Author: Jon Lender

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon’s answers last year on an official questionnaire about her background have been blasted by a spokesman for her opponent for the GOP’s nomination, former U.S. Rob Simmons, as a continuation of “her troubling habit of dishonesty.”

“When average people are asked to complete a job application they understand they are expected to give honest and complete answers. Just because some of McMahon’s scandals have been front page news does not give her license to lie about them,” said Simmons campaign manager Jim Barnett.

In addition to Barnett’s statement, the Simmons campaign put out a press release Monday morning headlined: “McMahon lied on State Board of Education background questionnaire.”

A McMahon spokesman said Monday that the campaign would not respond to the Simmons camp’s statements.

Barnett’s statement came in reaction to Sunday’s Government Watch column in The Courant, which can be read by clicking here.

Sunday’s Government Watch column said that on a questionnaire that McMahon filled out for Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s office in January of 2009 — when the governor was poised to nominate her to the State Board of Education — McMahon answered “no” to five questions when it appears the answer should, or arguably should, have been “yes.” McMahon also said she had a bachelor’s degree in education  when it was really in French.

McMahon, until recently the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, told the Courant last week she had already clarified the discrepancy about her degree, and had answered the other background questions “no” under the assumption that everyone already knew of her activities with WWE and its past controversies.

 Here is the rest of Barnett’s statement:
 
“On the very few occasions during this campaign where she has actually answered questions about her record, she has continued her troubling habit of dishonesty, but as in this case, eventually the truth will catch up with her.

“This is precisely why Democrats have said that McMahon’s record makes her unelectable in a general election even against Chris Dodd who was politically crippled by his own problems with the truth. Fortunately, Republicans have a choice in Rob Simmons whose distinguished and honorable career of service is one they can be proud of.”

A court battle may be brewing over the release of the videotape and transcript of Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s sworn testimony in a deposition Wednesday.

Judge Michael Sheldon has scheduled a hearing Tuesday in Superior Court in Hartford on whether five hours’ worth of unusual, videotaped testimony by a top state official will be made public.

As Sheldon makes it increasingly clear that he wants to keep the case from being tried in the media, only a few glimpses are emerging of issues being argued behind closed doors. Here’s one such glimpse: According to a document filed in court, Bysiewicz is the subject of an “ethics complaint … filed by a constituent.” Lawyers would not discuss it.

Bysiewicz, a Democrat, has brought the lawsuit in hopes that Sheldon will declare her eligible to run for attorney general under a state statute that requires the holder of that office to have logged 10 years in the “active practice” of law in Connecticut.

If that statute isn’t declared unconstitutional – which Bysiewicz hopes it will be, via her lawsuit – then she needs the judge to rule that her 11 years as secretary of the state, an office for which you don’t need to be a lawyer, count as the “active practice” of law. She was in private and corporate legal practice for only six years before assuming her current office.

The Courant Thursday filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the office of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal for a written transcript of Wednesday’s deposition and a copy of the video. The office has received a copy of the videotape, as a legal participant in Bysiewicz’s lawsuit.

Blumenthal said Thursday night in an interview that after receiving the Courant’s FOI request, “we alerted the court … and indicated that we were prepared to release the tapes in response to the request.” But Sheldon then “ordered that the tapes be withheld from disclosure and the status quo be preserved until there is a hearing,” Blumenthal said.

Even though the scheduled trial in the case is nearly two weeks off, it already has attracted intense interest from the news media and politicians. Now this new, looming issue over the disclosure or sealing of the videotaped deposition increases its explosive potential.

A deposition is a pre-trial proceeding at which a witness – in this case Bysiewicz, who is also the plaintiff – is questioned under oath by a lawyer who is gathering information in preparation for an eventual trial. On Wednesday, it was lawyer Eliot Gersten, representing the state Republican Party, asking her the questions in the all-day deposition that’s scheduled to resume at Gersten’s Hartford office on Monday.

Both Gersten and Bysiewicz’s lawyer, Wesley W. Horton of Hartford, begged off Thursday and Friday when asked for details, citing Sheldon’s concerns about publicity.

There was a brief post-deposition skirmish in court on Thursday, when Gersten filed a motion to compel disclosure of documents that Bysiewicz apparently had mentioned during Wednesday’s questioning. His request included “any and all documents related to an ethics complaint filed against [Bysiewicz] by a constituent” concerning “similar subject matter” to Bysiewicz’s claims in her lawsuit. Gersten didn’t elaborate, but he did say he hadn’t gotten everything he was looking for.

Bysiewicz is seeking the Democratic nomination to the office that Blumenthal is vacating to run for the U.S. Senate. She had originally set her sights on the party’s gubernatorial nomination, but switched in mid-January to a candidacy for attorney general. Although polls show her as the early front-runner, her effort has been marred by questions of whether she is eligible to run – as well as her highly public and so-far unsuccessful efforts to erase those questions.

There also have been disclosures that her office has maintained a “constituent database” of 36,000 names including details about their political leanings and personal characteristics. Blumenthal’s office is investigating a citizen’s complaint that she has used public resources for political purposes with the database, which she denies.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon submitted her resignation Thursday from the state Board of Education after only a year’s service, saying that a new legal opinion by state elections officials restricts political activities by board members too severely for her to remain on the panel.

McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, said that she regrets having to quit the state board but had to do it because of a new legal opinion by a staff attorney from the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

The March 5 opinion, issued in response to a question from board chairman Allan Taylor, said that members of the panel are considered state “department heads” for the purposes of a state statute limiting political contributions and solicitation of such contributions.

“As a candidate for the U.S. Senate, I frequently support, attend and speak at political events that include fundraising activities,” McMahon wrote to Gov. M. Jodi Rell. “Although the opinion does not preclude a board member from running for public office, it does disallow them from engaging in many of the activities that are necessary to be a successful candidate.”

“The recent revelation of this rule has come as a surprise to me as well as to other members of the board,” she wrote. “Therefore, in order to avoid any violation of this rule or even the appearance of a violation, it is with deep regret that I must immediately resign and relinquish my position on the board.”

McMahon’s nomination by Rell was approved by lawmakers in February 2009 after opposition from some at the Capitol who questioned the violent and sexually provocative content produced by WWE.

“I find the sport to be bordering on the barbaric,” state Sen. Joan Hartley, a Waterbury Democrat who cast the only vote in the Senate against McMahon, said at the time.

Death row inmates have greater privileges than other convicts in the Connecticut prison system — and Monday’s alleged assault on guards by convicted killer Daniel Webb shows why that must stop, a correction officers union official said Thursday.

However, the Department of Correction denied that and said it is reviewing procedures after Monday’s incident for the safety of the prison staff.

