Playing catch up (and tidbits)

Saturday, October 04, 2008
Time: 7:09 PM

Taking a bit of downtime in order to upgrade the site and catch up on uploading episodes of Danbury Live (sorry John).

Tidbits:

  • There seems to be a problem with this site loading so I'm going to take a look at the code and possibly further shrink the amount of posts on the front page. Come to think of it, the entire site could use a face lift as well as some tweaking...


  • I finally got my old video camera fixed which means I'll be able to cover events using two cameras. This means I'll be able to shoot video footage from different angles at the same time and splice them together in the editing process. This is what I did for the planning commission video and hopefully, I'll have more chances to do this in the future.


  • You might have noticed that the quality of my videos have improved. On top of using YouTube, I'm using a new service which allows the uploading of higher resolution videos.


  • With the November election around the corner, I'll be interviewing more candidates running for State office in Danbury as well as throughout the state. I'll start posting the interviews in the coming days.


  • The response to the City Clerk coverage has been great. Be on the lookout for more post in the coming weeks as the story of Jean Natale is gaining attention.

Be back soon!!!

HatCityBLOG VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Planning Commission decision on hotel development on Prindle Lane

Thursday, October 02, 2008
Time: 7:40 PM

IMG_8774

Last night, the Planning Commission approved the application of Interstate Business Center, LLC – Special Exception/Revised Site Plan for the Prindle Lane Hotel complex.

While I'll offer my opinion on the decision at a later time (I'm REAL busy right now), for those who couldn't make it to the meeting last night, here's video footage of the decision (which is not as bad as you think).


FAIR founder racist background exposed


Time: 3:27 PM

Many in the local anti-immigrant/xenophobe establishment, including elected officials, members, friends, and supporters of Elise "deer in headlights" Marciano's hate-group, continuously cite inaccurate information (or should I say talking points) from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in their case against ALL immigrants in Danbury.

The Southern Poverty Law Center recently labeled FAIR has a hate-group and documented the racist background of FAIR founder John Tanton. Today, SPLC released more information they've unearthed more information on Tanton's background that's reinforces their position.



The Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan is an unassuming place, more like a small-town library than a research institute. But hidden away in 17 cardboard boxes deep inside the simple facility are the papers of John Tanton, the retired Michigan ophthalmologist who has been the most important figure in the modern American anti-immigration movement for three decades. The papers, which include more than 20 years of letters from the founder of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and a batch of other nativist groups, contain explosive material about Tanton’s beliefs. They also show that FAIR, where Tanton still serves as a member of the board, has been well aware of Tanton’s views and activities for years.

Tanton has long claimed that he is no racist — that, in fact, he came to his immigration restrictionism through progressive concerns for population control and the environment, not disdain for the foreign born. He characterizes himself as a “fair person,” and on his website he condemns the “unsavory characters whose views can easily be characterized as anti-American, anti-Semitic and outright racist.”

Fair enough. But what do Tanton’s letters have to say?

As it turns out, quite a lot. Although Tanton has been linked to racist ideas in the past — fretting about the “educability” of Latinos, warning of whites being out-bred by others, and publishing a number of white nationalist authors — the papers in the Bentley Library show that Tanton has for decades been at the heart of the white nationalist scene. He has corresponded with Holocaust deniers, former Klan lawyers and the leading white nationalist thinkers of the era. He introduced key FAIR leaders to the president of the Pioneer Fund, a white supremacist group set up to encourage “race betterment,” at a 1997 meeting at a private club. He wrote a major funder to encourage her to read the work of a radical anti-Semitic professor — to “give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life” — and suggested that the entire FAIR board discuss the professor’s theories on the Jews. He practically worshipped a principal architect of the Immigration Act of 1924 (instituting a national origin quota system and barring Asian immigration), a rabid anti-Semite whose pro-Nazi American Coalition of Patriotic Societies was indicted for sedition in 1942.

As early as 1969, Tanton showed a sharp interest in eugenics, the “science” of breeding a better human race that was utterly discredited by the Nazis, trying to find out if Michigan had laws allowing forced sterilization. His interest stemmed, he wrote in a letter of inquiry that year, from “a local pair of sisters who have nine illegitimate children between them.” Some 30 years later, he was still worrying about “less intelligent” people being allowed children, saying that “modern medicine and social programs are eroding the human gene pool.”

Throughout, FAIR — which, along with Tanton, refused repeated requests for comment for this story — has stood by its man. Its 2004 annual report praised him for “visionary qualities that have not waned one bit.” Around the same time, Dan Stein, who has led FAIR since 1988 as executive director or president and who was copied on scores of Tanton’s letters, insisted FAIR’s founder had “never asserted the inferiority or superiority of any racial, ethnic, or religious group. Never.”

[...]

In a Nov. 13, 1994, letter to white nationalist columnist Lawrence Auster, a regular correspondent, Tanton suggested that the Declaration of Independence was actually a document based on the “bond of blood and ethnicity — nationhood.” Almost a year earlier, in a Dec. 10, 1993, letter to Garrett Hardin, a controversial ecology professor, he said: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” On Jan. 26, 1996, he wrote Roy Beck, head of the immigration restrictionist group NumbersUSA (and then an employee of Tanton’s foundation U.S. Inc.), questioning whether Latinos were capable of governing California.

“I have no doubt that individual minority persons can assimilate to the culture necessary to run an advanced society,” Tanton said in his letter to Beck, “but if through mass migration, the culture of the homeland is transplanted from Latin America to California, then my guess is we will see the same degree of success with governmental and social institutions that we have seen in Latin America.” Referring to the changing California public schools, Tanton wondered “whether the minorities who are going to inherit California (85% of the lower-grade school children are now ‘minorities’ — demography is destiny) can run an advanced society?”

For Tanton, the question was entirely rhetorical.

“The situation then is that the people who have been the carriers of Western Civilization are well on the way toward resigning their commission to carry the culture into the future,” he wrote in an Aug. 8, 1997, letter to Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, a fellow immigration critic. “When this decline in numbers is coupled with an aging of the core population … it begins to look as if the chances of Western Civilization passing into the history books are very good indeed.”

This kind of thinking led Tanton to defend racial quotas imposed on immigrants. In a Nov. 3, 1995, memo to FAIR boss Dan Stein and the entire FAIR board of advisers, Tanton defended the infamous “White Australia” policy that restricted non-white immigration into that country from 1901 to 1973, saying it was not racist, but intended to protect native-born labor (the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act outlawed racial quotas in Australia). Tanton also mocked the idea that the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese immigration to the U.S., was racist.

