The Advocate
Richard Blassberg

How Have Gene Tumolo & George Bolen Lived With Themselves All These Years?

We are all so familiar with the dodge that corporations and government, at every level, are so fond of invoking when we confront them with their failure to properly deal with us. “It was the computer,” they tell us. Or, perhaps when faced with claims of injustice, as with the courts, they’ll say, “It’s the system.” We are simply expected to accept the notion that somehow no one, no flesh and blood individual, really had a hand in the failure to do the right thing by us, and therefore no one can be held accountable.

I suppose to some extent, we must accept a moderate level of de-personalization as a by-product of our computerized culture, as with calls to the phone company, insurance companies, and even the local post office.
And, to some extent, being greeted by an automated answering service with a long menu of options is tolerable for the more mundane problems of day-to-day living. But, when it really matters, only a live voice from a real
person vested with authority, and bridled with accountability, will do. Yes, accountability, that element, that commodity, we see less and less of as time goes on. When did it become less important for a man’s word to be his bond? When did it become acceptable that the contract of our democratic government, the Constitution, both federal, and state, to which those acting under Color Of Law, have sworn their allegiance, be routinely violated in the name of expedience?

What is it that makes an individual entrusted with our liberty, our very lives, by our society - police officers, and prosecutors - think that they should not be held accountable for their intentional, knowing, and maliciously cruel, acts against us? What makes Peekskill Police Chief Gene Tumolo, and former Assistant District Attorney George Bolen, think they should not be held accountable for what they did to sixteen-year-old Jeffrey
Deskovic? Their acts, individually, and in concert with each other, as well as with others, calculated to send an innocent boy, whose DNA and hair follicles clearly did not match those found in, and on, a rape and murder
victim, to prison for life, cannot be excused, cannot go unaccounted for, cannot go unpunished, if we are to prevent similar atrocities. What Tumolo, who masterminded and ran the investigation, and Bolen, who prosecuted the case, did, together with Detectives David Levine, and Thomas McIntyre, as well as former Putnam County Sheriff ’s Deputy, and Polygraph Operator Daniel Stephens, was utterly despicable and
unlawful, and each must be held accountable for their role. Each must be made to pay for the vile and inhumane scheme they worked against an innocent, defenseless child.

It is absolutely essential that Tumolo, and Bolen, the prime movers in the unconscionable injustice that robbed sixteen years of his youth from Jeffrey Deskovic, and subjected him to an unspeakably cruel and difficult fate, despite DNA, and other evidence, clearly proclaiming his innocence, not be allowed to escape without accounting for, and paying for their misdeeds. To permit otherwise would only serve to encourage further
injustices, at a time when the New York State Legislature, and Governor Spitzer, have begun to act affirmatively to remedy years of police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Tumolo and Bolen are the penultimate poster-boys for everything that is wrong with our criminal justice system. They represent everything that all law enforcement and judicial personnel must rail against, and strive to purge from our midst. Not only did their evil scheme result in sixteen years of undeserved imprisonment and punishment for an innocent boy, but also the death of Pat Morrison.

State Senators and Assemblypersons currently engaged in writing legislation intended to reverse, and combat, wrongful prosecutions and convictions, must understand, based upon the Jeffrey Deskovic case, that what is needed is a two-pronged approach. The first prong involves legislative help for those innocents already imprisoned and struggling to achieve exoneration. Enhancement of the DNA Database, and the formation of a totally independent, Permanent Commission, to investigate, make legislative recommendations, and oversee the implementation, and adherence to said legislation, would be a good start. Jeffrey Deskovic, and Pace Law Professor Bennett Gershman, and many others have already weighed in on the matter.

However, the second, and equally important, prong involves the preventative aspect; the creation of powerful disincentives to ensure that police and prosecutors are not willing to risk engaging in the type of misconduct that has put so many innocent persons behind bars, and, in many instances, on Death Row, in the first place. Such disincentives must include both significant financial and incarcerative penalties and punishment, sufficiently persuasive to control even the most self-serving and mindless in the ranks of law enforcement. After all, how have Gene Tumolo and George Bolen lived with themselves all these years?