The memory of the assault was still fresh Thursday among prison guards and their union representatives as Catherine Osten, president of the correction supervisors’ union, spoke with reporters at the State Capitol.

She said that the personal possessions of inmates on death row at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers are not subjected to as much scrutiny as are those of other prisoners confined outside that unit.

Because of that, Webb was found to have a spray bottle filled with urine and hot sauce in his cell after Monday’s incident, Osten said, adding, “he can buy hot sauce through [the] commissary, and he was going to use that on staff as they walked by his cell — and I’m disgusted with that, quite frankly.”

The lack of scrutiny isn’t in the rules, but that’s how it works in practice, she said.

Osten called for the correction department to limit what death row death row inmates can have in their cells, and to always keep them in restraints — handcuffs, primarily — when they are outside their cells.

Osten spoke a day after a state legislator said that a prison captain assaulted by Webb Monday had been denied a request to shackle Webb before moving him within the unit. The captain’s request to handcuff Webb was denied even though prison authorities had been told by a psychologist that Webb had “aggressive focus on the captain,” state Rep. Karen Jarmoc, D-Enfield, said Wednesday after the union contacted her. Jarmoc wants a legislative hearing on the incident.

Correction department officials have confirmed some details of the attack, but have not identified Webb. He is awaiting execution for the 1989 murder of bank executive Diane Gellenbeck in Hartford. A prison official said that an inmate “sucker-punched” the captain in the face. Webb had threatened the captain before and had been upset over what he and other death row inmates believe is an unfair lack of privileges, Jarmoc said.

Osten, the union president, was at the Capitol to attend a meeting of the Correctional Staff Health and Safety Subcommittee. The subcommittee’s agenda included recent attacks and short-staffing in state Department of Correction facilities — and had been scheduled even before Monday’s assault at Northern gave it added urgency.

“They wouldn’t be on death row unless they had a propensity toward toward violence,” Osten said. “To think that they are going to behave well when they are incarcerated is foolish. ... The department should ... institute the same rules [on death row as] for any other inmate ... and limit what they can have in their cells and ... institute a policy of restraining death row inmates.”

Correction department spokesman Brian Garnett said that Northern is a “Level 5,” maximum-security prison with a “very restrictive environment.” Death row inmates fall under the “same intensive scrutiny” as any other inmate there, he said.

Acting correction Commissioner Brian K. Murphy “is committed to the safety of our staff, and as a result has ordered a full-scale review of the policy and procedures that we utilize on death row,” Garnett said. “Other than that I really can’t comment,” he said, citing an “ongoing criminal investigation regarding the assault.”

Kevin Brace, one of four correction officers who helped the captain subdue Webb on Monday, stood near Osten at the Capitol with his right arm in a sling. He had said Wednesday that Webb is “at least 6-foot-5 and weighs more than 300 pounds. I mean it took more than five of us to restrain him.”

Brace, who is 6-feet-4, said Monday’s incident “was chaos, and [a] melee and a big pile of staff trying to subdue and restrain inmate Webb. I just kind of jumped in the pile, and we were trying get him restrained. ... He was punching, he was kicking, thrashing around. After [he] was restrained, I was escorting him to another cell [with another guard] ... and he started going ‘dead weight.’ And he kept dropping his weight, and dropping his weight, and finally he dropped his weight and I lost my balance and got thrown into a metal door frame. That’s how I injured my shoulder.” Brace is on sick leave and receiving treatment.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz answered questions under oath Wednesday during an all-day, pre-trial deposition in her lawsuit seeking a judge’s declaration that she is eligible to run for state attorney general, lawyers said.

Eliot Gersten, the attorney representing the state Republican Party, questioned Bysiewicz for more than five hours between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., and will continue doing so Monday when the deposition resumes at his Hartford office.

Two video cameras recorded the closed-door “discovery” proceeding. After learning that the Republicans intended to videotape the deposition, Bysiewicz asked to have her own videographer present. Bysiewicz’s lawyer, Wesley Horton, had said his client was concerned that if the Republican Party’s video showed only her — and not also Gersten, as he questioned her — it might result in “a slanted, one-sided picture of her deposition” that could be made public.

Neither Gersten nor Horton would talk after Wednesday’s deposition about specific areas covered. Gersten, in behalf of the GOP, is asking Bysiewicz questions to test her claim that her 11 years of service as secretary of the state count as the practice of law.

Bysiewicz wants a Superior Court judge to uphold that claim, and to issue a ruling that she is eligible under a state statute requiring that Connecticut’s attorney general have logged 10 years’ “active practice” of law in the state. She practiced law only six years in Connecticut before assuming her current office.

In a deposition, sworn testimony is obtained in preparation for an eventual trial — which, in this case, Horton said has been scheduled for April 14 and 15, and perhaps beyond if necessary.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Wednesday that she is nominating Superior Judge Stuart D. Bear of West Hartford to Connecticut’s Appellate Court, to replace retiring Chief Appellate Judge Joseph P. Flynn.

Bear, 65, a Republican, has served since 2003 on the Superior Court bench in Middletown. Bear received his law degree cum laude from Harvard in 1968. He worked previously at Zeldes, Needle & Cooper from 1973 to 2003 and at the New Haven Legal Assistance Foundation from 1968 to 1973.

 “Judge Bear will make an outstanding addition to the Appellate Court,” Governor Rell said in a press release. “His extensive experience as an attorney and his years on our Superior Court bench have given him a depth of knowledge and a strong sense of the law’s role in society – key strengths that will enable him to deal fairly and wisely with the range of issues that come before the appeals court.”

Rell said she looks forward to Bear’s confirmation by the General Assembly.

Flynn notified Governor Rell this month that he intends to take “senior status.” Chief Justice Chase Rodgers appointed Appellate Judge Alexandra D. DiPentima to replace Judge Flynn as head of the Appellate Court.

A state legislator Wednesday called for a legislative hearing to investigate why a prison captain was denied a request to shackle a death row inmate Daniel Webb, before Webb allegedly attacked him while being moved to a cell Monday at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers.

State Rep. Karen Jarmoc, D-Enfield, said that the legislative judiciary committee’s co-chairman, Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, has agreed next week to discuss holding such a hearing.

Jarmoc also said a prison psychologist had told correction officials in an email about his concern regarding an “aggressive focus on the captain” exhibited by Webb, 47, who allegedly assaulted the captain Monday and four others who subdued him.

“This is disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Jarmoc said in a press release. She has served in the past as chairwoman of a task force on safety issues in the state’s prisons.

The state Department of Correction had no immediate response.

Jarmoc said she would want any judiciary committee hearing to focus on Monday’s attack and how, in general, “death row inmates are being managed.”

