An embarrassing week at the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP). The State Police agency saw one of its own civilian employees arrested for third degree larceny.

An internal investigation found that Sherry Pina, a Processing Technician in the Overtime Coordinator’s Office, was allegedly submitting overtime hours for herself while working at a second job in the private sector. In 2021, Pina submitted 247 hours of allegedly false claims for overtime pay while working overlapping hours at her second job. The total amount Pina received in pay she did not earn, according to the arrest warrant application, is $9.295.96.

During the police investigation of the alleged crime, according to the arrest warrant application, Pina confirmed that between April 2021 and November 2, 2023, when another staff member was also working on payroll information, she did not work “even one hour of overtime.” That employee, who left DESPP in 2023, voluntarily provided a sworn written statement to detectives. That statement appears to have been helpful in the investigation. Pina told her former colleague that her arrival in the office caused Pina to stop working overtime and caused her to find a second job working for an answering service from home at night.

Pina agreed to meet with a detective on December 20, 2023. She was accompanied by union representative Robert Raczka. After answering questions, Pina declined after consulting with her union representative to provide a written statement.

Published March 20, 2024.

Republican David Cassetti, serving his sixth term as mayor of Ansonia, will try to unseat Democratic incumbent Democrat Kara Rochelle in the 104th House District. Cassetti announced his candidacy Monday morning.

Cassetti won re-election in November with 73% of the vote. Rochelle was elected to her third term in the House in 2022. Her victory came a few weeks before details of her affair with disgraced former West Haven state Representative Michael DiMassa came to light in the corruption trial of DiMassa’s co-defendant. DiMassa testified about his relationship with Rochelle, who was paid $5,000 from federal pandemic funds for firehouse consulting services, in a co-conspirator’s trial

DiMassa, who admitted stealing more than $1.2 million from West Haven, pled guilty on November 1st last year to three conspiracy counts in the scandal.

Exactly what Rochelle was to do for West Haven has remained unclear. City records say she was paid for a Covid study of a firehouse. Rochelle claimed “through a spokesman that she was hired to act as project manager in a city push to build a new firehouse,” according to a Hartford Courant report. “The job would require, among other things, community outreach to win popular support for the project, while navigating potential jealousies between the existing city fire precincts.” This year’s campaign will provide many opportunities for Rochelle to clarify what she was paid to do.

Cassetti and Rochelle have clashed before.

Published March 20, 2024.

The surprise guilty plea of a celebrity antiques dealer twenty years ago today signaled the approach of the end of Governor John Rowland’s tenure in office as scandal grew closer to the Republican in his third term.

Wayne Pratt, who made frequent appearances on the popular Antiques Roadshow program, entered a courtroom in the U.S. District Court in Hartford twenty years ago today to enter a plea to filing false tax information and agree to cooperate with prosecutors. Pratt confirmed the lengthy tale of facts read by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy that revealed the Litchfield County resident as the go-between in a scheme between Rowland and state contractor Robert Matthews in the sale of Rowland’s 278 sq. foot Washington, D.C. and its meager contents.

The Pratt plea came three months after Rowland confirmed a Courant investigation that revealed state employees and contractors had paid for or provided significant improvements at Rowland’s Litchfield County lakefront cottage. Rowland had initially scoffed at the Courant revelations.

By spring, one survey revealed 88% of Connecticut voters did not trust the once-popular governor.

Rowland unsuccessfully resisted subpoenas for records from a House inquiry committee and resigned shortly after a State Supreme Court decision ordered him to hand over documents. He resigned shortly after, leaving office on July 1st. He pleaded guilty to corruption charges three days before Christmas in the U.S. District Court in New Haven. In what appeared to be the end, it was a dreary roll call of acts betraying the public trust.

The first Rowland scandals (another would follow ten years later) included “trading authority for valuable favors and gifts. Charter flights, prostitutes, a state party American Express card, a vintage Mustang of mysterious provenance, a hot tub at a cottage and a staff member (whose husband Rowland nominated to be a judge) who covered his overdrawn checking account make up an incomplete but dispiriting roll call of perversions of public authority.”

On this day 20 years ago, his slide into disgrace came into view.

The Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee rejected Governor Ned Lamont’s controversial pick to become the newly created Department of Corrections ombudsperson. The normally quiet committee voted 8-8 on Hilary Carpenter’s nomination after a March 12th public hearing.

