Former Lee Police Chief Jailed for Extortion

Former Lee Police Chief Faces Justice

Joseph Buffis, 57, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for extorting a $4,000 payment from a couple facing prostitution charges in Southern Berkshire District Court.

According to authorities, Buffis, the former chief of the Lee Police Department, solicited and controlled public donations to the Edward J. Laliberte Toy Fund, a children’s holiday toy fund. On February 21, 2012, Buffis extorted a $4,000 ‘donation’ check to the toy fund from the couple, who were facing prostitution-related charges.

Buffis deposited the $4,000 check into the toy fund’s bank account and then quickly withdrew $3,990 of these funds in three checks that he wrote to ‘cash.’ He did not cash these checks, but instead deposited them into a personal bank account and used the diverted funds to pay various personal expenses.

When law enforcement commenced an investigation into this activity, Buffis repeatedly lied about the funds. ‘Mr. Buffis abused his position of authority by extorting cash for his own benefit and greed,’ said United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.

‘Mr. Buffis turned his back on his law enforcement profession and his community, choosing instead to break the laws he was sworn to uphold,’ said Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni described Buffis’s actions as ‘essentially auctioning off his own concept of justice.’ ‘To impugn the integrity of a department like you did is a monumental, terrible, unfair thing, a selfish thing,’ the judge added.

In addition to his prison sentence, Buffis was ordered to serve two years of supervised release and forfeit the $4,000. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven H. Breslow and Deepika Shukla of Ortiz’s Springfield Branch Office.