State Department of Correction officials have confirmed some details of the attack, but have not identified Webb. He is awaiting execution for the murder of bank executive Diane Gellenbeck in Hartford in 1989. A prison spokesman said an inmate “sucker-punched” the captain in the face. Webb had threatened the captain before, and had been upset over what he and other inmates believe is an unfair lack of privileges on death row, an official said, according to Jarmoc’s statement.

Jarmoc’s press aide, Dan Uhlinger, spoke to Kevin Brace, one of four correction officers who responded in the attack. Uhlinger reported in Jarmoc’s release that Brace suffered muscle injuries. He is on sick leave and receiving treatment.

“Thank God the captain wasn’t killed,” Brace was quoted as saying. “Webb is on death row. He’s got nothing to lose. He’s at least than 6-foot-5 and weighs more than 300 pounds. I mean it took more than five of us to restrain him.”

Brace was quoted in the release as saying that the captain, who does not want to be identified out of fear for his family, told him that he wanted to shackle the inmate but was not allowed by prison officials.

“I think sometimes prison officials are afraid of lawsuits or making the inmates angry,” Brace said.

Jarmoc’s release also quoted Catherine Osten, president of the correction union, as saying that minimum staffing requirements of frontline supervisors have been lacking. The state Department of Correction has been “shorting” the lieutenant complement by 30 to 60 percent in several facilities, she said.

“This serious incident could have been prevented if the standard in regard to restraining death row inmates has been supported by DOC administrators,” Osten said.

Osten said the captain told her that Webb had threatened him before and that the request to handcuff Webb from behind was denied by administrators, according to Jarmoc’s release.

Democratic Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz is scheduled to give videotaped testimony Wednesday morning in front of a camera — in a deposition,  under questioning by the state Republican Party’s attorney, as part of the lawsuit that she has filed in hopes that a judge will declare her eligible to run for state attorney general.

But now there apparently will be two cameras: In a  move that the state GOP chairman called “bizarre,” she asked to bring her own professional videographer to train a camera on the GOP’s lawyer who will be questioning her, Eliot Gersten of Hartford.

Bysiewicz’s lawyer, Wesley Horton of Hartford, filed a motion for a “protective order permitting plaintiff to videotape her deposition” Tuesday afternoon, and Gersten did not file an objection. In a deposition, a person gives sworn testimony that can be used in the eventual trial in a case. No trial date has been set in Bysiewicz’s Superior Court lawsuit.

Horton argued in Tuesday’s motion that judges are allowed to permit any measures “which justice requires to protect a party from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression or undue burden of expense. … In this case there is good cause to enter such an order. The videographer for the Connecticut Republic Party, which is taking her deposition, apparently will be focusing solely” on Bysiewicz.

Bysiewicz, he said, “believes that fairer coverage of the deposition would include a videotaping of the questioner as well as [Bysiewicz] so that the viewer can best gauge” her reactions. Horton said that another reason she should be able to bring her own videographer is “the intense public interest in this case and the likelihood that the videotape of her deposition will enter the public realm.”

“A slanted, one-side picture of her deposition, the likely result if the camera shows only the plaintiff, thus has the potential to cause her to suffer ‘annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression’ by presenting her deposition testimony in an inaccurate or unfair manner,” Horton wrote.

State Republican Chairman Chris Healy called Bysiewicz’s request “puzzling” and “just bizarre.”

“This is our deposition,” intended to test her claim that she has enough experience as a lawyer to qualify under a state statute as eligible to run for attorney general, he said   “Now, if she wants to waste her money so that she can have a ‘reverse angle,’ you know, it’s her money – but I think it’s telling: She thinks she’s in control of this thing, and she thinks the normal rules don’t apply for her.”

Healy said that videotaped depositions are “standard operating procedure” these days, and “any lawyer with 10 years’ experience in the active practice of law would know that.”

His last remark was a reference to Bysiewicz’s claim that her 11 years as secretary of the state should count as the “active practice” of law, even though one doesn’t need to be a lawyer to hold the office.

A state statute requires that to serve as Connecticut attorney general, a person must have 10 years’ experience in the “active practice” of law in this state.

Bysiewicz only worked in private legal practice for six years before winning election to her present office, so she has asked a Superior Court judge to declare that her years as secretary of the state count as practicing law. Or, she wants the judge to declare the 10-year requirement unconstitutional.

The deposition, to be held in private, will be at Gersten’s office in Hartford Wednesday morning.

The current attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is not seeking re-election as he runs for the U.S. Senate.  

 

         

Gov. M. Jodi Rell Wednesday nominated Superior Court Judge Dennis G. Eveleigh of Hamden to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Christine S. Vertefeuille — and nominated 10 new judges to fill vacancies on the Superior Court bench.

The nomination of the 10 Superior Court judges sets up a potentially bitter conflict between the governor and key legislators who say that the state doesn’t need the judges — and before they’ll vote to confirm any new ones, the governor must join them in addressing severe funding shortages in the state’s judicial branch.

The two most prominent of the 10 Superior Court nominees are public safety commissioner John Danaher and state budget director Robert Genuario. The others are Republicans Laura Flynn Baldini, Susan A. Connors, and Brian J. Leslie, along with Democrats Susan Q. Cobb, Jane B. Emons, Kathleen McNamara, and David Sheridan. Unaffiliated voter John Carbonneau was also nominated.

The nomination of Eveleigh, 62, to the Supreme Court came quickly after the disclosure Wednesday morning that Vertefeuille will retire and become a senior justice effective June 1, at age 59 after 10 years on the high court. Vertefeuille gave no reason for her decision to step down 11 years shy of the court’s mandatory retirement age.

Eveleigh has served at Waterbury Superior Court since October 1998. He graduated in 1969 from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, and got his law degree from the University of Connecticut in 1972. He worked as an attorney in private practice prior to being nominated to the bench.

“I have every confidence in Judge Eveleigh and I am grateful he is willing to take on the task of serving on our state’s highest court,” Rell said. “I know that Judge Eveleigh possesses these qualities and shares my commitment to openness – and I believe the Legislature will agree.”

The legislature’s judiciary committee co-chairman Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, said he and fellow lawmakers don’t have a problem with filling the Supreme Court vacancy — but the 10 Superior Court nominees are a different story.

He said his committee is obligated to hold hearings and vote favorably or unfavorably on the nominees no later than seven days before the scheduled May 5 adjournment of the legislative session.

But, unless Rell agrees to legislation that relieves severe budgetary problems – which are forcing plans to close courthouses and causing manpower shortages among court marshals who maintain security – Lawlor said he expects that he and the majority of judiciary committee members will vote to give “unfavorable” reports to the full General Assembly regarding confirmation of the Superior Court nominees.