Carpenter was the third ranking of three names sent to Lamont by the Corrections Advisory Committee, the body charged with interviewing and recommending candidates for the new oversight position. Kenneth Krayeske, who as a private lawyer has exposed inadequate medical care provided inmates, was the committee’s first choice. Barbara Fair, who has campaigned to eliminate solitary confinement, ranked second.

The tie vote defeating the motion came from an unusual coalition of five Republicans and three Democrats opposing Carpenter. Seven Democrats and one Republican, ousted Senate Republican Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, backed Carpenter. The seventeenth and deciding vote belonged to Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney. The New Haven Democrat, who knows how to count votes, abstained, defeating the motion to confirm Carpenter.

The vote on Carpenter was a rare Republican victory. Watch for them to toss it away if a motion for consideration is made at the next committee meeting. Lamont’s office has been busy looking for support for giving the Carpenter nomination another go. Some Republican committee members, living in a state of fear as November draws nearer, may be susceptible to exchanging their win for some crumbs.

The Carpenter vote came the day after Lamont lost the nomination of Devant J. Joiner for a seat on the Superior Court in a lopsided 17-10 vote by the Judiciary Committee.

Published March 18, 2024.

It was not the best season for the Wilbur Cross High School boys basketball varsity team but the players showed they are champions despite their coach. In the aftermath of a late season loss, Kevin Walton, Sr., was recorded by a hallway video camera exploding in a torrent of abuse as he emerged from the team’s locker room and ran at game officials.

Walton screamed at the referees, accusing them of being racist cheaters as he heaped profanity on them. Players, who followed Walton out of the locker room, restrained the raging coach and guided him back to the locker room.

The players exhibited exemplary maturity that they must not have learned from their unspeakable coach.

In addition to coaching a Wilbur Cross, Walton is the Director of Equity and Inclusion at Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES).

Walton is the husband of State Board of Education Chairperson Karen DuBois-Walton. She sought the Democratic nomination for mayor of New Haven in 2021 and the party’s nomination for state treasurer in 2022, losing to Erick Russell.

Kevin Walton, Jr., is an assistant coach for the Wilbur Cross boys basketball team.

Published March 13, 2024.

The host committee for Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) has grown to 11. Hosts, according to the invitation, are in for $6,600.00, co-hosts for $3,300. Host committee members at events like this are notorious for not paying the amount advertised and often do not attend. Logan’s first quarter campaign finance report, a crucial one for any candidate in a competitive race, will tell the tale.

Individual donors with more money than sense may contribute up to $310,700.00 to the Logan Victory Fund. That amount will be allocated $9,900.00 to the Logan campaign committee. That’s $3,300.00 each for the convention, primary and general election phases of the campaign. Logan appears to have no primary challenger.

The GSL PAC–that’s Logan’s PAC and it has little money–will receive $5,000.00. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) will pocket $41,300.00. The parlous finances of the state Republican will be boosted by $10,000.00. The NRCC Building Fund would receive $123,900.00 of the $310,700.00. The remaining $123,900.00 would go to the NRCC for its Legal Proceedings Fund. Johnson, who was a leading House Republican 2020 election denier will have a particular affinity for those contributions.

Maximum NRCC contributors are rewarded with “Elite VIP Access to all Regional Major Donor Events.” Ponder what those must be like before writing that check.

Published March 10, 1014.

The contest for the Republican presidential nomination is over and Republicans in the 8th Senate District must be filled with dread. Frontline party organizers in the 11-town district vented their frustrations on Facebook as they pointed the way forward in the immediate aftermath of their disappointing 2022 election.

The first lesson: “time to be rid of Trump forever, and ignorant ‘purity’ tests during primaries are counterproductive.” There are not likely to be many primaries this year, the Republicans will once more have Donald Trump at the head of their ticket.

There’s no indication the “the toxic politics of Trump” will do anything but accelerate–as he delights in donning the mantle of retribution and continues to extoll the talents of murderous dictators.

A woman’s right to abortion serves is not likely to recede as an issue Republican candidates will continue to spend time explaining. Election deniers have not gone away. George Logan, running again for Congress in CD5 will embrace a leading one on March 16th when Speaker of the House Mike Johnson headlines a fundraiser for him.