Similarly, Tanton has defended America’s Immigration Act of 1924, which formalized a racial quota system that was only dismantled in 1965. In fact, as shown in his correspondence, Tanton has long lionized a principal architect of the act, John B. Trevor Sr. (In addition to founding the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, Trevor was an adviser to the extreme-right, anti-Catholic Christian Crusade of Billy James Hargis, who regularly referred to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as Communist documents.) Tanton arranged for the Bentley Library to house the papers of both Trevor and his son, long a Pioneer Fund board member and a close friend of Tanton’s until his 2006 death.

Despite the elder Trevor’s extremely unsavory past, Tanton has sent his unpublished autobiography to numerous friends, including, on Nov. 21, 2001, FAIR board member Donald Collins. In a cover letter, Tanton told Collins that the work of Trevor — who distributed pro-Nazi propaganda, drew up plans to crush uprisings of “Jewish subversives,” and warned shrilly of “diabolical Jewish control” of America — should serve FAIR as “a guidepost to what we must follow again this time.

Communing with the Movement

John Tanton has not merely flirted with and adopted many of the core ideas of white nationalism over the past three decades. He has carried on correspondences with some of the key leaders of the white nationalist movement, meeting and even vacationing with some of them, and pushing many of their central ideas.

Over the years, his closest friend on the white nationalist scene seems to have been Jared Taylor, the man who began publishing American Renaissance, a racist, pseudo-scientific magazine focusing on race, intelligence and eugenics, in 1990. (“When blacks are left entirely to their own devices,” Taylor wrote in its pages a few years ago, “Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.”)

Tanton, who met Taylor shortly after American Renaissance began publication, seems to have been particularly taken with Taylor’s angry opposition to affirmative action, spelled out in Taylor’s 1992 book, Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America. On Nov. 12, 1993, Tanton wrote Taylor and three of his American Renaissance colleagues — Wayne Lutton, who would later work for Tanton; Sam Francis, a white nationalist ideologue then working as a Washington Times columnist; and Jerry Woodruff, who wrote for the nativist publication Middle American News — suggesting that their new journal take on literary critic Stanley Fish, who had defended affirmative action in an article for The Atlantic. Tanton enclosed “a little something” for Taylor’s “start-up costs.”

Tanton promoted Taylor’s efforts repeatedly. On Dec. 15, 1994, he wrote a friend to suggest that he read Taylor’s 1992 book. More remarkably, on Jan. 24, 1991, he wrote to the then-president of the Pioneer Fund, Harry Weyher, about Taylor’s American Renaissance effort. And as recently as April 20, 1998, Tanton wrote to several FAIR employees, including Dan Stein, to ensure that they were receiving American Renaissance mailings: “I write to encourage keeping track of those on our same side of the issue, but who are nonetheless our competitors for dollars and members.” (The bolded words were underlined in Tanton’s original letter.)

Tanton also corresponded for years with the late Sam Francis, a one-time Washington Times columnist who was fired after details of a racist speech he gave at an American Renaissance conference became public. From 1999 until his death in 2005, Francis edited the crudely racist and nativist Citizens Informer, the tabloid published by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), an organization that says it “oppose[s] all efforts to mix the races of mankind.

What may have been most remarkable of all was Tanton’s endorsement of a proposal from another friend — Peter Brimelow, who would later start a racist anti-immigration website — that FAIR hire Sam Francis to edit its newsletter. That proposal, which Tanton sent to FAIR’s Dan Stein on Nov. 3, 1995, was made two months after The Washingon Times fired Francis for racism.

Tanton’s contacts with other white nationalists also are instructive:

• Beginning in the late 1980s, Tanton corresponded regularly with Virginia Abernethy, now a professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University. Abernethy is a member of the CCC and recently described herself as a “white separatist.”
• On June 26, 1996, Tanton wrote to Sam Dickson — a Georgia lawyer who has represented the Ku Klux Klan, written for and been on the editorial advisory board of Holocaust denial publications, and spoken at several of the biannual conferences put on by American Renaissance — to thank him for a good time during a visit by Tanton and his wife. “The next time I’m in Atlanta,” Tanton wrote Dickson, “I hope to take one of your ‘politically incorrect’ tours.”

• In a Dec. 23, 1996, letter, Tanton complained that it was hard to write checks for Theodore O’Keefe, who was involved for years in the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review, because O’Keefe would only use a pen name. It was not clear from the letter what O’Keefe had written for Tanton.

• On June 17, 1998, Tanton wrote to Stan Hess, who was then a member of the CCC, about Hess’ proposal to open a FAIR office in California (the letter was copied to Stein). The letter recounted how Tanton had “presented” Hess’ idea to the FAIR board. Hess was arrested later that year for burning a Mexican flag at an Alabama CCC rally that was attended by an unrobed Klansman. Hess would go on in 1999 to help form the neofascist American Friends of the British National Party and, later, to become California state leader of a group headed by neo-Nazi and former Klan leader David Duke.

Tanton on ‘the Jews’

In some ways, given his ideas, it’s not surprising that John Tanton would cozy up to white nationalists and their fellow travelers. What is unexpected, even among long-time observers of the FAIR founder, is his attitude toward “the Jews.”

In the late 1990s, Kevin MacDonald, a California State University, Long Beach, professor, was finishing up a trilogy of books that purported to show that Jews collectively work to undermine the dominant majorities in the host countries in which they live, including the United States. MacDonald said that Jews pursue these tactics — including promoting non-white immigration into white-dominated nations — in order to weaken the majority culture in a bid to enhance their own standing. He would later go on to speak and write for white nationalist groups across America.

Tanton liked what he read. On Dec. 28, 1998 — the same year that the last two books of MacDonald’s trilogy were published — he wrote MacDonald, saying, “I hope we can meet some day.” On that same date, Tanton sent a memo to Dan Stein and the FAIR board of directors about a MacDonald paper “on the segment of the Jewish community that has an open borders mentality.” The paper, Tanton said, “would be fertile for group discussion at the forthcoming board meeting.”

Earlier that month, on Dec. 10, 1998, Tanton also sent MacDonald’s work to Cordelia Scaife May, a now-deceased millionaire philanthropist who gave regularly to far-right causes and was a close Tanton friend. “I’m sure [MacDonald’s article] will give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life, which explains a large part of the Jewish opposition to immigration reform,” he wrote.

Tanton’s criticism of religious groups wasn’t limited to Jews, however. Over the years, he — like some principals of FAIR — lashed out at a variety of religious denominations, especially Catholics, for their welcoming attitude toward immigrants coming to America from the Third World. In his letter to the FAIR board suggesting a discussion of Kevin MacDonald’s theories, for instance, he described “the Roman Catholic Church [and] several of the Protestant denominations, the Lutheran Church in particular,” as being among “our opponents.” In an earlier, May 24, 1994, letter to Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, he said that “one of the problems with churches is that they see themselves as universal, and as transcending national boundaries.”