Beyond that, Lawlor said he’s had enough conversations with members of the Democrat-controlled legislator to convince him that none of Rell’s 10 Superior Court nominations would even be acted on by the House or Senate during the current session – no matter whether they are reported out of the committee favorably or unfavorably.

Lawlor said that the 10 nominees seem to be qualified, and he is familiar with some of them personally, but “we can’t afford this.”  Each one would cost the state about $250,000 a year, including salary and benefits, and that $2.5 million should be used for “core” judicial functions such as keeping courthouses open and providing security.

“These nominations will not be confirmed unless the [judicial branch] budget situation is resolved,  in some way,” Lawlor said. “The bottom line is that these nominations will have to wait until we know what the situation is at Judicial.”

He said the governor shouldn’t be exercising her political prerogative to hand out judgeships before addressing the budget crisis in the judicial branch.

“The governor is putting the cart before the horse,” Lawlor said. “Step 1 is address the problems of the judicial branch.” Then, he said, after the judicial branch’s budgetary needs are addressed with legislation that the governor agrees not to block. “Step 2” would be to “find out how many judges they really need.”

Only after those first two steps should the governor have thought of nominating judges, Lawlor said.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont released a statement Wednesday consistent with Lawlor’s view.

“At a time when Connecticut is facing a $3.5 billion budget deficit and more than 170,000 Connecticut residents are unemployed, the last thing our governor should be doing is nominating new people for high-paying state jobs with eight-year terms,” Lamont said. “I’m not questioning the qualifications of these nominees, but I’m very concerned about the timing of their nomination.  As Governor, I’m going to look for every way to make our state run more efficiently, starting at the top, with my own salary, the commissioners, and the middle management.” 

Here is a detailed account of the controversy’s background  from Courant Staff Writer Edmund H. Mahony:

For weeks, judges have been grumbling and some legislators complained aloud about what they suspected was Rell’s plan to reward political allies with as many as a dozen highly sought-after judgeships.

The belief that Rell would exercise her patronage perquisite on the $150,000-a-year positions was  particularly troubling to supporters of the judiciary, who said that the judicial branch is under such sustained attack by administration budget-cutters that it is making plans to close courthouses and forgo a top personnel goal of expanding its thin court security staff.

The governor’s office has been silent, declining to comment about how many judges Rell might nominate, when she might do it and who the candidates were going to be. But despite silence from her office, it had been clear since early last winter that the governor was making arrangements.

Both of the legislature’s Democratic majority’s legislative leaders – state Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams and House Speaker Christopher Donovan – disclosed in January that the governor asked them a month earlier to each recommend two lawyers as candidates for judgeships. Both admitted submitting recommendations, but would not name them.

With the patronage machine working in the back ground, Chief Court Administrator Barbara M. Quinn told the judiciary committee in mid January that “a series of extraordinary, unprecedented and unworkable allotment reductions” imposed on the judiciary by the administration has caused the judicial branch to draw plans to close three courthouses, as well as six of the law libraries on which judges rely to research decisions. 

In addition, with a hiring freeze that began in June 2008, Quinn said the branch needed to fill vacancies among court security officers, juvenile and adult probation officers, juvenile detention staff, court monitors, interpreters and the staff that supports judges in the courtroom.

The governor’s desire to appoint new judges was widely criticized by state judges themselves, many of whom called an addition to their ranks unnecessary and difficult to justify even in good economic times. But apart from Quinn’s legislative testimony, judicial branch administrators were reluctant to speak candidly about new judges or budget talks for fear of angering budget officials in the governor’s office.

Whenever the subject of new judges arises, there is always talk about increasing judicial efficiency. But there is just as much talk of patronage. Governors and legislative leaders have created a rich tradition of rewarding friends and supporters with judgeships – prestigious, safe, good-paying positions with superior benefits. Judges’ terms are eight years, but they normally are renominated and reconfirmed for new terms until mandatory retirement at age 70.  Even after that, they can work as senior judges for $220 a day.

Genuario, Rell’s budget director, and Danaher, the public safety commissioner, Danaher had long been mentioned as potential nominees — and the talk proved true Wednesday with Rell’s announcement.

Quinn has said in recent months that the state judicial branch could use six new judges. But others, Lawlor among them, suggest that the statement was a diplomatic response to Rell’s desire to make new appointments. 

State Supreme Court Justice Christine S. Vertefeuille will retire and become a senior justice effective June 1, at age 59 after 10 years on the high court. She gave no reason for her decision to step down 11 years shy of the court’s mandatory retirement age.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s press office said that the governor would have a statement later Wednesday about her plans as to filling the vacancy on the court. 

“It has been a great honor and privilege for me to hold a seat on this court since January, 2000.  I now look forward to my role as a Senior Justice, continuing to work at the court on a reduced basis,” Vertefeuille wrote Monday to Rell, in a letter released Wednesday.  “I thank you for the confidence you showed in me by renominating me to this court and I extend my best wishes to you for a happy and healthy retirement.” Rell is not seeking re-election this year.

Vertefeuille, a Cheshire Democrat, began as a Superior Court judge in 1989 after the legislature confirmed her nomination by then-Gov. William A. O’Neill. She was nominated to the Supreme Court in late 1999 by then-Gov. John G. Rowland, only three months after he had named her to the state Appellate Court.

At that time, Vertefeuille’s swift rise raised some eyebrows at the state Capitol, in light of her 1994 ruling in Rowland’s favor in a case in which Rowland — then a Republican candidate for governor — sought to keep private a police report on a domestic disturbance involving him and his ex-wife. The Courant had been seeking to unseal the report. Her ruling later was upheld by the Appellate Court.

Although she gained major media attention from that politically charged case, lawyers and officials from both political parties praised Vertefeuille as a first-rate judge over the years. For example, at the time of her Supreme Court nomination, Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven and co-chairman of the legislative judiciary committee, called Vertefeuille “very accomplished, very well-known and very well-regarded.”

A Supreme Court justice makes $162,520 a year. As a senior justice, Vertefeuille can hear Appellate and Supreme Court cases as needed — mostly in Supreme Court cases where a justice has had to disqualify himself or herself — for $220 a day, in addition to her pension.

Columnist Kevin Rennie, who first posted news of Vertefeuille’s retirement on his Daily Ructions blog Wednesday morning, wrote that the justice “is said to have been motivated by the specter of changes in compensation (longevity payments, for example) for judges and also the tensions among justices that have become more vexing in the day-to-day life in the state’s highest court.”

The state’s ethics board Monday approved spending up to $10,000 for an outside attorney to look into three prohibited campaign contributions for $250 that led board Chairman Kenneth Bernhard to resign March 4.

Lawyer Jill Hartley of Hartford, once special counsel to the former State Ethics Commission, will be paid $295 an hour under a personal services agreement approved Monday by the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board in a 5-1 vote. Hartley’s paralegal would make $110 an hour under the agreement that extends to June 30.

