February 10, 2015
From: The Federation of
Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Web site:
http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
ROOTING OUT CORRUPTION
IN CONNECTICUT
*****
FEDS WILL DO WHAT STATE
LEGISLATORS WILL NOT
*****
Feds Want to Hear from You!
A
special corruption tip hotline will be answered around the clock at
1-800-CALL-FBI and callers can remain anonymous if they chose.
For
years Connecticut
has not been immune to the disease of corruption which continues to spread
among public officials making taxpayers sick as inevitably public crime
involves public (taxpayer) money.
Bravo to
the Hartford
Courant editorial staff noting
It is Still ‘Corrupticut’
Located
At the Following Web link
http://www.courant.com/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-corrupticut-20150208-story.html
The Federation offers further
insight below….
February 10, 2015
From:
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website:
http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
In 2003 and 2004, I wrote the following Op Eds which addressed the failure of Connecticut’s elected public officials to
keep corruption in check. Little has
changed since then as evidenced by last week’s announcement that the Feds are
in Connecticut
intending to seek out corruption in what has come to be known as Corrupticut!
Let’s take a journey back to 2003 when the Feds put away the
bad guys as some of our State legislators slept. The mystery now is who the Feds will catch in
their net as they fish in the sea of corruption which has been known to
permeate our state for years.
|
CONNECTICUT’S CULTURE OF CORRUPTION
|
|
As Connecticut’s taxes and state debt continue to soar,
the pirates at our State Capital have been looting Connecticut’s
Treasurer Island and burying the gold in their
backyards.
Susan Kniep - FCTO - January 30, 2004
|
The keys to rooting out public sector corruption include
grand juries.
For years, the limited powers of Connecticut’s State
prosecutors have been stymied by the state legislature’s refusal to “provide
state prosecutor's with the legal tools and authority used in every other state
in the country by investigators pressing usually complex corruption cases” as
stated last week by U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly.
Last week Daly rode into Connecticut with a posse of Federal
investigators ready to investigate, expose, and bring down perpetrators of
public corruption and their partners in crime.
The Hartford
Courant’s recent news article by Edmund
H. Mahony lends further insight into what we can expect….
U.S. Forms New
Team To Fight "Persistent,"
"High-Profile" Corruption In Connecticut
But U.S.
Attorney Daly is not the first to criticize the State legislature when stating
"They don't have a viable grand jury system, which hampers their ability
to do complex cases. “I can't think of any other state that is handicapped in
that way."
For years, the Feds for have been rooting out corruption in
Connecticut in such high profile cases as that of former Bridgeport Mayor
Joseph Ganim, former State Treasurer Paul Silvester, and former Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano as
Connecticut lacked the proper tools to do so.
At the time, in 2003, the editorial staff
of the Hartford
Courant suggested Give Them Subpoena Power - Hartford Courant . The Courant noted
….. “As did his predecessor, John M. Bailey, Chief State's Attorney Christopher
Morano is asking for a law establishing an
investigative subpoena. “Connecticut's
prosecutors may be the only ones in the nation without that power. “For the
sake of law and order here, the prosecutors should have it.” Read
article at ….. http://articles.courant.com/2003-03-27/news/0303270305_1_political-corruption-subpoena-power-grand-jury
More recently, in an April, 2013 CTNewsJunkie.com article,
it was noted that “Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane has argued for years that
prosecutors should have broader subpoena powers in criminal investigations. “He
said the current process in Connecticut
is so stringent that prosecutors rarely apply for a grand jury.” Continue reading at ….. http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/chief_public_defender_says_expanded_subpoena_power_would_violate_constituti/
And it was apparent that Connecticut lacked the tools to
conduct their own investigations as recently as
2014 when it was noted by the Hartford Courant More Federal Subpoenas In
Hartford Charter School Probe noting “City and state educators said Monday that they had
been served with subpoenas by a federal grand jury examining the expenditure of
millions of dollars in public money by the troubled charter school management
company FUSE. Read the report in its
entirety at ….. http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-fuse-0722-20140721-story.html
And we learned more about the tools of the trade used by the
FBI in 2012. Federal wire taps
and listening devices were used to facilitate their investigation in which Chris Donovan's finance director
arrested by feds, campaign ...
manager fired.
Mr. Donovan ultimately resigned from office but was never
implicate as Feds Tell Donovan The Case Is Closed
However, several were prosecuted for their crimes by the
Feds as noted within Donovan.
And, recently it was announced that Chris Donovan Lands Job with
CEA.
In 2012, we also learned that the Feds Raid Anti-Poverty Agency
Offices For 2nd Straight Day. Jon Lender of the Hartford
Courant noted “The depth and intensity of this week's raid by federal
authorities on the Community Renewal Team's Hartford headquarters was only starting to
emerge Friday, as about 50 government agents executed a second search warrant
and seized records for a second straight day in an ongoing criminal
investigation”. Read more at http://articles.courant.com/2012-04-20/news/hc-day2-crt-raid-0421-20120420_1_crt-federal-agents-nancy-pappas
The status of the raid and the results, if any,
have yet to be published.