Avon Republican Lisa Seminara won her first term in the senate by defeating Democrat Paul Hong by 124 votes of the 45,784 votes cast. The two will compete in a rematch this fall–with the most famous election denier three spots away from Seminara on the ballot. It must be a relief for Seminara that Republican activists have spotted no “election deniers and extremists” in her district.

Published March 7, 2024.

Michael Hyman heads the United campaign fund backing the Mayor Caroline Simmons slate in Tuesday’s ferocious Democratic city committee primary. Hyman, according to The Stamford Advocate, is dismayed that the opposing Responsive Government slate accepted a $5,000 contribution from Stamford Republican Joshua Esses, who serves on Stamford’s Board of Education.

Jann Wenner served on the Rock and Roll Museum board of directors until late last summer. He donated $2,000 to the Simmons slate, though he does not live in Stamford.

The Rolling Stone co-founder was removed from the board after telling the New York Times that no women were included in his book “The Masters” because “The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

Wenner included no Blacks because “you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level,” he said. Wenner apologized during the furor that followed the publication of the Times interview plugging the white-men-only collection.

Wenner has been the subject of credible sexual harassment claims.

If it’s green and can be deposited in a bank, the Simmons slate will take it. That’’s the level it articulates at.

Published March 3, 2024.

Wilton’s Analisa Stravato wants one of Connecticut’s two seats on the Republican National Committee—the one occupied by Leora Levy.

Because Republicans hold no statewide or congressional offices, minor posts take on significance among frustrated activists in a party in decline. The party’s state central committee members elect the two Connecticut members of national committee. Grumbling grows that a firm date has not been announced for the vote. Republicans are particularly sensitive to some deviations in voting procedures. The “r” word has been whispered.

Levy, who won the 2022 U.S. Senate primary over party-endorsed candidate Themis Klarides by a wide margin, is seeking re-election. Levy won the endorsement of Donald Trump shortly before the primary. Incumbent Richard Blumenthal defeated Levy by 15%—nearly 200,000 votes—in the general election.

Trump nominated Levy in 2019 to serve as ambassador to Chile. Levy’s confirmation hearing was not a success. The Senate did not act on her nomination.

Levy, Stravato and incumbent John Frey faced off on a remote forum last week. Levy’s formidable fundraising record reminded voters what they will lose if they elect Stravato, who served as the party’s vice chair from 2015-2017. She is currently the Republican registrar of voters in Wilton.

Under the anachronistic rules, a state must elect one man and one woman. Frey is unopposed. He is not considered one of the state party’s top fundraisers.

Some people are saying party chairman Ben Proto favors Stravato. This is raising the temperature in the tiny hothouse of state party politics.

Published March 3, 2024.

Robert Krawiecki announced at this week’s Bristol Republican Town Committee meeting that he is seeking his party’s nomination for the United States Senate, Daily Ructions has learned.

It was a curious start to a campaign. Krawiecki handed out roses to the women at the gathering. He struggled to recall the nine points on which he will mount an assault for the party’s nomination and the general election campaign against incumbent Senator Christopher Murphy, champion of the Houthi terrorists–who Murphy has long argued are not terrorists. Helpful town committee members tried to assist Krawiecki by suggesting one of the nine points might be immigration. No, he replied, that is not on the list. The presiding party official brought the presentation to an abrupt end.

These are dreary days in Connecticut politics.

Robert Krawiecki is a brother of Edward C. Krawiecki, Jr. Daily Ructions readers of a certain vintage will recall Edward Krawiecki as the disputatious two-term House Republican leader who represented Bristol in the House from 1978-1994. Krawiecki, faced an energetic challenge in 1992 from Ellen Zoppo, declined to seek re-election in 1994.

Edward Krawiecki’s reputation was fatally damaged in 1993 when he “was fined $1,500 – the largest penalty assessed a state legislator for violating the conflict of interest provision of the ethics code,” The Hartford Courant reported. “He had tried to pass a bill that would have prevented him from being sued for legal malpractice.”

Krawiecki brought disrepute on himself, House Republicans and the legislature with his sleazy gambit to use his colleagues to punish a client he’d failed. Republican state chairman Ben Proto, then a lawyer for the House Republicans, attempted to provide mitigating testimony in the historic ethics investigation and finding. The commission properly disregarded it.

Published February 28, 2024.