Hartley also would recommend the amount of any fine that might be imposed on Bernhard, a former Republican state legislator from Westport.

In looking for an outside lawyer, board members have said they want to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest that might arise if they handled the case of their former colleague themselves.  Riley, the lone dissenter in Monday’s vote, thought it would be better to retain a law professor than a private attorney.

Bernhard, who is a lawyer himself, has said he was unaware that state laws prohibit ethics board members from making campaign contibutions when he made three adding up to $250 in 2008. At the time, he was he was on the board but not yet chairman. The donations included one for $100 to the exploratory campaign committee of Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and two to GOP state legislative candidates, one of them Bernhard’s law partner.

Rell has said that Bernhard “made the appropriate decision” by resigning.

Board members Monday asked that Hartley make a report at their scheduled April 22 meeting.

When Bernhard quit, he said he board’s work would be impeded by the continuing controversy over the contributions. Bernhard has said he expects to be fined for the violations but called them “technical,” “inadvertent,” and “not conduct which can be characterized as unethical.”   

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s controversial, taxpayer-funded office database identifies 2,500 people who served as delegates to Democratic Party nominating conventions in recent years — potentially useful information to Bysiewicz in her candidacy for the Democratic state attorney general’s nomination.

Here is the number of Republican delegates who are identified on Bysiewicz’s database of more than 36,000 names: Zero.

The imbalance in her database was reported in Sunday’s Government Watch column, which can be read by clicking here.

A Democratic rival, and the state GOP chairman both said the disclosure proves that Bysiewicz has used her public office for personal political gain. A Democratic legislative critic said if he ever ordered his staff to prepare such a list at taxpayers’ expense, he would expect to be “led out of my office in handcuffs if someone found it.” 

But Bysiewicz insists that the database — who also was the subject of a Courant story last Tuesday about its “special notes” on the personal characteristics and political connections of citizens — is a nonpartisan document that benefits taxpayers.

Bysiewicz has declined to answer questions in interviews for the past week, and, on Friday, her office issued a statement saying that it would have included data on Republican delegates if it had received such information from the party, but it hadn’t. However, the office produced no document showing it asked the GOP for it.

The database identifies both Democratic and Republican office-holders at the municipal level, as well as local members of Republican and Democratic town committees.

Why, then, does it only identify recent Democratic delegates to state, congressional and national nominating conventions — with whom it makes sense for a candidate seeking the party’s nomination to stay in touch? And why does it ignore recent Republican delegates — who will have no part in whether she wins the Democratic nomination for AG?

Here is the statement issued Friday by Bysiewicz’s deputy secretary of the state, Lesley Mara: “Our office typically receives that information from both the Republican and Democratic parties.  If we don’t have a convention delegate list from the Republican Party, that means we did not receive one.  If we had received such a list we would have entered it into the database.  If we did not ask the Republican Party for its delegate list, it was an oversight on the part of this office.”

Mara also said in the statement: “Of the more than 36,000 people in the contact database, there are currently 16,497 who are not affiliated with any political party.  There are also another 11,574 people affiliated with the Democratic Party and 8,394 affiliated with the Republican Party in the database, which is generally reflective of statewide voter registration statistics in Connecticut.”

Bysiewicz had her campaign committee obtain the database last year from her state office via a Freedom of Information Act request.  The database includes the name of political and government officials, as well as people who have made inquiries with Bysiewicz’s office on subjects such as the areas it supervises — the conduct of elections or registration of businesses.

Bysiewicz’s campaign has been using that database to e-mail solicitations for political support and campaign contributions.  Not everyone likes the fact that a contact with Bysiewicz’s state office results in newsletters and solicitations from her camapiagn committee.  One citizen complained to state election authorities, saying Bysiewicz has used her state office for political purposes.

Bysiewicz denies anything improper was done, saying the database is a public document that she had to turn over to anyone who asked for it. The database was little-known outside of her office — and, until The Courant wrote about its existence and how it was being used last month, only Bysiewicz’s campaign committee had requested it under the Freedom of Information Act.

The citizen complaint now is being investigated by current Attorney General Richard Blumenthal — who will vacate his office after he runs for U.S. Senate this year.

Bysiewicz also is embroiled in a court controversy. A lawsuit, in which she wants a judge to rule that she meets a statutory requirement for the attorney general to have 10 years’ experience in the “active practice” of law in Connecticut, is scheduled to continue this week with its third preliminary hearing.

Former state Sen. William A. DiBella Friday paid the government $796,627 to settle charges that he took a sham fee on a state pension fund deal that he arranged more than a decade ago with convicted former state Treasurer Paul Silvester.

Friday’s payment was put into a federal court account, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will be asking a judge to release the funds to the Connecticut state employees’ pension fund, said Luke T. Cadigan, assistant director of the SEC’s Boston regional office.

After fighting the payment for years, DiBella agreed last month with SEC to make the payment no later than Friday. If he had failed to do so, he would have faced potential contempt sanctions, but Cadigan said Friday: “This takes care of it. There’s no sanction, now that he’s made the payment.”

The SEC case has surrounded DiBella with controversy for years. But it did not prevent him from re-election in January as chairman of the Metropolitan District Commission, the Hartford-based regional water and sewer authority that has begun a $2 billion, decade-long, upgrade of its sewer system.

One of DiBella’s loudest critics, Newington Mayor Jeffrey Wright, now a Republican candidate for his party’s gubernatorial nomination, quit the MDC’s governing board in January to protest DiBella’s re-election.

DiBella has said repeatedly that the SEC’s case — over the fee that Silvester arranged for him to receive from a financial firm that won a lucrative contract to manage state pension funds — is a decade-old “civil matter” and doesn’t concern his ability to lead the water and sewer board.

The SEC case against DiBella was one of several that arose in the late 1990s and involved so-called finder’s fees arranged by Silvester and paid by money managers trying to obtain contracts to invest the billions of dollars that had accumulated in the state employee pension fund. FBI agents and securities regulators called the fees political payments.

DiBella received a $374,500 fee in 1998. The amount he to paid Friday includes the fee, a $110,000 civil fine and nearly 12 years of interest. He was not prosecuted criminally in connection with the fee, but was found liable for securities laws violations by a civil jury in federal court in 2007. The jury concluded that the fee was tainted by a “fraudulent investment scheme.”

Secret FBI reports obtained by The Courant showed that Silvester, a Republican, felt indebted to DiBella because DiBella secretly supported his campaign for treasurer in 1998.

