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A Bohemia maintenance worker who was one of more than a dozen men and women arrested in the case of a 14-year-old Patchogue girl who authorities say was kidnapped and sex trafficked while missing for 25-plus days, has died in jail, court officials confirmed.
Daniel Burke, 65, suffered a medical issue late last month at the Suffolk County jail and died at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, Newsday reported on Monday.
Burke’s attorney, Oscar Crisafio of Hauppauge, said Burke went into cardiac arrest before his death and lamented that his client was never able to formally defend himself in court.
An autopsy was performed and Burke’s death was also referred to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services for a mandatory investigation, a spokesperson for the agency confirmed to Newsday.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment after a request from Greater Long Island.
Acting State Supreme Court Justice Karen Wilutis said in court Monday that prosecutors are waiting on Burke’s death certificate before the charges against him can be formally dismissed. The case was adjourned to Sept. 23.
Burke had pleaded not guilty at a February 2025 arraignment to first-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape and other felony counts. He was among 11 defendants named in an 83-count indictment tied to the girl’s disappearance. Additionally, other defendants responsible for her care after she was found early January 2025 were arrested on sex abuse charges.
The girl’s father Frank Gervasi, is suing Suffolk County and state officials for failing failed to protect his daughter once she was found, court records indicate. During the spring, the Patchogue dad filed a federal lawsuit alleging his daughter was sexually assaulted by government workers at two facilities where she had been placed after the kidnapping to keep her safe.
Burke was a complete stranger
Prosecutors previously described Burke as a complete stranger to the girl when she approached his vehicle outside a Handy Pantry convenience store on the night of Dec. 10, 2024. After Burke allegedly bought crack cocaine, he brought the teen back to his mobile home on Valley Forge Drive, where she stayed for several days.
Investigators said they later found video evidence that Burke, a maintenance worker for a property management company, raped the girl inside his home, and that he was present when another man assaulted her in the back of his car.
Authorities also said Burke had held onto newspaper clippings about the girl’s disappearance and her eventual recovery from another man’s yacht docked in Islip three weeks later.
Two of Burke’s co-defendants have pleaded guilty so far, and charges remain pending against eight others.
Francis Buckheit, 66, of East Islip, who owned the boat where the girl allegedly spent most of her disappearance, recently moved to suppress evidence and dismiss the charges against him. Alton Harrell, 36, of Bellport, the man who allegedly picked up the girl from her home in December 2024, setting off her disappearance, filed a similar motion earlier.
Both face 25 years to life in state prison if convicted of first-degree kidnapping. A trial for the remaining defendants is expected early next year.
Jacquelyn Comiskey, 54, of Bellport pleaded guilty last week to multiple felonies, sex trafficking among them, admitting she met the girl aboard Buckheit’s boat and brought her to an alleged drug dealer accused of raping her. She is expected to go to prison for 12 years.
The Patchogue teen’s disappearance came as she was cooperating with prosecutors in an unrelated sex-trafficking case.
‘Monster goes to prison’
In that case, Danny St. Louis, 45, of Bay Shore, pleaded guilty in June to three counts of second-degree rape, two counts of sex trafficking and one count of attempted sex trafficking for exploiting several victims, including the girl, who prosecutors said St. Louis deliberately got addicted to crack cocaine before repeatedly raping and trafficking her throughout 2023, when she was 13. He was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.
The girl, who Greater Long Island is not naming because she is a minor and the victim of sex crimes, was a key witness in his case at the time she went missing, sources confirmed to Greater Long Island.
“You did things to her that only a monster would do,” Gervasi, the girl’s father, said in a victim impact statement read at St. Louis’s sentencing in June, according to Newsday. “I hope you rot in jail.”
Top: Daniel Burke (provided by Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office).
Prior GLI coverage
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