Endorsing Eugenics

For years, FAIR President Dan Stein has hotly denied that his organization had anything to do with eugenics. “Eugenics,” he wrote in a 2004 op-ed in the Kansas City Star, “is pure junk science, and it is utterly unrelated to FAIR’s efforts to bring order to immigration in America.” Two months later, in a press release attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for suggesting otherwise, the group called SPLC’s reporting “utterly specious” and “McCarthyist.”

The press release went on to accuse the SPLC of unfairly linking FAIR to “a long discredited pseudo-science of eugenics” by noting the group had accepted $1.2 million from the eugenicist Pioneer Fund, ending in 1994. The release also claimed that the idea that FAIR had an interest in eugenics had been disproven.

Apparently, John Tanton failed to get that message.

On Dec. 30, 1994 — at the end of the year that FAIR finally stopped soliciting Pioneer donations (after negative publicity) and issued its denunciation of eugenics — Tanton wrote to German academic Wolfgang Bosswick to defend the Pioneer Fund, saying its critics were the “hard (Marxist) left in the United States.”

On Sept. 18, 1996, he wrote to now-deceased California multimillionaire Robert K. Graham, a eugenicist who started a sperm bank to collect the semen of Nobel Prize-winning scientists: “Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids? And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less? Who is going to break the bad news [to less intelligent individuals], and how will it be implemented?”

On May 21, 1997, Tanton wrote to Richard Lynn — a race “scientist” who claims that black people “are more psychopathic than whites” and suffer from a “personality disorder” characterized by a poverty of feeling and lack of shame — to congratulate Lynn on his book, Dysgenics, on how less intelligent individuals are outbreeding the intelligent. The next year, on Feb. 9, 1998, he wrote to Pioneer Fund President Harry Weyher to propose that Weyher hire Lynn to write “a study of Barry Mehler.” Mehler, the Ferris State University professor who founded the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism, is a harsh critic of race science and eugenics.

FAIR officials may not have known of these contacts, but they certainly knew of others. On Oct. 29, 1998, for instance, Tanton wrote a memo for his file on Harry Weyher discussing the Pioneer Fund’s new website and a paper on “sub-replacement fertility” by Roger Pearson, a notorious race scientist who heads the Institute for the Study of Man. The memo was copied to FAIR’s Dan Stein and K.C. McAlpin, the executive director of ProEnglish, a group on whose board Tanton now sits.

Most remarkable of all, however, was the Feb. 13, 1997, gathering organized by Tanton at the New York Racquet and Tennis Club. Three years after FAIR had stopped taking Pioneer Fund money, Tanton brought FAIR board members Henry Buhl, Sharon Barnes and Alan Weeden — along with Peter Brimelow, future founder of the VDARE.com hate site — to a meeting with Pioneer Fund President Harry Weyher. The meeting, held expressly to discuss fundraising efforts to benefit FAIR, was memorialized in a Feb. 17, 1997, memo that Tanton wrote for his “FAIR Fund-Raising File.” A year later, on Jan. 5, 1998, Tanton wrote to John Trevor, a Pioneer Fund board member and the son of the notorious pro-Nazi eugenicist John Trevor Sr., to thank him for his personal “handsome contribution” to FAIR.

It’s not that Tanton didn’t understand, just as well as Stein and the other leaders of FAIR, exactly how controversial eugenics was. After starting his own eugenicist group, the Society for Genetic Education, in 1996, he wrote to Graham, the California eugenicist, to discuss public relations strategies. In a Sept. 18, 1996, letter, Tanton explained how his new group’s website “emphasized mankind’s use of eugenic principles on plants and the lower animals as a way to condition the public to the idea of genetic manipulation, and raise the question of its application to the human race.” Elaborating, he added: “We report ways [eugenics] is currently being done, but under the term genetics rather than eugenics.”

Immigration and Race

Throughout its history, the United States has been subjected to periodic outbreaks of xenophobic nativism, angry reactions to waves of immigrants who are seen as somehow different than “real” Americans. These movements, directed at different times at Germans, Catholics, Jews, Asians, southern Europeans, blacks and others, have typically been undergirded by racist stereotyping. Again and again, the new immigrants are described as stupid, ugly, disloyal, diseased and more.

Today, no one disputes the vulgar racism of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan, which grew to nearly 4 million members on the strength of hating Catholics and Jews. And much the same can be said of nativist movements from the Know-Nothings of the 1840s, who saw German Catholics as dangerous subverters of American democracy, to the racist demonization of Mexican “wetbacks” during the 20th century.

But John Tanton and his Federation for American Immigration Reform have repeatedly claimed that they are different, that FAIR and its founder are not linked to the irrational fears and hatreds of the past. Their critics, they say angrily, are simply tarring them with the brush of racism to unfairly denigrate their arguments.

As the Bentley Library files show, that is far from true.


Just food for thought when Marciano and her ilk claim that they're not a hate-group or racists...

Danbury Live 09.30.08 broadcast

Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Time: 5:31 PM

NOTE: back episodes of Danbury Live will be posted soon...


Will the City Clerk comply with the new state law


Time: 2:29 PM

Effective today, a series of new state laws take effect. One of those laws, public act 08-3.

Sec. 11. Section 1-225 of the 2008 supplement to the act is of extreme interest.
Within seven days of the session to which such minutes refer, such minutes shall be available for public inspection [within seven days of the session to which they refer] and posted on such public agency's Internet web site, if available

In other words, within seven days of any public meeting, the minutes of that meeting much be available for viewing by the public on the city website. Although the publishing of meeting minutes within seven days is already law, posting the minutes on the internet is new and several towns in Connecticut are opting to shut down their sites as opposed to adhering to the new law.

This bring us to Danbury and a new responsibility for City Clerk Jean Natale. As stated by the City's website:
The City Clerk serves as the superintendent of public records, ordinances, resolutions and minutes of the Common Council meetings. The City Clerk also attests and seals official documents.

This means that the City Clerk is responsible for the publishing of the minutes and making sure that these minutes are posted on the city's website and although the posting of minutes has been done, the difference now is that unlike the past, the publishing of minutes on the internet is now a state mandate.

Since Natale already has a history of violating FOI law as well as not posting the agendas to meetings in a timely manner, it's not a far stretch to say that there's a good chance that the city of Danbury might be the first municipality in violation of this new law sooner than later.

House cleaning and misc stuff


Time: 11:39 AM

A few tidbits:

  • Wow, I just noticed that there are WAY too many posts on the frontpage of this site.

    I changed the archive settings so there will be only 10 posts on the front page. Hopefully, that will fix things because scrolling forever on the frontpage is just silly.


  • Tonight, the planning commission is considering the approval of a hotel complex on Prindle Lane. Yours truly was involved in the opposition of this development and I'll show my contribution to the cause later.


  • Over at My Left Nutmeg, we've done a campaign report on the candidates who were endorsed by CT Voices for Children and Working families.