Silvester said he tried to arrange a finder’s fee for DiBella in connection with a pension fund investment that he placed with PaineWebber. When PaineWebber balked at paying DiBella, Silvester had DiBella written in as a finder in an investment with Thayer Capital Partners of Washington, D.C., a private equity firm run by Republican national fundraiser Frederick R. Malek.

FBI records show that DiBella pressed Silvester to increase the amount of the state investment with Malek from $50 million to $75 million, a move that would increase DiBella’s fee.

Eventually, Silvester agreed to the $75 million figure, meaning that DiBella would have received a $525,000 fee.

When Silvester lost the 1998 election, his successor, Denise Nappier, reduced the state’s Thayer investment, reducing DiBella’s fee to $374,500. The SEC pressed DiBella for payment for years. In November, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the financial penalties against DiBella.

A former state public defender has agreed to pay a $3,000 fine under an agreement to settle a complaint against him by the Office of State Ethics — after his previous criminal conviction for taking money meant as restitution for crime victims.

James R. Sward, of Bristol, worked in Bristol Superior Court until August of 2006. He had access to funds paid by criminal defendants that were intended as restitution to crime victims, and diverted it for his personal use, the ethics office said in a statement released Thursday.

Sward pleaded no-contest to larceny in 2007 and received a suspended jail sentence. He lost his job and resigned from the Connecticut state bar. In the end, no crime victims were deprived of restitution funds, the ethics office said.

State ethics laws also prohibit a state employee from using his position to obtain financial gain for himself, and that gave rise to the ethics office’s case against him.

The settlement with Sward was the second in a week to resolve a complaint by the ethics office involving diversion of funds meant for crime victims. The earlier one was against a former prosecutor, who paid a $2,000 fine after having spent nearly a year in jail for a larceny conviction.

Reaction was swift and sharp Wednesday morning to The Courant’s story about politically-oriented “special notes” on people among the 36,000 names listed in Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s office’s “constituent database.”

Bysiewicz immediately drew blasts from Republican State Chairman Chris Healy and her two rivals for the Democratic attorney general’s nomination this year — former state Senate Majority Leader George Jepsen of Stamford and state Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven.

Jepsen said: “This database was used to further her political ambition. This is a misuse of state resources and taxpayer money. She violated the personal privacy of the citizens who approached her office for help — she owes them an apology. She should also give the people on this list an opportunity to remove their information.”

Staples said: “The violation of people’s right to privacy is truly shocking. No one should be concerned when they seek assistance from the state that their personal information will be publicly displayed. This database ought to be deleted before any further invasion of privacy occurs.”

In a statement to the Courant Tuesday, Bysiewicz had denied that the notations were intended for political use.

Healy said: “I am amazed that she can contrive these farcical answers to justify what she is doing. It’s a political intelligence file for her own use, which is being paid for by the taxpayers.”

Jepsen said it was particularly wrong for Bysiewicz to include information about people’s medical conditions in a public document, even though in at least some cases the health status of the individuals was not a secret. “This information may not have been secret,” he said, but it shouldn’t become “part of a public document” in the computer files of an office that has nothing to do with public health.

Jepsen recalled that when Bysiewicz was defending the existence of the database last month — before this latest issue about it arose — she “stressed what a great public document this is, and said it’s freely accessible to the whole world, available to everyone. Then why are you putting people’s medical conditions on a list that you are offering up to the whole world?”

“This is completely inappropriate,” he said. “I’m surprised and disappointed that she shows no contrition for this.”

Meanwhile, Colin McEnroe, in his Courant blog “To Wit,” compared Bysiewicz to oldtime NBC network sports broadcaster Curt Gowdy. Referring to Gowdy as “the master of the possibly irrelevant personal detail,” McEnroe said: “It now turns out that Susan Bysiewicz has been keeping little Gowdyisms on all of us.”

And Kevin Rennie, in his Daily Ructions blog, criticized Bysiewicz’s database, saying: “It includes mentions of people’s health, political connections, and even ideological leanings.  What this has to do with being the ‘managing partner’ of the office, as she has described her job, will require a better explanation than she provided in today’s [Courant] story. … The campaign will get rougher for the candidate who’s known more for her ambition than her achievements.”

 

Today will bring the second court hearing in Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s lawsuit to try to convince a judge that she is qualified to run for state attorney general — and the day began with the disclosure that her office’s 36,000-name constituent database contains notations about many people’s personal characteristics and political connections.

The Courant’s story about the political character of her database can be read by clicking here.

Bysiewicz denied Tuesday that political advancement is the motive behind what are labeled as “special notes” in the database. the political-sounding notes are attached

The notations include references to certain Democratic politicians being “influenced” by other named political figures. There are even five mentions of local Democratic Party officials or lawyers who are said to be aligned with George Jepsen, the former state Senate majority leader from Stamford who is one of Bysiewicz’s rivals for this year’s Democratic nomination for attorney general.

Two of them are listed in the “special notes” as “Friend of Jepsen.” Another “likes Jepsen.” Another “loves George Jepsen.” And still another “went to Harvard Law with Jepsen.” 

The two “Friend[s] of Jepsen” were listed as: John A. Davis of Glastonbury, described in the “special note” as a “moderate” also tied to U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District; and lawyer and local Democratic activist Mark Favrow of Lebanon.

The notes say that lawyer Barbara Pearce of Guilford went to Harvard Law School with Jepsen, that former New Canaan councilwoman Ruth Smithers “loves George Jepsen,” and that lawyer and local Democratic party official Carl Anderson of Voluntown “likes Jepsen.”

Today’s court hearing, scheduled for 2 p.m. in Superior Court on Washington Street in Hartford, is listed as another prelimiinary “status conference” to deal with scheduling matters, as the first hearing did last Friday. Only lawyers have appeared in coourt so far, not parties to the case such as Bysiewicz herself.

No date has been mentioned for the first evidentiary hearing in the case. At such a hearing, Judge Michael Sheldon would be presented with evidence and testimony as to whether Bysiewicz qualifies to run for attorney general under a state statute establishing standards for eligibility. The statute requires the holder of that office to have accumulated 10 years’ experience in the “active practice” of law in Connecticut.

In the lawsuit — filed against the state Democratic Party and its chairwoman, as well as against the Secretary of the State’s office — Bysiewicz wants Sheldon to either declare her eligible under that statute, or to declare that statute unconstitutional.  She is being given “expedited consideration” in the court case because she wants the question resolved before the Democrats’ nominating convention May 21 and 22.

Bysiewicz faces the prospect of being cross-examined at some future evidentiary hearing by the state Republican Party’s lawyer, Eliot Gersten, about how she has spent her days during her 11 years as secretary of the state.

The potential problems for her not just in the courtroom, but also in the political arena. An early poll shosed her as the front-runner for the attorney general’s nomination. But her prospects could be affected by the continuing controversy that has followed her candidacy since she abandoned her run for governor in January and set her sights on the attorney general’s office. The incumbent attorney general, Democrat Richard Blumenthal, is running for the U.S. Senate.

