"We get thousands of checks from thousands of people and we just wouldn't have any way of knowing something like that is happening."

Mayor Boughton's response to his acceptance of James Galante alleged bundled campaign contributions

You didn't think I was finished with this right?

By popular demand, here's Mark Boughton's 7-day before the election finance report.

With your help, we were able to uncover a number of questionable contributions to Boughton's campaign in 2003 AND very revealing contributions in 2007. In fact, questions surrounding James Galante's ILLEGAL bundled contributions were picked up by the mainstream media (and trust me folks, THAT story is far from over).

For those who need to be caught up to date, here's a recap:

FLASHBACK: New York Times 05.02.04

James Galante, who owns trash hauling companies in Danbury and Putnam County, N.Y., first tried to get into the hockey business in New Haven, but he eventually realized the city's team couldn't be saved. When Danbury opened its ice arena in 2001, Mr. Galante saw another opportunity. He had watched his son play hockey in high school and noticed that young people from the area were signing up for junior and pee wee leagues. A hockey team, he realized, could take root here.

[...]

The team will also be paying for major renovations to the ice arena, expanding the capacity from 750 seats to as many as 2,500. The renovation still needs the city's approval, said Kevin McCormack, regional manager for New Jersey-based Floyd Hall Enterprises, which owns the arena. The arena had also not signed a final contract with the team, Mr. McCormack said.

The arena, which holds two rinks, already logs 400,000 to 500,000 total visits a year for youth leagues, adult leagues and recreational skating, among other events, Mr. McCormack said. None of those activities will be curtailed by the hockey team, he said. He expected the team to boost interest in the arena, rather than drive it away. Danbury residents are already coming to the ice arena asking where they can buy season tickets, Mr. McCormack said.

Increasing the seating was a prerequisite for admission into the league, Mr. Brosal, the U.H.L. president, said. He also said he was not concerned that James Galante had served a federal sentence in connection with filing false corporate tax returns.

FLASHBACK: Hartford Courant, July 21 2005

FBI agents searched an undisclosed number of homes and businesses in western Connecticut and suburban New York late Tuesday as part of an organized crime and political corruption case that centers on the refuse hauling business.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday, dozens of agents began sifting through business records at the offices of Automated Waste Disposal Inc. in Danbury. Automated dominates the refuse hauling business in southwestern Connecticut, and its owner was linked in federal court in the middle 1990s to mob efforts to stifle competition in the industry in Westchester County, N.Y.

Automated is owned by James E. Galante, 52, of New Fairfield, who was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $ 100,000 in 1999 for assisting in the preparation of false corporate tax returns.

FBI agents also appeared at the law offices in Danbury of Galante attorney Jack E. Garamella, a law enforcement source said late Tuesday. In addition, agents armed with search warrants were at Galante's home and the homes of several of his senior employees, said a source familiar with the investigation.

[...]

The indictment alleged that Milo and the others -- including Mario Gigante, the brother of then Genovese crime family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante -- were part of a mob cartel that used arson, bribery and violence to dominate the garbage-hauling industry in the suburbs north of New York City.

[...]

Galante also owns a professional, minor-league hockey team that he named the Danbury Trashers. It is part of the United Hockey League and plays in the city-owned ice rink in downtown Danbury. Galante bought the team as an 18th birthday present for his son, who is general manager.

[...]

Galante and employees of his businesses have been generous contributors to Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton. Boughton could not be reached Tuesday night for comment.

Some senior city employees, who asked not be identified because they fear retribution, have said the city of Danbury allowed Galante to spend millions to quickly renovate the ice rink to comply with league standards -- but without timely city inspections for code violations. The arena was too small for league standards and needed to be expanded to a capacity of more than 3,000. The city employees said they felt pressured to quickly approve the renovations.

More goodies from The Hartford Courant dated 07.21.05:

Shortly after Boughton became mayor in 2001, Galante requested and received a permit to increase the numberof tons per day of garbage he could bring into the transfer station from 950 to 1,250. Boughton said he didn't become aware of the application until 2003, but under the terms of the previous contract Galante had the option to apply for expansion to the regional trash authority.

Galante recently has asked for another expansion to 1,900 tons a day. That application is pending, Boughton said.

[...]