Recently,
Federal cases involving former Governor Rowland, former State Senator Ernie Newton, and others have
been making headlines.
But let’s look at the FBI’s recent success in a high profile
case by the Feds in New York.
Recently,
Kevin Rennie, a columnist for the Hartford Courant, provided
some insight in his article captioned Follow The Favors, From Money
To Corruption.
Rennie’s article references the Moreland Commission initially
established by NY Gov Cuomo to investigate corruption in his State until it got
too close for comfort.
At that time, the public got a hint that tools like the
Fed’s wiretap in the Donovan scandal in
Connecticut and a willing participant seeking justice - such as in the New York
case - can set the stage for the Feds
bringing a corruption case to a successful conclusion.
And that it did in
New York as last month, a New York Post headline read Friend, lobbyist helped feds
take down Sheldon Silver | New ... noting “A veteran
lobbyist with longstanding ties to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver helped the feds bust the powerful pol in a multimillion-dollar bribery
and kickback scheme, sources
told The Post on Friday”. Continue
reading at … http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/nyregion/speaker-of-new-york-assembly-sheldon-silver-is-arrested-in-corruption-case.html?_r=1
You may ask who is Sheldon Silver? In a New York Times article captioned Sheldon Silver, Assembly
Speaker, Took Millions in Payoffs ...
the Feds note that “Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the New York Assembly, exploited his
position as one of the most powerful politicians in the state to obtain
millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks, federal authorities said on
Thursday as they announced his arrest on a sweeping series of corruption charges.” Continue reading
at …. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/nyregion/speaker-of-new-york-assembly-sheldon-silver-is-arrested-in-corruption-case.html?_r=0
And if you are a proponent of Term Limits, put this one in
your file. Sheldon Silver was first
elected to office in 1994.
Now let’s return to Connecticut.
For years Connecticut
has not been immune to the disease of corruption which continues to spread
among public officials making taxpayers sick as inevitably public crime
involves public (taxpayer) money. And we
can’t lose sight of the fact that in Connecticut
and within the 169 towns which make up Connecticut
we pay some of the highest taxes in the country as we witness Connecticut in Crisis.
Yet, in Connecticut, unlike
many other states, we have had to rely upon the investigate branches of the
Federal government to bring Connecticut
public officials to justice.
Of the many cases the Feds brought to trial back ten years
ago or more, was that of former State Treasurer Paul Sylvester as noted within
the New York Times article By STACEY STOWE of Oct 18, 2003 captioned Ex- Treasurer of Connecticut
Tells of Life in Jail -... . which can be found at
web link https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=ie7&q=Ex-+Treasurer+of+Connecticut+Tells+of+Life+in+Jail+-...+.&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7TSNA_enUS372US372&gws_rd=ssl
The United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut
announced that CHARLES B. SPADONI, 63, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, formerly
of Connecticut, was sentenced today by Senior United States District Judge
Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven to 24 months of
imprisonment, followed by five years of supervised release. Judge Burns also
ordered SPADONI to pay a fine in the amount of $50,000.
According to the evidence presented during a trial in this
matter, SPADONI was the general counsel of Triumph Capital Group Inc. (“Triumph
Capital”). In November 1998, shortly after former Connecticut State Treasurer
Paul J. Silvester had lost his bid for re-election,
SPADONI, Silvester and others engaged in a scheme
through which two of Silvester’s close associates
received from Triumph Capital sham “consulting contracts” worth $1 million each
in return for the investment of $200 million of state pension assets in a
Triumph Capital-related investment fund, Triumph Connecticut-II. Read more at http://www.fbi.gov/newhaven/press-releases/2011/lawyer-involved-in-connecticut-treasurers-office-scandal-sentenced-to-two-years-in-federal-prison
Also, in 2003 the Feds took down a former Mayor, as highlighted by the New York Times in an
article captioned Ex-Mayor Gets 37 Years In Prison for Abusing 2 Girls -... noted “Philip A. Giordano, a former three-term mayor of
Waterbury and a United States Senate candidate, was sentenced today to 37 years
in federal prison …..” Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/14/nyregion/ex-mayor-gets-37-years-in-prison-for-abusing-2-girls.html.
In 2013 it was reported that, as Giordano remains in prison
today, Giordano Seeks To Have
Conviction Overturned -..... continue reading at
web link
http://articles.courant.com/2013-05-06/news/hc-giordano-hearing-20130506_1_jury-andrew-bowman-attorney
In 2004, Federal investigations also helped to unravel the
crimes of former Governor John Rowland which ultimately drove Rowland from the
Governor’s office and into a Federal prison.
However, his near year stint in Federal prison did not deter him from
committing another crime as highlighted by the New Haven register in September,
2014 in their article captioned Former Connecticut Governor
John Rowland found guilty on 7
Counts of Corruption.