 

  

A former state prosecutor, who was convicted of larceny and jailed in 2008 for stealing more than $50,000 in funds intended for crime victims and charities, now has agreed to pay a $2,000 fine under an agreement to settle a complaint against him by the Office of State Ethics.

L. Mark Hurley of Shelton has paid the first $1,000 of the fine and has 60 days to pay the rest, the ethics office announced Monday. He violated state ethics laws by “using his access to funds paid by criminal defendants for his own personal use,” the ethics office said.

The ethics complaint was a follow-up to a 2008 criminal case that led Hurley, a former prosecutor in the Milford Superior Court, to serve about 11 months in jail. The 20-year prosecutor was charged in April of 2008 with first-degree larceny and second-degree forgery, and later pled no-contest to the charges.

In his prosecutor’s position, Hurley had access to funds paid by defendants in crimiinal and motor vehicles cases who were ordered by the court to provide restitution to victims or make charitable donations. Authorities said that he stole $55,367 intended for those purposes, as well as $28,900 from the state prosecutors’ union, of which he had been treasurer.

His lawyer at the time said Hurley was a “pathological gambler.”

In addition to being jailed. Hurley lost his law license. Since his release he has been working as a paralegal, said his lawyer, Edmund Q. Collier of Milford.

State ethics laws seek to “prevent public officials from using their positions for personal, financial gain,” said ethics office director Carol Carson. “State employees must have an acute awareness that public office is for the public’s benefit, not their personal benefit.”

  

Superior Court Judge Michael Sheldon said Friday that he’s giving “expedited consideration” to Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s lawsuit over whether she meets the state’s statutory requirement to run for Connecticut attorney general — in hopes of a ruling in time for the Democrats’ nominating convention May 21 and 22.

Sheldon tended to scheduling matters at a hearing in Superior Court in Hartford as he conferred with lawyers for Bysiewicz, the state attorney general’s office, and the state Republican and Democratic parties.

Bysiewicz’s lawyers, Wesley Horton and Daniel Krisch, said that by Monday they would produce a folder of documents for the court and other attorneys. The documents will be part of the evidence with which they will try to prove Bysiewicz’s claim that her 11 years as secretary of the state count as the “active practice” of law, even though a person doesn’t need to be a lawyer to hold the office.

Proving that point is critical to Bysiewicz’s hopes, because a state statute says that the attorney general needs 10 years’ experience in the “active practice” of law in Connecticut.

Critics including the state GOP note that Bysiewicz had only six years in private law practice in Connecticut before assuming her current office in 1999 — and they doubt that serving as secretary of the state, an office that supervises elections and the business registrations, is the practice of law.

To counter those doubts, Bysiewicz filed a lawsuit last month seeking a judge’s “declaratory ruling” that she qualifies under the 10-year statute. If that fails, she wants the judge to declare the 10-year requirement unconstitutional.

Bysiewicz’s lawyers said the documents in the file to be handed in Monday include a response from her to a person who wrote a letter saying she should provide the racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds of candidates. In the response, they said, Bysiewicz explained why it would be unconstitutional for her to do such a thing.

Also at Friday’s hearing — the first to be held in the newly filed case — Sheldon confirmed that the state GOP’s motion to intervene as a legal party to the suit has been approved. “The party is a party to these proceedings,” he said.

The GOP’s lawyer, Eliot Gersten, said he plans to seek sworn deposition testimony, and to request documents, to test Bysiewicz’s claims before a trial on the evidence.

Sheldon continued the case to Wednesday for another hearing on scheduling.

Current Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is running for the U.S. Senate.

   

State ethics board Chairman G. Kenneth Bernhard resigned Thursday, saying that the board’s work would be impeded by the continuing controversy and investigation concerning three prohibited campaign contributions he made in 2008 totaling $250.

Bernhard, a lawyer from Westport, initially said he intended to remain on the board last Friday, after The Courant uncovered the contributions, which ethics board members are prohibited by state law from making. The donations included one for $100 to the exploratory campaign committee of his fellow Republican, Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and two to GOP state legislative candidates — one of them Bernhard’s law partner.

Bernhard said he was unaware of the prohibition at the time he made the donations, while he was a member of the board but before he became its chairman.

However, a key legislator said this week he did not find ignorance of the law to be a “credible” excuse — not for the head of an agency that was created in 2005 to set high ethical standards for public servants, and to redeem citizens’ faith in the agency after the string of highly-publicized problems that destroyed the old State Ethics Commission. The old ethics agency imploded amid bitter internal conflicts — including a staff lawyer concocting a phony letter to make anonymous allegations against her boss, then-state ethics director Alan Plofsky — after the corruption scandal surrounding ex-Gov. John G. Rowland in 2004.

On Thursday morning, after reading a couple days’ news coverage — including a highly critical Courant editorial — Bernhard e-mailed a letter resigning from the unsalaried but influential position: “I have had a few days to consider recent events with regard to my continuing to serve as Chairman of the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board. It is apparent that my service will be a distraction to the important work that the Board does for the people of our state and I cannot permit that to happen.”

“Accordingly, it is with considerable regret that I am hereby submitting, effective immediately, my resignation from the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board,” Bernhard wrote to Carol Carson, executive director of the Office of State Ethics, and to the board’s vice chairman, Thomas Dooley. “It has been my great honor to have worked with you, the other members of the Advisory Board, and the professional staff in service to the State of Connecticut.”

Meanwhile, Carson said the newly begun ethics investigation inito Bernhard’s donations will run its course.  Bernhard, a former Republican state representative who was appointed to the board in January 2008, has said he expects to be fined for the violations that he called “technical” and “inadvertent.”

Bernhard wrote a letter a few days ago the legislative committee that oversees ethics, saying “it was technically a violation but it was not conduct which can be characterized as unethical.”

That was unconvincing to the committee’s vice-chairman, state Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford who said: “His defense for his violation was ignorance of the law, and I didn’t find that credible. I don’t think he takes his position very seriously, and that’s a major reason for my thinking he ought to resign.”

In an interview Thursday afternoon, Bernhard explained his position further — acknowledging again that he shouldn’t have made the contributions, but saying he believes they should be kept in context.

“The rule that I broke was meant to avoid conflicts of interest,” he said. “It was not intended to define ethics. And at no point was I ever presented with a conflict of interest.”  Such a potential conflict would have arisen if the ethics agency was considering a case against one of the people he had donated to, he said — but, if it did, he said that he easily could have dealt with it by recusing himself — disqualifying himself, that is — from handling the matter.