The city's handling of the expansion of the ice rink has raised questions with Boughton's critics. Galante would not have been able to open the season without expanding the seating capacity at the Danbury Arena to meet United Hockey League regulations.

Three years after the fact, Boughton fessed up to the following...

Boughton acknowledged Friday that one of his political actions committees, People Over Politics, got money from associates of Galante in 2003.

Sources said that eight, $1,000 checks from either Galante employees, friends or associates were donated to People Over Politics on Oct. 26, 2003. Some of them were then reimbursed or told that the donations would help Galante's trash hauling business, which is based in Danbury.

-Hartford Courant 10.12.07

...but it appears that the rabbit hole goes MUCH deeper.

Here's a list of the eight people who donated to Boughton's People over Politics PAC in October 2003.

Name: Date of contribution
Shirley Giglio: 10.26.03
Paul DiNardo: 10.26.03
Joe Walkovich: 10.26.03
Frank Russo: 10.26.03
Susan Seri: 10.26.03
Anthony DiNardo: 10.26.03
Jackie DiNardo: 10.30.03
Robert DiNardo: 10.23.03

You're with me here...okay, lets continue.

Let's now take a look at Mayor Boughton's re-election report, which was filed in April 2003 and take note of the following people who gave 1,000 around the same time period.

Name: Date of contribution
Maria Rullo: 01.15.03
Nina DiNardo: 01.14.03
Joe Walkovich: 01.18.03
Susan Seri: 01.15.03
Paul DiNardo: 1.17.03

You see something similar?

The only person that has nothing in common with those listed in the October statement is Maria Rullo...until you look a bit closer.

Kevin J. O'Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that MARIA "Mary" RULLO, age 45, [...] waived indictment and pleaded guilty today before Senior United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven to one felony count of filing a false tax return.

According to documents filed with the Court and statements made in court, RULLO failed to report alimony income on personal tax returns she filed with the Internal Revenue Service. During the course of an investigation, the IRS obtained an affidavit signed by RULLO in 2003 in which she stated she received $40,000 in alimony, an amount that she omitted from her tax return for that year.

RULLO has agreed to pay $34,436 to the IRS for material omissions to her returns filed for the 2001 through 2004 tax years.

Judge Burns has scheduled sentencing for October 19, 2007, at which time RULLO faces a maximum term of imprisonment of three years and a fine of up to $100,000.

RULLO was released on a $25,000 non-surety bond and was ordered not to have any direct or indirect contact with the defendants and witnesses named in United States v. Ianniello, et al, Case Number 3:06cr161(EBB).

Lets take a look at Case Number 3:06cr161, United States v. Ianniello, et al. and see which witness and defendants Rullo should have no direct or indirect contact with.

The defendant Matthew Ianniello is the 86 year old former acting boss of the Genovese Organized Crime Family. Save for a period of approximately six years in the 1990s when he was incarcerated on racketeering charges, Mr. Ianniello has for decades served the Genovese family well as one of its top "earners." At this late junction in his career, Mr. Ianniello faces in this case a term of incarceration of 24 to 30 months and a fine of $4,000 to $40,000. For the reasons that follow, the government respectfully submits that a sentence at the high end of this range - to be served concurrent to a 15 month sentence recently imposed in another district - is appropriate.

BACKGROUND
On December 20, 2006, the defendant pleaded guilty to Count Two of the Indictment, which charges that he and others engaged in a racketeering conspiracy designed to control Connecticut's refuse industry, and Count Sixty-Two, which charges him with conspiring to defraud the United States Revenue Service (IRS). See 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) (Racketeering Conspiracy) and 18 U.S.C. § 371 ("Klein conspiracy"). The defendant faces a maximum term of incarceration of twenty years on Count Two and a maximum term of incarceration of five years on Count Sixty-Two.

In this case, the government conducted eleven months of court-authorized wiretaps on a number of telephones connected to James Galante, owner of approximately twenty-nine carting-related entities in southwestern Connecticut. (PSR at ¶ 15) The wiretaps ran from August 2004 to July 2005, at which point law enforcement officials executed over thirty-five search warrants, including searches of Mr. Ianniello's residence and Mr. Galante's office. Agents seized thousands of boxes of documents, including a sheet of paper from Galante's office that listed a series of quarterly payments made by Galante to the defendant between August 2001 and April 2005. The payments stopped after the government executed the aforementioned searches in July 2005.

