Levy Shines a Light: Klarides Super PAC Collecting Thousands from Rowland Scandal Felon. Gold Doubloons By Any Other Name.
Republican Senate hopeful Leora Levy unleashed a scathing attack on a Super PAC supporting rival Themis Klarides. The committee has received $50,000 from felonious construction executive William Tomasso. The maximum individual contribution to a Senate campaign is $2,900–and Tomasso has given those too.
Levy is wrong about almost everything in the competition to win the Republican Senate nomination on August 9th. The perpetually resentful Greenwich Republican is right that Klarides, an unimpressive fundraiser, is receiving crucial assistance from a felon who brought disgrace upon Connecticut.
Tomasso was at the center of the scandals that brought down former Republican governor John G. Rowland’s administration in 2004. Rowland went to prison–and so did Tomasso and Rowland’s top aides. Tomasso and his family provided illegal gifts to Rowland and others. The Tomasso family construction firm won scores of millions in state contracts while performing favors for Rowland, his co-chief of staff Peter Ellef. and others.
Tomasso earned an unusual place in the history of political corruption. One of his bribes was paid in gold coins. Eleef and his deputy were in an irrational twist about the consequences of the impending Y2K (remember that) start of the new millennium. They marked it with gold doubloons.
The bribery scheme included the state awarding a $57 million contract to Tomasso’s family business for the construction of a juvenile jail facility in Middletown. The project was a fiasco. Governor M. Jodi Rell closed it in 2005, the year she succeeded Rowland in office.
Tomasso’s legacy is with us in more than the millions wasted on the Middletown facility. Taxpayers now pay tens of millions of dollars to finance political campaigns. The stench of Tomasso and his conspirators provided an opening for proponents of sticking the public with the bill for their political campaigns to pass legislation the Rell, in an inexplicable about-face, went from opposing the misbegotten legislation to supporting it with no plausible explanation. The Rowland scandals were about state contracts and person graft, not campaign contributions. Satisfying Rowland’s obvious hankering for the big life he’d seen other enjoy was obvious to the bribe-payers. The classic home improvement bribes were accompanied by a charter flight to a national college basketball tournament and then on to Las Vegas.
Klarides was in the legislature when the grimy scandal unfurled week after week in the Hartford Courant. She certainly knows who William Tomasso. She could long ago have publicly denounced Tomasso’s participation in the Super PAC that is boosting her campaign as she seeks to hold off Levy.
William Tomasso has not only made a heft contribution to Super Pac to help Klarides. He’s made three $2,900 contributions directly to her campaign–one for the convention, another for the primary, and a third for the general election–should she make it that far. Three other Tomassos have made the same contributions.
Klarides could take a stand against corruption and a dark legacy that distorted Connecticut politics and contributed to the decline in confidence in our institutions. But she’d rather have the money.
Published July 29, 2022.