“The contributions were made with full disclosure, and full compliance with the electoral laws — and I broke a rule that was intended to avoid a conflict which could have easily been remedied if it had materialized by recusing myself.”

A big factor in his decision to change his mind and quit, he said, was “the news coverage” — particularly the editorial — which he said “was assailing and attacking an agency that and the professionals who run it in a way that they couldn’t do the important work we pay them to do.  Rather than keep the story that really had no additional facts but just more spin alive, and harming the agency, I thought it best to remove myself from the situation.”

Bernhard also is one of Rell’s appointees on the state’s Judicial Review Council, which investigates complaints of misconduct by judges “in order to promote public confidence in the courts.” He said Thursday he doesn’t see why his ethics board resignation would affect his continued service on the judicial council.

“I thoughly enjoy public service. I don’t get paid for it. It takes a great deal of my time. I think I make a valuable contribution.  I am fair and balanced in my judgment, and I like to think that I am an asset to the body that I am associated with,” he said. “What happened in 2008 — making a political contribution to a friend — doesn’t seem to me to bear in any way on my ability to continue to serve ably, honestly, and effectively the interests of the State of Connecticut.”

The governor’s office had no immediate comment Thursday.

On Wednesday, the ethics board met in a special session and appointed a three-member subcommittee of its members to investigate Bernhard’s campaign contribution violations and decide what sanctions may be imposed. Members talked of hiring an outside lawyer to conduct the inquiry, to avoid any questions of bias relating to their personal relationships with Bernhard. A person can be fined up to $10,000 for each violation of the state ethics code.

With Bernhard’s departure, the nine-member Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board — which oversees the operations of the Office of State Ethics — now three of its seats vacant. It needs six members to reach a quorum required to meet. So, until Bernhard and two other members are replaced, it will need perfect attendance to hold a meeting.

Carson, who runs the ethics office, had recommended last Friday that Bernhard resign for the good of the agency, but he initially resisted. Thursday morning, she responded to his resignation e-mail with this e-mailed message: “The state is losing a dedicated servant.  I’m so sorry that this had to end this way.”

Carson later had the ethics office issue a press release praising Bernhard. It said: “Mr. Bernhard was first a member, then chairman of the board during a time of great progress, as the [Office of State Ethics] ceased being a new agency in formation, and demonstrated substantive results in all areas of its mission:  education, interpretation, enforcement and transparency.   Mr. Bernhard’s contributions as both a member and chairman of the Board were valuable.”

The release said that Dooley, of Vernon, will act as chairman and the board will ” take up the matter of reorganization” at its March 25 meeting.

After Bernhard’s resignation, state Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy issued a statement defending him Thursday afternoon.  Healy said:  “Ken Bernhard is a good, honest man who is walking the plank for a corrupt system called the state Ethics Commission. While union members can work in the shadows while serving on state boards without revealing their in-kind donations, Ken Bernhard resigns for making an honest mistake that had no material impact on his ability to do his unpaid job.”

Healy added: “How do small contributions, which were reported for the world to see, unethical when others can donate time, resources and labor without disclosure while serving on important decision-making commissions – like the state Judicial Review Board?”

“Does anyone who knows Ken Bernhard think he willfully violated the law, put his law license at risk over a few hundred dollars?” Healy said. “It’s total poppycock!”

 

   

The executive director of the state’s ethics agency said Wednesday that she recommended that board Chairman G. Kenneth Bernhard resign last week, for the good of the agency, after it was discovered that he illegally made three campaign contributions.

He did not take her suggestion and now, amid public criticism and a call by a key legislator for Bernhard to resign, the ethics board faces the unprecedented job of investigating its own chairman. It took its first step in that direction Wednesday when it met in a special session — minus Bernhard, who did not participate — and appointed a three-member investigative subcommittee.

Executive Director Carol Carson of the Office of State Ethics said in an interview that she suggested that Bernhard quit last Friday, the day after The Courant had called him to say it had looked though campaign reports and found the donations he had made in 2008.
Bernhard made three donations totaling $250 — including $100 to the exploratory committee of his fellow Republican, Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and two others to GOP legislative candidates. The law prohibits such donations by Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board members.

“My role as the executive director is to consider the well-being of the organization,” Carson said. “I felt that the best result would be that that he resign.”

The nine-member Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board, which now has two of its seats vacant, oversees the 18-member staff of the Office of State Ethics — so, as a group, Bernhard and the other board members act as Carson’s bosses.

Carson said she and Bernhard spoke several times Friday, and she told him about noontime that she thought he should quit the unsalaried but influential position. But then, she said, “he talked to other people” — she said she did not know who — “and he thought it through and he came to his conclusion” about 4:30 p.m. to remain on the board.

Bernhard, a lawyer and former Republican state representative from Westport, said late Friday that he wasn’t quitting because he had only “technically violated” the ethics laws. He said he had not known of the prohibition, adding that the donations were small and no one tried to hide them. “It was inadvertent. There should be a penalty,” he said — adding that he expected to be fined — but he did not consider it an “ethics violation, in the classic sense.”

On Wednesday, board members conducted their meeting via a telephone conference call, as agency officials listened by speaker in a meeting room near the ethics agency office in Hartford. They appeared keenly aware of the public scrutiny of the ethics agency, created by the legislature in 2005 to operate without the problems of the old State Ethics Commission — which collapsed amid bitter conflicts after the corruption scandal surrounding ex-Gov. John G. Rowland.

“I think this is a very hot potato and I agree … that we should move on it” quickly, said board member David Gay. He was appointed to the subcommittee, along with Dennis Riley, who will be its chairman, and Kathleen Bornhorst. “This thing is not going to go away,” Gay said. He made note of The Courant’s editorial Wednesday morning, which, he said, “really takes some whacks at some people here.”

Members showed discomfort with the task of investigating Bernhard.

“I think the subcommittee has to consider the fact that we really have … to refer this to outside counsel,” said board member Ernest Abate.  “We’re all conflicted on this thing because of the relationship we all have had with Ken, every one of us. … We really can’t have anything to do with this.”

A person can be fined up to $10,000 for each violation of state ethics laws.

Carson said after Wednesday’s meeting that the subcommittee could recommend hiring an outside law firm, or refer the matter to an outside agency such as the attorney general’s office. The head of the agency’s enforcement office said in a memo that he and his staff should have no part in the inquiry.

Meanwhile, the vice chairman of the legislative committee that oversees ethics issues, Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford, said this week that Bernhard should quit. Bernhard wrote a letter to Meyer and others on the committee, explaining what happened and saying “it was technically a violation but it was not conduct which can be characterized as unethical.”

Meyer said: “His defense for his violation was ignorance of the law, and I didn’t find that credible. I don’t think he takes his position very seriously, and that’s a major reason for my thinking he ought to resign.”