In January, 2015 the Hartford
courant reported Rowland Sentencing Postponed
While He Presses Claim of
Withheld Evidence. But while taxpayers
in Connecticut become poor in our overly taxed state, Rowland's $52,000 annual
pension intact despite 2nd conviction on corruption charges as reported by the
New Haven Register. ...
The Feds also brought down another politician by the name of
Ernie Newton. Newton
of Bridgeport had served in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1988 to 2003
and the Connecticut
State Senate from 2003 to
2006.
In Feb, 2010 we read Ex-Sen. Newton released from
prison; enters halfway....House. The article notes that “Newton, a powerful
figure from the city's East Side for more than two decades, was imprisoned
after pleading guilty in September 2005 to charges of taking a $5,000 bribe,
using campaign donations to pay his own expenses and evading federal income
taxes by not reporting the money he illegally took. “He was released Wednesday
from the federal prison camp in Lewisburg,
Pa., according to Edmond Ross, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. The article
continues at http://www.newstimes.com/default/article/Ex-Sen-Newton-released-from-prison-enters-371293.php
But here too, like Rowland, Newton again resorted to
criminal activity as recently reported by blog.ctnews.com that Ernie Newton found guilty of
campaign finance fraud - CT.... noting
“Sentencing set for March 13, 2015. “The
conviction also means Newton
is in violation of his federal probation”. Read more at http://blog.ctnews.com/politics/2015/01/16/ernie-newton-found-guilty-of-campaign-finance-fraud/
In 2003, the Feds also brought down Joseph Ganim, the then Bridgeport Mayor Convicted On 16 Charges of Corruption ... . As noted by the
New York Times on March 19, 2003, “A federal jury today convicted Mayor Joseph
P. Ganim of Bridgeport of racketeering, extortion,
bribery and mail fraud, among other felonies, for his role in a six-year scheme
to shake down city contractors for more than $500,000 in cash, meals, clothing,
wine and home renovations”. The article
continues at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/20/nyregion/bridgeport-mayor-convicted-on-16-charges-of-corruption.html
.
Ganim’s attempts to have his law license
reinstated failed with the most recent reported in April, 2014 by Daniel Tepfer who wrote Supreme Court
rejects law license for Ganim -... The reporter quoted the panel of Superior Court judges,
Julia DiCocco Dewey, Elliot Solomon and Barbara Bellis, who in a 36-page decision noted “Allowing an
applicant to be readmitted to the practice of law following a conviction on 16
counts of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, mail fraud, bribery and filing
false income tax returns without any apology, expression of remorse, or
explanation, and with only a vague acceptance of an unspecified event, simply
would set the bar for readmission too low in the state and we are unwilling to
do that.” Continue reading at …. http://blog.ctnews.com/connecticutpostings/2014/04/09/supreme-court-rejects-law-license-for-ganim/
Recently, it was reported that Ganim
may attempt to recapture the Mayor’s seat in Bridgeport.
However, the feedback has not been kind as illustrated at web link https://www.facebook.com/hartfordcourant/posts/10153042437496602
with such comments as “If the people are stupid enough to re-elect to public
office someone who spent 7 years in prison for bribery while in
office........THEY DESERVE EVERYTHING THEY GET”.
So let’s think about that.
Who is really to blame in the state’s failure to root out corruption,
thereby, necessitating the intervention of the Feds.
Our State legislators who apparently want to protect their
own and therefore refuse to give State investigators the tools they need?
Or do we need to take a closer look at ourselves. Are we to blame? We, the voter, the taxpayer, the parent who
doesn’t know who heads their school board, the property owner who is losing
their home, business or land to a tax lien sale because their property taxes
are too high, but they never bothered to let their public officials know of
their concerns prior to budgets being sealed.
Or registered voters, who didn’t have the time to vote or were
disheartened with the candidates running?
Because apparently in Bridgeport
and in New York
there were too few concerned citizens as many stood by as party affiliates
nominated their candidates to run for public office.
As in August, 2012 the Hartford
Courant reported Back From Prison, Ernie Newton Is Running For His Former
...Senate Seat. Although
voters and taxpayers have little control over Republican and Democrat Town
Committees who nominate candidates to run for public office, they do at the
polls. And this time, the voters spoke
and rejected the candidate selected by the Democrat
Town Committee of Bridgeport.
Newton
was defeated!
This was not the case in New York as headlines read Sheldon Silver elected to
11th term as speaker, despite probe. Silver was elected, but it was recently reported he is
stepping down!
So time will tell if the Bridgeport Democrat
Town Committee will embrace
Ganim should be decide to run, because it appears
since his announcement the public may not be so enamored.
Stay tuned. This
could get interesting as the story of public corruption, as told by the Feds, unfolds in Connecticut!
And don’t give up hope.
The Feds announcement last week that they are in Connecticut to stay – at least for a while -
could serve as the catalyst for our State Legislators to do the right
thing. Clean up Connecticut
by heeding the words of U.
S. Attorney Daly and implementing an
effective grand jury system in our State.
VISIT THE
WEBSITE OF THE FBI
And Research Public Corruption
***************
Also Check Out
Recent FOI Convictions
Involving Connecticut