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.