  • I'm a tad bit behind in posting episodes of Danbury Live and it might be better if I just establish a new site for the show...


  • Readers pointed me to a blog that states "...will expose everyone to the wacky world of Bethel politics" Now that should be fun!


  • Recent episodes of Community Forum on cable have been repeats which is why nothing from that show has been posted in a couple of weeks.


  • The Sec of State's office issued a press release on the number of newly registered voters in Connecticut. Out of the 25,000+ 69,826 18-29 year-olds who have registered since January, Danbury has 1,198 people who are now set to vote in November.

The News-Times sees the light


Time: 10:54 AM

Textbook 101 on why you shouldn't believe Boughton, DeLuca, and Cappiello.
Given the other troubles James Galante faced -- including federal racketeering, conspiracy and tax charges -- allegations of violating Connecticut campaign finance laws weren't that big a deal.

But state prosecutors were right to bring the charges. What was involved was the attempted manipulation of the political system by a wealthy business owner who wanted to get his own way with government and used straw donors to hide his political contributions.

Monday, Galante was in Hartford Superior Court to deal with the state charges against him for making illegal campaign contributions. He avoided a trial by pleading no contest to the charges.

"I think Mr. Galante, in view of his federal case, wanted this thing to go away," said Hugh Keefe, Galante's attorney.

This "thing" will go away for Galante. He is scheduled to report to federal prison on Oct. 15 to serve a seven-year term on the federal charges. He was given a one-year term on the state charges, to be served concurrently with his federal sentence.

But this episode won't go away for the politicians who accepted Galante's contributions. Under his plea deal with federal prosecutors, Galante admitted running a scheme that discouraged competition in the trash business to keep rates high for customers, using organized crime to enforce the scheme. That's not a connection that looks good on a political resume.

[...]

Still, Galante had something of a reputation for collecting and attempting to manipulate politicians. When large contributions were coming from unknown donors, these politicians should have been paying more attention.

Things to consider.

From everyone I talked to who knows the history of Galante and politicians, it wasn't like Galante would just bundle a string of contributions to politicians out of the kindness of his heart. Think about it...40,000 dollars and NOT ONE politician knew about it? Yeah, right.

And as I clearly exposed, my 30 minute analysis of Mayor Boughton's re-election campaign statements (NOT HIS PAC) shows that, in at least one instance, there seems to be a pattern of donations that mirror the donations Galante's associates made to Boughton's PAC.

...and I haven't even brought up other ways Galante could have donated to Boughton (i.e., taking out ads in Boughton's fund raiser ad book). Given what The Hartford Courant reported on back in 2004 and 2005 with the questionable relationship between Galante and Boughton in regards to the ice rink, I'd say that there is MUCH more to this story that meets the eye.

Will we ever truly know what happened? Maybe and maybe not. Remember, investigation and charges were against Galante, not Boughton, DeLuca, or Cappiello's activities. Also, the charges against Galante in regards to giving donations to DeLuca and Boughton were NOT dropped, Galante just pleaded "no contest" to the Cappiello charge and received a plea bargain (in other words, the contributions to Boughton and DeLuca's campaigns are still part of the indictment).

Although were never charged doesn't mean that a crime wasn't committed nor does it mean that an investigation couldn't be opened if more information is presented to the State's Attorney's office.

Given:

* the way the system works (we all remember how long it took for James Dyer to get slapped with charges),

* the great ease in which I found more questionable donations from associates of Galante to Boughton, and

* past questions about the Galante and Boughton's relationship, and statements to the press from Boughton in which he claimed that he never had a social relationship with Galante (although several people witnessed the two together in the box seats of Trasher games)

I wouldn't say that a future investigation into Boughton's relationship with Galante is out of the question by any means.

Moonlighting at taxpayer's expense?

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Time: 11:16 AM

Jean_no_job


For years, people have complained about the incompetency of City Clerk Jean Natale.

From not being available for the public or not being in her office, running her department in a highly partisan manner, and not assisting Common Council members with requests, to being cited for not giving proper notice to meetings and/or accusations of not notifying certain members of the Common Council on meetings, Jean Natale has, without question, earned the title of the worse City Clerk in the history of the City of Danbury.

These criticisms pale in comparison to what Jean is actually doing when she's at City Hall...

As well as being the elected City Clerk, Jean Natale has another title in the City...Justice of the Peace (JP). For those who don't know, one of the things a Justice of the Peace can do is perform weddings and when it comes to getting married, Jean Natale is the hardest working Justice of the Peace in the Danbury Area.

...and here lies the problem.

Unlike other JPs who work at City Hall, in what appears to be a means to solicit herself, Jean Natale goes OUR OF HER way to advertise her JP abilities ON THE DOOR OF CITY CLERK. It's astonishing that an any elected official can get away with something like this. Natale was elected to the position of City Clerk (to the tune of almost 50,000 tax payers dollars per year) and what she's doing in advertising herself as a JP on the door of the City Clerk amounts to what's called moonlighting.

But wait, it gets worse...

Over a series of months, I've been bombarded with comments from people who are outraged that Natale uses the office of City Clerk to solicit herself as a JP. Apparently, Natale performs weddings during the hours when she should be working as City Clerk (going as far as performing weddings AT City Hall DURING City Hall business hours). In an attempt to get an idea of how much work person elected as City Clerk is doing as JP, I filed a Freedom of Information request to look at Natale's activity and the results were appalling.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE REPORT (HTML)


CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE REPORT (Excel format)

From April 2007 to July 31 2008, Jean Natale was ranked as one of the top three wedding performing JPs in Danbury. In fact, there are several months where Natale beats out all other JPs hands down in term of marriages performed.

What's more troubling is WHEN the person ELECTED to be City Clerk performs these weddings AS A JP...

From that same time period, Natale performed:

* 98 total weddings,

* 9 of which were done on the weekend,

* A whopping 89 performed during MONDAY through FRIDAY, (most likely during normal City Hall business hours) and,

* A mind blowing 7 days in which Natale performed MORE THAN one wedding during Monday through Friday.


You have to ask yourself this question. How can someone who makes 50,000 tax payers dollars per year AND has been criticized heavily by many as someone who's not available in her office and as well as someone who does an AWFUL job as City Clerk FIND THE TIME to perform more weddings than a majority of the JPs in the greater Danbury area?

It's also important to note that, in my conversations with other JPs, that it's common for a JP to charge people for weddings. With JPs charging anywhere between 50-100 dollars per event, there is a real possibility that Natale is making 4,900 to 9,800 dollars moonlighting on top of the aprox. 50,000 tax payers dollars she makes as City Clerk (and remember, Natale performed 89 weddings on Monday thru Friday). Now JPs can also do weddings for free but when is the last time an elected official has done something based only on the kindness on his or her own heart (and lets just say that the words "kindness" and "Jean Natale" don't go hand in hand that well).

