Federal Judge Paul Friedman has a tough call to make tomorrow morning. At 10 a.m. he’s scheduled to sit in judgment of Michael Irving; I don’t envy him.
Irving is one of the best homicide detectives ever to solve a murder in the nation’s capital. I am not stretching facts to say the streets of D.C. are safer because Irving solved so many violent crimes and put perps in jail for a long, long time.
Cases Irving helped solve are the stuff of legend. Take the triple murder at Colonel Brooks’ Tavern in Michigan Park near Catholic University. Intending to rob the popular restaurant, thugs broke in one Sunday morning in 2003 and shot three employees. Detectives brought in two suspects; both sat across the table from Irving. He talked and cajoled and talked more until both confessed. The third committed suicide before he was brought in.
There were more murders solved with Irving’s savvy and dedication and roots deep into the D.C. community, where he grew up, went to school and became a cop.
So what’s Friedman’s tough call?
Irving was preparing to pay his taxes back in 2001 when his adviser explained an easy way to avoid the annual levy. If Irving signed up for a tax-exempt program, this adviser said, he could keep his wages. The adviser recommended the same process to more than a dozen other cops, all of whom quit paying taxes.
In 2004, the IRS notified Irving he owed the taxes. Though he made arrangements to pay back taxes and started making good on what he owed, the Justice Department charged him with nine felonies; a jury convicted him of two.
Prosecutors want him to serve a few years; Irving, who wants to get back to being a cop, wants probation. Here are two of the folks who have written to Friedman on Irving’s behalf:
Susan Rhee Osborne, federal prosecutor in Florida: “As a career prosecutor, I have worked with countless law enforcement officers. One of the finest investigators I have had the opportunity to work with is Michael Irving.”
And this from Anjali Chaturvedi, former federal prosecutor in D.C.: “Being a homicide detective in Washington, D.C., is not an easy job. But I believe that Detective Irving was called to serve and that he served the citizens of the District of Columbia with professionalism and dedication that is rarely seen.”
There are many more pleas for leniency, not just because Irving is a great father and husband, but because he’s needed in the streets. Even if Friedman gives Irving probation, he has an uphill battle to get back on the police department, after being convicted of a felony, but there are high-ranking cops already in his camp.
“I would love to be there to do my part,” Irving tells me.
Friedman’s part could be to let Irving get back to the business of putting murderers behind bars, rather than sending him there.