With respect to the search of Mr. Ianniello's residence, the Connecticut FBI seized approximately $130,680 in cash. In addition to the wiretaps and searches, agents interviewed many witnesses connected to the case.

This Court authorized wiretaps on phones utilized by, among others, Galante, Richard Galietti (Galante's lead salesman), Christopher Rayner (accountant to defendants Milo and Galante), Ciro Viento (Galante's operations manager), and Richard Caccavale (Galante employee).

To date, Viento and Caccavale have pleaded guilty to the racketeering conspiracy charged in Count Two; the other listed defendants await trial.

Here's the News-Times write-up on why Rullo went to jail for 30 days:

A 45-year-old New Fairfield woman who once worked at Danbury's Automated Waste Disposal was sentenced to 30 days in federal prison for filing a false tax return.

Senior U.S. District Judge Ellen Burns last Friday ordered Maria "Mary" Rullo, to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on Nov. 20.

"Rullo repeatedly lied to federal investigators," said Tom Carson, for the U. S. Attorney's office.

Rullo came to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service during the federal investigation of AWD owner James Galante. The IRS had been interviewing people about "no-show" employees at AWD.

Prosecutors said Rullo provided false information to the IRS and the FBI while they were investigating her former boss' trash hauling companies in western Connecticut. They also said she improperly received health care benefits and failed to tell federal agents about certain cash transactions she conducted.

We also learned more about Boughton's connections with other politicians who were caught up in the Galante scandal...paging State Senator David Cappiello...

• In Boughton's 01.07.04 statement (period covered 10.22.03-12.31.03) Boughton received a "contribution" from the 24th District Republican Committee for $250.00.

This was Cappiello's PAC, which according to the Courant, he "received 15 checks for $1,000 in October 2002 written by people who received cash reimbursements originating from Galante."

People in the mainstream media picked up on the posts and also questioned Boughton's honesty.

Stan Smith, Hartford Courant:

James Galante doesn't need me to speak for him.

But I'm having a hard time believing that if indeed the Danbury trash magnate funneled $40,000 in illegal political contributions, as the state contends, the recipient politicians had no idea what Galante was up to.

Sen. Louis DeLuca of Woodbury and Sen. David Cappiello and Mayor Mark Boughton of Danbury all say they had no idea - none - that Galante allegedly was funneling his cash their way through employees, friends and relatives.

But bundlers generally aren't exactly shy about letting the political candidate know what they've done for them. The chief bundlers gain clout and access with politicians because they have demonstrated the ability to raise money - the lifeblood of campaigns.

There's actually legal bundling, when people raise money from others; and there's illegal bundling, when contributors are using their own money.

"The whole art of bundling is to make sure you get credit for it," said Andy Sauer, executive director of Common Cause, the community action group. "I am someone who believes that whenever any campaign contributor is trying to gain favor with any elected official, the way they maximize their influence is by bundling."

So, if we're to believe this latest case against Galante, he went to great lengths to contribute to politician campaigns, but never let the public officials know he was hooking them up.

Maybe. But it doesn't pass my smell test.

Fairfield Weekly:

Sources told the Hartford Courant (the Weekly's papa paper) that Galante gave $8,000 to Boughton's People over Politics PAC in eight separate thousand-dollar donations—a grand being the legal limit for an individual—through friends, family and employees in October 2003, with promises of favors or reimbursement. Boughton told the Courant, "I was absolutely unaware that there was anything wrong with any donations."

People over Politics only received a total of eight donations of $1,000 in that reporting period.

Four checks are from the family of Paul Dinardo, Galante's brother-in-law and a longtime employee of his trash business, who got 21 months in prison in September for conspiracy to inflate hauling prices through extortion and threats. He gave $1,000. So did his father Anthony Dinardo, the father-in-law of James Galante and a resident of Putnam County, N.Y., where Automated Waste's operations stretched. The other Dinardos were Paul's brother Robert, a Danbury police officer, and his wife, Jackie, a teacher and guidance counselor in the city's public schools.

[...]

If People over Politics got $8,000 from Galante, the trash magnate provided about one-third of the $24,287 the PAC raised in 2003 and half of the $15,750 from "individuals," as opposed to business or organizations. The PAC listed $9,750 as its total contributions from individuals from Oct. 24 to Dec. 31, meaning, without that $8,000, People over Politics would have collected $1,750 from actual people. Of the eight $1,000 donations, six arrived on Oct. 26 and the other two on Oct. 23 and Oct. 30.