How can Natale get away with this you ask? Well, because she's an elected official she can basically do whatever she wants as she's not accountable to anyone...THUS THE PROBLEM WITH THE POSITION OF CITY CLERK.

Understand, the City Clerk's office has NOTHING to do with weddings. When one gets married, the marriage certificate is filed in the TOWN CLERK'S department which is on the second floor of City Hal. The City Clerk's office is on the THIRD FLOOR, far away from where people file their wedding certificates. Also, a quick look at the JP listing on the City's website shows that Natale's name is FAR, FAR down on the list. That being the case, how is that Natale is one of the top ranked wedding performing JPs in the area?

Based on these factors, a case can be made that Natale is actively soliciting work
as Justice of the Peace during City Hall business hours when she should be doing her job the PEOPLE elected her to do!

Time and time again, Natale has exposed the very problem with the office of City Clerk that has been talked about for at least the last 20 years. In performing more weddings than almost any other JP in the area (I'm in the process of posting a outline that where Natale ranks among JPs in the area), she has abused the position to a point where the public should be outraged enough that they demand Natale to give an explanation for her abusive and arrogant actions. If you or I ever did anything like this at work, we'd BE FIRED.

For more cases of Natale's bad habits, please look at my special report on the case for eliminating the position of City Clerk and public censuring of Jean Natale.

DEVELOPING...

(* NOTE: This is part one of a multi-part series on the incompetence of City Clerk Jean Natale).

Galante's lawyer tells the story


Time: 8:54 AM

Here's why the politicians who were subpoenaed in the Galante trial are breathing a sigh of relief (for now).
"There are a lot of people, including some prominent people, who are breathing easier today because Mr. Galante has disposed of this case," Galante lawyer Hugh Keefe said at the conclusion of the plea hearing Monday in state Superior Court.

Keefe declined to elaborate, but political sources said that Galante had created anxiety when his lawyers served subpoenas notifying more than a dozen candidates, lobbyists and donors that they faced the possibility of being grilled as defense witnesses.

Among those receiving subpoenas, the sources said, were Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, state senator and Republican congressional candidate David Cappiello, ex-state Sen. Louis DeLuca and lobbyists Joseph Walkovich and Patrick Sullivan.

Prosecutors said they could prove that Galante used straw donors in 2002 to exceed contribution limits to political action committees run by Cappiello, DeLuca and Boughton.

The prosecutors said that Galante used friends, employees and associates of employees to deliver about $40,000 in contributions to the committees. Campaign finance laws limit the amount that any one person can give a political action committee to $1,000 a year.

Let's take a look at what Cappiello did once questioned by the FBI.
State prosecutor Christopher Alexy said in court Monday that Cappiello and Galante first discussed a contribution in the summer of 2002. That fall, Alexy said that Galante gave $15,000 to an employee with instructions to break it into 15 separate $1,000 donations to Cappiello's political action committee.

Alexy said that Cappiello initially did not tell the whole story when questioned by FBI agents about the discussions that led to the contribution. He later clarified the sequence of conversations that resulted in the contribution, Alexy said.

Food for thought...

Cat caught Cappiello's tongue


Time: 7:34 AM

The person also in the center of the James Galante illegal campaign contribution trial, David Cappiello, apparently was too afraid to answer questions from reporters about his connections to the trash-mobster.
A call to Cappiello on Monday was returned by Adam Bauer, a spokesman for his campaign for the 5th District congressional seat currently held by Democrat Chris Murphy.

"David's happy that justice has been served," Bauer said of Galante's plea.

Cappiello throwing out his surrogate to the wolves to read a short statement isn't going to cut it. Out of all the charges against Galante, he plead "no contest" to the charge against of making illegal bundled campaign contributions TO CAPPIELLO.

For those not in the know, here's a timeline that shows how closely Cappiello (and former State Senator Lou DeLuca) were connected to Galante.

  • 2007 -- After a story broke about his PAC receiving Galante money, Cappiello lied about when he donated the money to charity. (Hartford Courant, October 13, 2007) (Associated Press State & Local Wire, October 12, 2007) (FEC.gov)

  • 2007 -- Cappiello was Against New Plans to Regulate Refuse Industry. After Galante's indictment, Cappiello opposed proposals for licensing trash haulers. (Danbury News-Times, June 12, 2007)
  • 2005 -- Cappiello and DeLuca were two of just three senators to oppose a bill to expand the state's bottle bill by also letting water bottles be redeemed for deposit. A massive lobbying effort then killed the bill in the House, led by Sullivan & LeShane. While they represented the beverage industry, they were also representing Galante companies, and this bill would have hurt his bottom line by reducing municipal reliance upon curbside recycling. Sullivan & LeShane have boasted how they have defeated this expansion of the bottle bill, beginning in 1999. (Connecticut Common Cause, September 27, 2005)

  • 2004 -- Cappiello Voted Against Reforming "Evergreen" Contracts. One of the abusive features of Galante's company contracts were "evergreen" clauses, which he used in Connecticut even after such contracts had been outlawed in Westchester and New York City. In 2004, Cappiello voted in Judiciary Committee against SB 399, "An Act Concerning... Automatic Renewal of Consumer Contracts." (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2004/jfr/s/2004SB-00399-R00JUD-JFR.htm) (New York Times, August 12, 2001)
  • 2002 -- Cappiello solicited James Galante to contribute $100,000 at a Red Cross Fundraiser that raised $117,000. Cappiello and DeLuca repeatedly worked together in soliciting and honoring Galante; both were members of the "Italian-American Legislative Caucus."

  • 2002 -- Cappiello took $15,000 in illegally funneled money from Galante for his State Senate PAC. Cappiello spent $202 at Danbury wine & liquor to thank Galante with "bottles of wine or champagne" (Hartford Courant, October 12, 2007) (Politico.com, November 5, 2007) (Hartford Courant, October 12, 2007)

  • 2002 -- Italian American Legialtive Caucus, of which Cappiello is Treasurer, gives Galante its highest award. The ceremony was held in a room off the legislative chambers, just over two years after Galante had served time in Prison for tax evasion. (Danbury News-Times, 3/29/02) (Hartford Courant, 9/19/99)

Cappiello can't hide from his past and should be called by the press to answer questions about his relationship with Galante and throwing out his surrogate isn't going to cut it. Unlike Mark Boughton, as a State Senator, David Cappiello was in a unique position to help Galante's trash empire and the timeline suggest the possibility that Cappiello and DeLuca did just that.

To this date, Cappiello hasn't talked about his relationship with DeLuca, the instances in the timeline, and whether or not mislead people in terns of when he gave the tainted Galante donations to charity.

