By Matt Gryta
Buffalo News
BUFFALO - Former West Seneca Police Officer Sean P. Kelley will spend up to four months more behind bars before he begins inpatient treatment for anger and drinking problems under a sentence imposed Wednesday by State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang.
The judge rejected requests by Kelley’s attorneys, Rodney O. Personius and Brian M. Melber, to free Kelley, 31, from jail so he could enter a Bradford, Pa., facility today for three weeks of treatment.
Kelley has been jailed since he assaulted a Buffalo police officer Sept. 22.
Wolfgang imposed a six-month jail term on Kelley’s plea to felony attempted assault for injuring Officer Autumn Harrison during his arrest following an incident in a South Buffalo bar.
The judge also scolded Kelley for giving law enforcement “a bad name.”
Personius told the judge that he and Melber erred in filing bail motions, meaning Kelley was credited for only two months in jail instead of 61/2 months. Personius said he and Melber will seek clarification from the judge today about how much time Kelley must remain in custody in Erie County Correctional Facility, Alden, before entering the Bradford facility.
Harrison, who suffered hand ligament injuries in the confrontation, urged the judge to impose “some sort of punishment” on Kelley, who, she said, “should have known better” than to attack her.
“I was just performing my duty as a police officer,” said Harrison, who was out of work a month because of the injury.
Kelley told the judge his time behind bars made him appreciate his problems with alcohol and anger. “I’m asking for your help,” he said.
After his jail term, Kelley faces five years of supervised probation.
More than 20 friends and family members of Kelley, including Monsignor David M. Gallivan, pastor of Holy Cross Catholic Church, were on hand for the sentencing.
As a former police officer, Kelley has been held in the Cattaraugus County Jail in Mayville rather than facilities in Erie County to spare him possible attacks by local inmates who may be familiar with him.
Before he was fired last May, Kelley, a police officer since 2005, had been disciplined 10 times, including four suspensions without pay for a total of 57 days, for a series of incidents involving violence, sick-time abuse and drinking.
He was fired for attacking and choking a man in March 2010 in Mackie’s Countryside Inn on Clinton Street, West Seneca, after the man apologized for making a crude remark about Kelley and his wife.
He was sentenced Tuesday in that case by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara to time served on his plea to a misdemeanor civil rights charge for the off-duty confrontation. The judge also ordered him to undergo treatment in Bradford.