Bit old news here but:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. John J. Whiting walked out of court a free man, after Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini reduced the former North Providence police chief’s six-month prison term to the 58 days he has already served.
The judge also reduced Whiting’s probation from five years to three.
The sentence reduction came three days after Procaccini ordered Whiting released on home confinement as soon as a land line could be installed in a North Providence apartment where the former chief was to be electronically monitored.
After Whiting was returned to the Adult Correctional Institutions on Tuesday, however, corrections officials said that state law does not allow a release on home confinement until a prisoner has served three-quarters of his sentence, and then on the recommendation of the Department of Corrections director.
Procaccini then vacated the order and called for Friday’s hearing.
The judge had imposed the sentence in 2012 after Whiting’s conviction on charges that he stole $714 from an exotic dancer and tried to solicit a
Pawtucket police officer to cover it up.
Procaccini imposed a harsher sentence than recommended by state guidelines, “to send a message that a police chief is not above the law,” courts spokesman Craig N. Berke said Friday.
The judge noted Friday that incarceration had taken a physical and mental toll on Whiting, 61. “That’s what led him to conclude that the message had been sent and received,” Berke said.
Whiting’s appeals lawyer John B. Reilly said Friday that the former chief lost 35 pounds during the 58 days he was locked up.
Another of Procaccini’s reasons for reducing the sentence was the $2,000-a-week cost of keeping Whiting in a high-security area protected from other prisoners.
Being in prison is “very difficult for a police officer, let alone a chief with over 30 years of law-enforcement experience,” Reilly said, referring to the danger a former officer faces of running into revenge-minded inmates.
Whiting served as a Pawtucket police officer for 29 years, 12 of them on the command staff, before he became North Providence chief in November 2008.
The incident occurred on Aug. 28, 2011, and he was convicted and sentenced in 2012. He was suspended without pay during his appeal, and resigned as chief officially on Aug. 14, 2014.
Emily Martineau, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the sentence was reduced over the objections of Assistant Attorney General Mark J. Trovato.
Other conditions of Whiting’s release, Berke and Martineau said, are that Whiting have no contact with the victim, Justina Cardosa; with John Brown, the officer who testified, and with Pawtucket Police Chief Paul King.
Whiting, who is a Massachusetts resident with family in Florida, will not live in North Providence, Reilly said. The apartment there was strictly for home confinements purposes, Reilly said. After court, “I drove him back to my office,” in Attleboro, and “his family picked him up.”
Besides being with family, Reilly said, “The first thing he wanted to do was go for a walk in Capron Park in Attleboro just to get some fresh air and see the green grass and water and everything else.... He’s relieved to be out of there.”
eferring to unspecified actions he was planning to take on Whiting’s behalf, Reilly said: “The final chapter’s not written on this story yet.”
