Two decades ago, Connecticut suffered a series of public scandals that prompted critics to give the state the negative moniker of “Corrupticut.”
Among the reforms passed following the scandals was a new law that allows state judges to revoke or reduce the pension of public employees who are convicted of corruption in connection with their public job.
While top level officials often gain the most attention, the law has also been enacted against lower-level municipal employees; the state attorney general has filed 31 cases that have mostly avoided public attention. Judges in six cases, from Hebron to Stamford, have ruled that the employees could keep their pensions, based on the circumstances and despite their convictions.
The latest high-profile criminal conviction against former state deputy budget director Kosta Diamantis puts him in jeopardy of a pension revocation or reduction. But no immediate action is expected in that case because the pension issue cannot be addressed under the law until after sentencing, which is set for mid-January. The case is expected to be appealed. Diamantis was found guilty by a federal jury of 21 felony counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and lying to federal investigators in a scandal involving the school construction program that he oversaw for years.
“That law was put in place because a lot of people were upset and horrified that there was no mechanism to take away somebody’s pension in circumstances that would warrant it,” said House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford. “Providing that tool in the toolbox, as a means of furthering justice, makes sense. Do I believe it is a deterrent? No. … There’s nothing better than preventative medicine as opposed to reacting once the crime has already been committed.”
The legislature, he said, should be focusing on “proactive oversight” of the use of public money through additional audits, closer scrutiny of spending, and referrals to the chief state’s attorney’s office if criminal conduct is suspected.
With major turnover at the state legislature over the past 15 years, Candelora is among a small group of lawmakers still in Hartford who supported the original law in 2008.
“When the law was passed, in my mind, it wasn’t meant to be punitive,” Candelora said. “I never looked at it as being a deterrent. I looked at it more as providing another avenue for judges to have an opportunity to weigh in on whether someone’s pension should be removed. I think it shocked everybody that, until that law was passed, no matter what your crime, the courts had no authority to take your pension away.”
The 31 pension cases filed over the past 17 years involve convictions of the former mayor of Hartford, a former police chief in Bridgeport who was convicted of cheating on the exam to make him chief, a state trooper who was convicted of stealing cash from a motorcycle accident victim, three employees at the state Department of Social Services, and accountants and financial insiders who were convicted of embezzlement at the local level in multiple towns from Salisbury to Waterbury to Winchester.
The law allows the judge to consider the requests of the spouses and families of the convicted criminals who may persuade the court that they were innocent victims and the pension should only be partially revoked because the breadwinner would be in prison for an extended period of time. Those are decided on a case by case basis with some rejected and others partially granted.
Local convictions
Former Hartford mayor Eddie Perez is the most prominent of the 31 cases whose pension was revoked following a corruption scandal.
In a case involving a conviction at trial and various appeals, Perez was initially sentenced to three years in prison after a jury found him guilty of five felony charges that included bribery and extortion concerning renovations made to his home on Bloomfield Avenue in Hartford. After the conviction was overturned, Perez later pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe and attempted first-degree larceny by extortion while serving as mayor. He received a suspended prison term in 2017 and never served time in prison.
Then-attorney general Richard Blumenthal filed a lawsuit against Perez in the first major test of the new pension law. Perez lost his pension of nearly $28,000 per year, and the judge also rejected his wife’s request for a partial pension, despite her having health problems.
“The severity of the crimes, the self dealing and disdain for the public good demonstrated by his conduct, as well as the high degree of public trust reposed in the defendant, outweigh any factors mitigating his crimes including any good work done for the city, the financial impact on the defendant and his wife or her illness,” Judge Cesar A. Noble wrote. “The court therefore orders the defendant’s pension revoked.”
In another major case, state officials sued former Bridgeport police chief A.J. Perez after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a cheating scandal to rig the process that allowed him to become the city’s police chief. Perez served time in federal prison in West Virginia and was ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution in the case.
Rather than a complete revocation, Perez’s pension was cut by 50% by Judge Claudia A. Baio. Unlike other cases, Perez’s wife, Isabel, was permitted to receive 25% of his reduced pension “as an innocent spouse,” Baio said in her ruling.
In a detailed financial accounting, the judge said that the former chief and his wife in 2022 had combined gross yearly income of $188,000. Isabel Perez had earned a gross annual salary of nearly $74,000 in 2022 as a surgical technician in Fairfield.
“They have very little savings and combined joint and individual liabilities including a mortgage on their home in the approximate amount of $430,000, a credit union loan, credit card debt and a joint tax debt and educational loans for their children,” the ruling said. “The estimated total amount of their household debt is $725,000. … Mrs. Perez has very little savings of her own.”
Former Bridgeport Police Chief Armando “A.J.” Perez faced a judge in a pension revocation case after he faced criminal charges. Here, he is shown at a rally or a Bridgeport teen who was killed by police gunfire after a chase in the city.
Employees who kept pensions
In six cases, convicted employees have been allowed to keep their pensions, based on the judges’ rulings.
Eleanor Sanford Cruz, the Hebron schools superintendent for seven years who was earning a base salary of $141,000 in 2012, pleaded guilty to first-degree larceny in a dispute over using a credit card that was provided by the school system.
She was accused of using the card for a wide variety of personal expenses, including gardening supplies, groceries, gasoline, meals at upscale restaurants near her home in Essex, and purchases from online retailers. An audit also showed thousands of dollars in expenses that were reimbursed “that were questionable, but could not be determined to be improper,” according to court documents.
When asked by Judge William H. Bright in Superior Court in Rockville if she “defrauded the town of Hebron of over $10,000,” she replied, “Yes.”
Her lawyer at the time said that he believed that Cruz would have been acquitted at a trial, but that she agreed to plead guilty to avoid legal costs and a long prison sentence if convicted at trial.
The card had a credit limit of $50,000, and a business manager had initially objected to her request for the card before she received it in her final 14 months on the job.
After the attorney general’s office filed a case against Cruz, Bright said in a 20-page ruling that “there was no loss to the town” because an insurance policy paid nearly $10,000 in the case. The judge then ruled that “the defendant’s conviction does not warrant the revocation or reduction of her pension.”
In another case, a former accountant for the city of Stamford named James Santorella was allowed to keep his pension of $63,000 per year. Santorella had pleaded guilty in 2011 to a felony charge of first-degree larceny in connection with embezzling money from the city. He paid restitution and the cost of an internal audit in exchange for not being sent to prison as part of the plea agreement.
His case was cited later by another judge as an example of cases against revocation because it covered “a four-month span over a 36-year career.”
Before enacting the law, legislators debated sharply over whether revocations could be made retroactively, but they decided against that as a matter of law. Signed by then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the law allows a judge to revoke or reduce the pension of state and municipal employees for conduct that occurred after Oct. 1, 2008.
As a result, former Republican Gov. John G. Rowland, former Democratic state Sen. Ernie Newtown of Bridgeport and others who were convicted of crimes before 2008 are still currently receiving their pensions.
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com