Speaking of questions, while Cappiello dodges questions on Galante, in this current economic environment, where foreclosures are happening right and left, maybe Cappiello (a MORTGAGE BROKER) could talk about his ties to First Magnus Corp (a.k.a. Charter Funding) and whether or not he signed off on any bad loans for that company.
Charter Funding, it turns out, is a business name of a secretive Tuscon, Arizona-based subprime lendor, First Magnus Corp. First Magnus is a privately-held lendor that operates around the country under literally dozens of different names, often within the same state. It is a registered foreign-owned corporation, but I'm not sure who its shareholders are.

In any event, First Magnus mortgage shops are franchised out to people like Cappiello (who can apply for franchises and broker licenses online), who then market mortgages (again, mainly subprime) typically to people who have no business getting mortgages.

A number of franchisees have been prosecuted for fraud.

On August 21, First Magnus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and posted the following on its website.
In light of the collapse of the secondary mortgage market, First Magnus will not fund any future mortgage loans, and is no longer accepting any mortgage loan applications or funding any mortgage loans previously originated and not yet funded. We explored all options before taking this action but were left with no viable alternative.

First Magnus values the relationships we have formed with all of our broker partners over the years and appreciate the trust you have shown in us. We are saddened that we will no longer have the opportunity to work with you.
For information about loans already submitted to First Magnus, please contact us at 520.618.9000 or call our toll-free hotline number: 1.866.901.7655.

My question: how many of these bad loans were written by Sen. Cappiello?

How many people have lost their homes because of shady ARMs he handed out?

More importantly... were any of the loans issued under predatory or fraudulent circumstances?

Is Blumenthal's office investigating Chater / First Magnus? Is Cappiello out of work?

It's not every day that a major mortgage lender collapses, and it's not every day that a major mortgage lender employing a major congressional candidate collapses.

...oh I forgot, a cat caught Cappiello's tongue.

FLASHBACK: Boughton's ticking time bomb

Monday, September 29, 2008
Time: 10:24 PM

As more people contact me about Mark Boughton's role in the Galante case, in an effort to make things easier, here's a flashback post I did on media accounts that outlines the deals the mayor did with Galante over the years.

Please call and/or email the media and ask them to further investigate the other contributions made to Boughton made back in Jan 2003 by associates of Galante, which mirrors the contributions at the center of the illegal campaign contribution case.

Hartford Courant
Staff writer Edmund Mahony:
Phone: 860.241.6532
Email: emahony@courant.com

Danbury News-Times
Political staff writer Dirk Perrefort
Phone: 203.731.3358
Email: dperrefort@newstimes.com

Fairfield Weekly:
Interm editor Nick Keppler
Phone: (203) 382-9666
Email: nkeppler@fairfieldweekly.com

WTNH:
New Haven Newsroom: 203.784.8801
Email: news8@wtnh.com

FOX61:
Leave a comment on their "Contact News at Ten" form.





UPDATED WITH MORE GOODIES, 5:45 P.M.

A ticking timebomb years in the making is about to explode.

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.


That was then...this is now.
Danbury garbage executive James Galante turned himself in to the state police Friday morning to face charges of making nearly $40,000 in illegal campaign contributions, as a third political figure acknowledged being the recipient of $8,000 in questionable money.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, a Republican, said Friday that one of his political action committees received money from Galante in 2003 that was disguised through third-party, or "straw" donors. Sources familiar with the campaign finance case said this week that Boughton got the money in October 2003.

[...]

As Danbury's mayor, Boughton has worked closely with Galante, whose network of trash-related businesses is a major presence in the city. In particular, the Boughton administration worked with Galante on issues related to the rehabilitation of a city ice rink where Galante's minor league professional hockey team, the Danbury Trashers, played. Boughton dismissed local critics who said the city bent rules to rush approval of an occupancy permit for the rink. Boughton also said he is not close to Galante socially.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

FLASHBACK: The Fairfield Weekly is connecting the dots


Time: 7:29 PM

As a means to inform the public regarding the connection between James Galante and Mark Boughton, here's a post I did back in October 2007 which, to my knowledge, is the only article to date that highlighted other questionable contributions from associates of James Galante to the mayor.

Please call and/or email the media and ask them to further investigate the other contributions made to Boughton made back in Jan 2003 by associates of Galante, which mirrors the contributions at the center of the illegal campaign contribution case.

Hartford Courant
Staff writer Edmund Mahony:
Phone: 860.241.6532
Email: emahony@courant.com

Danbury News-Times
Political staff writer Dirk Perrefort
Phone: 203.731.3358
Email: dperrefort@newstimes.com

Fairfield Weekly:
Interm editor Nick Keppler
Phone: (203) 382-9666
Email: nkeppler@fairfieldweekly.com

WTNH:
New Haven Newsroom: 203.784.8801
Email: news8@wtnh.com

FOX61:
Leave a comment on their "Contact News at Ten" form.





...the last honest man in Danbury.

Isn't it amazing how a little local blog's coverage of the mayor's dishonesty can grab the attention of the ENTIRE mainstream media.

In what will be the a long list of articles on Mr. People over Politics ties to the mob, The Fairfield Weekly delivers what has to be the most damaging story on Mayor Mark's illegal contributions, as well as an analysis of Boughton's LIES excuses.

No wonder you can't seem to find a copy of the Weekly on Main Street anymore...
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.
I think this reporter can hear the timebomb tick also...watch as he slices Boughton's twisted logic to shreds.
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.)

Remember how I talked about the mainstream media reading this site...
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.
As for Mayor Mark, he's still peddling the same lame excuse that no one is buying.
"We get thousands of checks from thousands of people and we just wouldn't have any way of knowing something like that is happening."

So Mark wants the voters of Danbury (all of whom have long accused him of having ties to Galante) to believe that eight 1,000 donations coming within days of each other ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS didn't seem the least bit strange.

to be continued...

The story Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton DOESN'T want to talk about


Time: 4:56 PM

My inbox and phone has been flooded with messages about what happened today at the James Galante trial.

As someone who has followed this case for the last year, I find it rather outrageous that Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton can continue to get away stating that he had NO IDEA about the illegal campaign donations made by Galante. In fact, after taking a look at Boughton's campaign finance records, it appears that Danbury's mayor received more illegal campaign contributions from Galante than what's being reported.

To give everyone a CLEAR idea what's going on and why Boughton's remarks makes NO SENSE, lets turn back the clock and review a post I did last year which connected the dots between Galante and Boughton.

Take my hand as I lead you down the money trail...


From The Hartford Courant dated 10.12.07

Indicted Danbury garbage executive James Galante was arrested Friday on charges related to making nearly $40,000 in illegal campaign contributions to state Senators Louis DeLuca and David Cappiello, as well as Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.


[...]


In cases of bundled donations, individual contributors typically exceed the legal $1,000 contribution limit by passing money through third parties. In Galante's case, he is accused of contributing $15,000 each to DeLuca and Cappiello in 2002 and $8,000 to Boughton in 2003. People familiar with the case said he passed the money in $1,000 increments through employees of his various trash businesses, their family members or their friends.


