A former Suffolk County police chief was sentenced at the federal courthouse in Central Islip Wednesday after pleading guilty in February to a civil rights violation and conspiracy to obstruct justice, authorities said.

James Burke was sentenced to 46 months in prison and three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Leonard Wexler, according to the Department of Justice.

The civil rights violation pertained to Burke beating a Smithtown man was arrested in connection with stealing property and breaking into Burke’s SCPD-issued SUV in December 2012. For the next three years, Burke and other Suffolk County law enforcement authorities moved to obstruct the federal civil rights investigation into the assault, the DOJ said. Burke has remained in federal custody since his December 2015 arrest.

“During his tenure as the highest ranking uniformed officer in the Suffolk County Police Department, James Burke considered himself untouchable,” U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said in a statement.

“He abused his authority by brazenly assaulting a handcuffed prisoner, he pressured subordinates to lie to cover up his criminal acts, and he attempted to thwart the civil rights investigation into his conduct,” he added. “With today’s sentence, Burke learned that no one is above the law and that the consequences for such egregious behavior are severe.”

“Burke’s abuse of power and efforts to obstruct justice not only threatened to undermine the integrity of a federal investigation, but also the reputation of all the Suffolk County police officers who value the laws they are sworn to uphold,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney, Jr. said in a statement. “As evidenced by today’s sentence, Burke, and others, are reminded that this type of behavior won’t go unpunished.”

In December 2012, New York State Probation Department and SCPD officers arrested Christopher Loeb at his mother’s Smithtown home in connection with several probation violations. That’s when officers discovered items stolen from more than a dozen vehicles, including the SCPD-issued SUV operated by Burke.

Stolen items from that SUV included Burke’s gun belt, several magazines of ammunition, a box of cigars, a humidor, and a canvas bag that contained toiletries, clothing and sex toys and video pornography, authorities said.

At the time of the arrest, Burke entered the Loeb home and retrieved his bag and several other articles. Later, at a SCPD Fourth Precinct interrogation room, Burke “went out of control” after the handcuffed suspect called him a “pervert,” during an interrogation — punching, screaming and cursing, and threatening to kill the suspect with a heroin overdose, according to prosecutors.

Loeb pleaded guilty to a weapons charge and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in the summer of 2015. He has filed a lawsuit seeking damages from Burke and the police department.

Subsequently, Burke and others pressured the detectives who witnessed the assault to conceal the event, even after the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office began investigating the assault in 2013, authorities said. In one instance, Burke summoned detectives under his command to SCPD headquarters in Yaphank, New York, to persuade the detectives to agree to a false version of events that would conceal the assault.

In October 2013, one of those detectives testified falsely under oath in a state pretrial hearing in the Loeb prosecution, denying that Loeb had been assaulted.

Burke resigned from the force in October of 2015 after a 31-year career. Before being named chief in 2012, he worked as an investigator for the Suffolk County district attorney.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.