situation, Beakman said a lawsuit would be the only way to rectify that, and that he cannot afford a lawyer.
“They all said, ‘You’re fighting the state police, they have unlimited money. It probably won’t end well.’ So where can a citizen get justice? This is no longer about me… This is about justice for everyone in this state,” he said.