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.



You can view the People over Politics PAC, which has the contributions in question by clicking here.  As you read the report, there are only eight people who gave the maximum 1,000 dollars. Lets take a look at those names, as well as the record date of the contributions:

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


Coincidence?


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.

Coincidence...


Follow the money trail and help me see how far this rabbit hole goes.


By doing a simple check of Boughton's campaign finance records and comparing it with the names involved in the illegal campaign donations, there is a strong case to be made that there was more than one illegal donation made by associates of Galante to Boughton. If I can find these connections between Galante and Boughton (which were verified by the Fairfield Weekly), shouldn't someone in the mainstream media question Boughton about this matter?

Please call and/or email the media and ask them to further investigate the other contributions made to Boughton by associates of Galante.

Hartford Courant
Staff writer Edmund Mahony:
Phone: 860.241.6532
Email: emahony@courant.com

Danbury News-Times
Political staff writer Dirk Perrefort
Phone: 203.731.3358
Email: dperrefort@newstimes.com

Fairfield Weekly:
Interm editor Nick Keppler
Phone: (203) 382-9666
Email: nkeppler@fairfieldweekly.com

WTNH:
New Haven Newsroom: 203.784.8801
Email: news8@wtnh.com

FOX61:
Leave a comment on their "Contact News at Ten" form.

The Galante-Boughton trial begins


Time: 11:01 AM

The day has come...
Jury selection is expected to begin today in the case against trash czar James Galante on state elections charges -- unless a plea deal can be reached with prosecutors.

Hugh Keefe, the lawyer representing Galante, said they are expected to begin selecting jurors in the case today in Hartford Superior Court.

But "there is always the possibility of a deal being reached," he added.

Galante was arrested in October on campaign finance fraud charges for alledgedly contributing nearly $40,000 to three politicians through the use of "straw donors."

The practice of using a straw donor involves reimbursing friends, relatives or co-workers for contributions they made to a candidate's campaign to get around maximum donation laws.

Galante was charged with three counts each of illegal contributions to a political committee and engaging in corrupt practices, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Politicians who received the donations in question were state Sen. David Cappiello, Mayor Mark Boughton and former state Sen. Louis DeLuca. All three politicians have denied any knowledge that the donations were made through straw donors.

Keefe issued 15 subpoenas in the case last month. He said Friday that if a plea deal is not reached and the trial proceeds, he expects to call those subpoenaed as witnesses in the case.

And just who did Keefe subpoena...

Although Keefe declined to comment on who he might call to testify, both Cheryl Reedy, the executive director of the Housatonic Resource Recovery Authority, and Boughton confirmed receiving subpoenas in the case.


Why is calling Boughton important in this trial? Well, because I personally went through every single one of Boughton's election finance statements and as I AND THE FAIRFIELD WEEKLY REPORTED, unlike the other elected officials, when it comes to Boughton, there is a pattern of alleged bundled campaign donations that goes beyond the particular one in question.

Lets turn back the clock...
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.

It's simple. Mark Boughton, if called to the stand, will have to explain himself UNDER OATH and trust me folks...he's in trouble if this case goes to trial.

Here's the deal:

1. Boughton has a history of LYING. Remember, he lied about the Danbury PD not being involved in the Danbury 11 case.

2. Boughton, when confronted be Helena Abrantes during the 2007 mayoral forum, refused to comment about Danbury's role in the Danbury 11 case.

3. A quick look at Mayor Boughton's records clearly show that the the same people who allegedly bundled donations to the mayor's campaign did the same thing back in January of that same year.

4. Boughton stated several times in the press that he NEVER SOCIALIZED WITH JAMES GALANTE. For those who went to a Danbury Trashers game and talked to me...this is a LIE. Several times did people SEE JAMES GALANTE, MARK BOUGHTON in the box section at the game.

If called to testify, Mark Boughton is going to be UNDER OATH...and at that point, all bets are off.

...trust me folks, if I unearthed the Boughton-Galante connection, you can trust that the STATE ATTORNEY OFFICE has the same info AND they will go right after Boughton REALLY hard for statements he has made in the past.

Boughton is in trouble folks if this case goes to trial...and those in the know are fully aware of this.

UPDATE: Boughton is SO, SO, SO lucky...but Cappiello is screwed.
Danbury trash company executive James Galante pleaded no contest in state Superior Court this morning to one count of violating state elections laws by making an illegal cash contribution to a political action committee.

Although Galante's plea indicated he was not admitting guilt,he was found guilty. Under the terms of a plea agreement with state and federal prosecutors, he was given a one year sentence to be served concurrently with a 7 year and three month racketeering sentence he received in federal court earlier this month.

[...]

Prosecutors said in state court Monday morning that, had Galante chosen to go to trial on the election law case, they were prepared to prove that he used straw donors in 2002 to violate contribution limits to political action committees run by State Sen. David Cappiello, former State Sen. Louis DeLuca and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.

Prosecutors said Galante used friends, relatives and employees to funnel about $40,000 in contributions to the committees.

Under his plea agreement with prosecutors, Galante pleaded only to the charge involving Cappiello, who is now running for Congress as a Republican in Connecticut's 5th District.

If this case would have gone to trial, Boughton would have been placed on the hot seat. In the end, the state attorney's office had their cross hairs on Galante and NOT Boughton (at this time). Regardless of the outcome of the trail, there is clearly a connection between Boughton and Galante that goes back years...unfortunately, at this time, Boughton not be placed under oath to talk about that connection.

What's REALLY ugly is what Galante DID plead to, which is MUCH uglier than anything the so-called mobster did with Boughton...his connection to David Cappiello.

DEVELOPING...

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10.30.20 (HatCityBLOG VID): Charter School discussion during 2020 interview with Julie Kushner

2018 (RADIO): WLAD
"State Board of Ed signs off on Danbury charter school proposal"

08.20 (VID): CT-LEAD
"Stand up for Education Justice" Rally

08.20.20 (OP-ED): KUSHNER: "Charter schools are not ‘magic bullet’ to improving Danbury schools"

09.13.20 (OP-ED): CHAPMAN
Candidate for state Senate supports charter school for Danbury

01.15.21 (VID): CT-LEAD
Danbury Prospect Charter School press conference

03.19.21 (OP-ED): CT MIRROR
"Danbury leaders do not want a charter school"

04.01.21 (OP-ED): CT-LEAD:
"Why did Sen. Kushner vote against us?"

