Bloomberg Bodyguard Gets Seven Years For Attempted Murder
One of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s NYPD bodyguards has been sentenced to seven years in prison for an apparent love-triangle shooting.
Detective Leopold McLean, 49, faced up to 25 years behind bars after he was convicted last month of attempted murder and reckless endangerment in Jamaica, Queens, in which he shot another man in the rear end. McLean apparently reported the incident at his then-girlfriend’s home as a burglary by a man with a knife without mentioning that gunfire was involved.
McLean, with 19 years on the force and just short of qualifying for his lifetime police pension, was on the way back from escorting Bloomberg’s daughter in a night on the town. “McLean had just dropped off Mayor Bloomberg’s daughter Georgina at home after a Knicks game in November 2010 when he pulled up to girlfriend Assia Winfield’s Jamaica home and spotted LePaul Gammons outside. McLean opened fire with his service weapon and hit Gammons twice in the buttocks and back as the targeted man ran away.”
Gammons, who is currently jailed in Rikers Island on other charges, evidently was Winfield’s ex-boyfriend against whom she had obtained a restraining order.
At the sentencing hearing, Judge James Griffin admonished McLean that “I don’t know what caused this situation to happen — it could have been fear, frustration, arrogance or stupidity — but as a citizen you forgot your common sense.”
At the same hearing, Gammons declared “A woman played both of us, with the outcome of this man trying to kill me.”
Mayor Bloomberg heads a national gun control organization called “Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” but his support for more firearms regulations does not include disarming his own around-the-clock security detail.
Separately, the mayor — who is also a foe of large sugary drinks as everyone knows — has made headlines with career advice for graduating high school students about “speaking grammar” and becoming plumbers rather than pursuing an expensive four-year college degree.