So no one at People over Politics thought it strange that individuals bolstered their cash stash by $8,000 within eight days, with half of it coming from the heavily Galante-connected Dinardo family in a city like Danbury, where the political and business establishments are small enough that everyone knows everyone? (Boughton certainly knew Galante, who hauled the city's trash and owned its minor-league hockey team.)

[...]

And as HatCityBLOG pointed out, this was not the first time the same group of people stuffed Boughton's piggybank. Within a five-day period in January 2003, Walkovich, Seri, Paul DiNardo and his wife (Galante's sister) all gave $1,000 to his reelection fund, as did Maria Rullo, of New Fairfield, who pled guilty to tax fraud in July in a case related to United States v. Ianniello, aka Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello of the Genovese family, which has alleged ties to...James Galante.

...and lets not forget, unlike Cappiello who donated tainted money, it doesn't appear that Boughton's hands are clean yet. Hmm, maybe he can donate the cash to the homeless before forcing them to work for food.

Although I encourage you to keep looking at the 03-04 reports, it's worth noting that there a bunch of contributions to Boughton's campaign in 07 that will raise your eyebrows. Although we're not going to release the full report until next year, you can STILL help us by downloading the reports and highlighting any strange or noticeable donations to Mayor Mark's empire.

Let's work together to expose the ugly truth.

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Boughton's PACs (pdf format)
People over Politics PAC

YEAR 2002
2002a
2002b
2002c
2002d

YEAR 2003
2003a
2003b
2003c
2003d

YEAR 2004
2004a ($8,000 IN GALANTE ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS ARE HERE)
2004b
2004c
2004d
2004e

YEAR 2005
2005a

Mayor Mark's 21 Century PAC

YEAR 2006
2006a (07.10.06)
2006b (10.10.06)
2006c (11.02.06)

YEAR 2007
2007a (01.12.07)
2007b (04.10.07)
2007c (07.10.07)
2007d (10.10.07)

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Boughton SEEC Form 20 Campaign Finance Statements (pdf format)

YEAR 2001

YEAR 2002

Statement: 90 day report (Election 11.06.01)
Date filed: 02.04.02, Period Covered: 12.15.01-02.04.02)

Statement:Termination Report (2001 campaign)
Date filed: 05.07.02, Period Covered: 02.05.02-05.07.02

YEAR 2003

Statement: 2nd Thurs. month April 20th
Date filed: 04.10.03, Period Covered: 01.02.03-04.03.03

Statement: 2nd Thurs. month July 20th
Date filed: 07.07.03, Period Covered: 04.10.03-06.30.03

Statement: 2nd Thurs. month July 20th (Amendment #1 to 07.07.03 report)
Date filed: 07.09.03, Period Covered: 04.10.03-06.30.03

Statement: 2nd Thurs. month July 20th (Amendment #2 to 07.07.03 report)
Date filed: 08.17.05, Period Covered: 04.10.03-06.30.03

Statement: 2nd Thurs. month Oct. 20th (COLLECTED A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF MONEY DURING THIS PERIOD).
Date filed: 10.07.03, Period Covered: 07.01.03-09.30.03 (aprox.)

Statement: 7 days proceeding Election: Nov 4, 2003
Date filed: 10.28.03, Period Covered: 10.01.03-10.21.03 (aprox.)

YEAR 2004

Statement: Termination Report (2003 Campaign)
Date filed: 02.09.04, Period Covered: 01.01.04-02.31.04

YEAR 2005

YEAR 2006

YEAR 2007

Statement: January 10 Filing
Date filed: 01.10.07, Period Covered: 11.27.06-12.31.06

Statement: April 10 Filing
Date filed: 04.10.07, Period Covered: 01.01.07-03.31.07

Statement: July 10 Filing
Date filed: 07.05.07, Period Covered: 04.01.07-06.30.07

Statement: October 10 Filing
Date filed: 10.10.07, Period Covered: 07.01.07-09.30.07

LATEST REPORT
Statement: 7th day preceding election report
Date filed: 10.27.07, Period Covered: 10.01.07-10.23.07

UPDATE: Had to fix the link to the latest report. File is now available.