05.06.21 (VID): Danbury rally to fully fund public schools

10.07.21 (VID): Danbury City-Wide PTO "Meet the Candidates" education forum

10.07.21 NEWSTIMES
Danbury candidates quarrel over charter school, education funding

01.10.22 NEWSTIMES
"New operator named for Danbury charter school: ‘I’m a huge advocate for parent choice’"

01.10.22 NEWSTIMES
"Some Danbury Democrats ‘open minded’ about charter school after new, CT operator named"

01.21.22 (OP-ED): CT MIRROR
"Lessons from Danbury: Ending the dual process for charter school approval"

02.09.22 NEWSTIMES
"Proposed Danbury charter school won’t open in 2022, governor leaves funding out of budget"

02.18.22 NEWSTIMES:
Danbury residents plead for charter school funds in 9-hour state budget hearing: ‘Just exhausted’

03.05.22 (LTE):
Time has come for Danbury charter school

03.12.22 (OP-ED): TAYLOR
"Why I am excited about the Danbury Charter School"

03.16.22 (LTE):
"Why a Danbury Charter School?"

04.02.22 CT EXAMINER:
"Crowding and a Lack of Options for Danbury Students, But No Agreement on Solutions"

04.04.22 (OP-ED): DCS
"Danbury Charter School plans debut"

04.07.22 (PODCAST): (CEA)
"SENATOR KUSHNER DISCUSSES POINTS OF OPTIMISM FOR DANBURY PUBLIC SCHOOLS"

04.18.22 (VID): CT-LEAD
Protest press conference

04.25.22 (RADIO): WSHU
Latino group call on Connecticut lawmakers to open a Danbury charter school

06.03.22 (OP-ED): KUSHNER:
"Career Academy ‘a great deal for Danbury"

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On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.

The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.

Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.

Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.

CLICK HERE TO READ/DOWNLOAD MAYOR BOUGHTON'S DEPOSITION

CLICK HERE TO READ/DOWNLOAD MIKE McLACHLAN (then MAYOR CHIEF OF STAFF) DEPOSITION

Danbury Area Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants v.
U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security
3:06-cv-01992-RNC ( D. Conn. )

(02.25.08) Court docket

(10.24.07) Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant's Emergency Motion for Protective Order

(09.26.07) Press Release

(12.14.06) Complaint


Barrera v. Boughton, No. 07-01436
(D. Conn. filed Sept. 26, 2007)

(02.25.08) Court Docket

Amended complaint

Defendants' Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Defendants' Motion to Dismiss State Law Claims

Plaintiffs' Opposition to Motion to Dismiss

Order on Motion to Dismiss

Defendants' Answer to Amended Complaint

NEW HAVEN REGISTER: Immigrant's 2006 arrest was flawed Danbury mayor testifies

(10.05.07 (VIDEO) Boughton mislead the public about Danbury's involvement in raid

(09.18.07) Yale Law Students expose Danbury involvement in raid

(12.14.06) VIDEO: Interview with Yale Law Students at FOI presser

(12.14.06) VIDEO: Danbury 11 FOI complaint media roundup

City Clerk Jean Natale standing next to skinhead sparks outrage

(10.03.06) VIDEO: Danbury 11 rally

(09.29.06) VIDEO: Danbury 11 case deepens

Word of raid spread across the country

(09/29/06) VIDEO: Danbury 11 protest news conference

(09/29/06) Immigrant newspaper "El Canillita" gives best account of ICE day labor raid at Kennedy Park


trans_button Santos Family Story
VIDEO: Tereza Pereira's ordeal with ICE agents

VIDEO: Danbury Peace Coalition Immigration Forum (April 2006)
featuring Mayor Boughton and Immigration attorney Philip Berns

VIDEO: 2007 Stop the Raids immigration forum at WCSU

2007: Community protest anti-immigration forum

A tribute to Hispanic Center Director and immigrant activist Maria Cinta Lowe

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2023 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

Results:
11.15.23 Recanvass return
(Head Moderator Return Format)

11.07.23: Election night returns
(Head Moderator Return Format)

11.07.23: Initial returns


ESPOSITO FINANCE REPORTS:
Oct 10 2022
Jan 10 2023
Apr 10 2023
Jul 10 2023
Oct 10 2023

ALVES FINANCE REPORTS:
Apr 10 2023
Jul 10 2023
Oct 10 2023

CAMPAIGN SLATE DATABASE
Dem/GOP slate/ballot position

VIDEO: DRTC convention
VIDEO: DDTC conveniton


2021 (ALVES/ESPOSITO)

TOWN COMMITTEES
(VID) DDTC nomination convention
(PDF) DDTC campaign slate flyer

(VID) DRTC nomination convention
(PDF) DRTC campaign slate flyer

FORUMS/DEBATES
(VID) 2021 Danbury City-Wide PTO educational forum

CAMPAIGN FINANCE
First quarter
Alves Apr 10th SEEC filing

Second quarter
Alves Jul 10th SEEC filing
Esposito Jul 10th SEEC filing

Third quarter
Alves Oct 12th SEEC report
Esposito Oct 12th SEEC report

CAMPAIGN MAILERS
Alves "Jan 6th" attack mailer 10.21.21
Esposito "you can't trust Alves" attack mailer 10.20.21
Alves mailer 10.20.21
Alves mailer 09.30.21
Esposito mailer 09.28.21
Alves mailer 09.27.21
Esposito mailer 09.27.21


PAST CAMPAIGN COVERAGE

2005 (BOUGHTON/ESPOSITO)
Danbury 2005 election results
Newstimes Dean Esposito profile (10.25.05)

2007 (BOUGHTON/ABRANTES)
Danbury 2007 election results
(VID) Helana Abrantes TV ad
(VID) BRT tax deferral presser
(VID) Helena Abrantes "Community Forum" interview

2009 (BOUGHTON/GONCALVES)
Danbury 2009 election results
(VID) 2009 Danbury City-Wide PTO educational forum
(VID) 2009 Danbury Chamber of Commerce mayoral debate
(VID) 2009 DDTC nomination convention

2011 (BOUGHTON/TABORSAK)
Danbury 2011 election results
(VID) Saadi/Nero campaign kickoff

2013 (BOUGHTON/NO DTC ENDORSED CANDIDATE/MCALLISTER)
Danbury 2013 election results
(VID) 2013 DDTC nominaiton convention

2015 (BOUGHTON UNCHALLENGED)
Danbury 2015 election results

2017 (BOUGHTON/ALMEIDA)
Danbury 2017 election results
(VID) Al Almeida concession speech
(VID) 2017 Danbury City-Wide PTO educational forum
(VID) Al Almeida nomination acceptance speech

2019 (BOUGHTON/SETARO)
Danbury 2019 election results
(VID) 2019 NewsTimes Editorial Board interview with Mark Boughton and Chris Setaro
(VID) 2019 Danbury City-Wide PTO educational forum
(VID) 2019 Danbury Chamber of Commerce mayoral debate
(VID) 2019 convention endorsement speeches from Mark Boughton and Chris Setaro