POLITICAL SCANDALS REFUSE TO GO AWAY IN 'CORRUPTICUT'

Officials' Wrongdoing Persists After Governor's 2005 Conviction

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- There was the mayor who liked to be plied with
$100-plus bottles of Bordeaux. The governor who took a free hot tub.
The state senator who was given a job that paid $30,000 for doing
nothing -- and then demanded a raise.

The past few years have revealed so many tales of graft, malfeasance
and all-purpose criminality by public servants in Connecticut that
it's hard to choose the most brazen. But for Kevin J. O'Connor, the
U.S. attorney here, one moment stands out.

It came in June 2004, while then-Gov. John G. Rowland (R) -- he of the
hot tub -- was facing impeachment in the legislature for improperly
taking gifts. Even in that fraught time, O'Connor said, federal agents
recorded state Sen. Ernest E. Newton II (D) -- he of the no-show job
- -- asking someone for a bribe.

"I thought to myself, you know, 'What are these people thinking?' "
O'Connor said.

When Connecticut forefathers nicknamed their state "The Land of Steady
Habits," this was probably not what they had in mind. But a tradition
of bad behavior by officeholders persists here, despite numerous
prosecutions and attempts at reform.

If more proof were needed, it has come in the past few weeks, with
three new scandals involving current or former big-city mayors.

When Rowland resigned, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in March 2005
to a year and a day in jail, "everybody thought that was going to be
the end of it," said John M. Orman, a professor of politics at
Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn. Instead, he said, the
continuing parade of misdeeds has helped the state live up to a new
nickname, "Corrupticut." "We just keep having 'em in Connecticut,"
Orman said.

The recent scandals here include the tearful, nationally televised
admission on June 20 by Bridgeport Mayor John M. Fabrizi (D) that he
had used cocaine while in office. "I am pleased to tell you that I
have not used drugs in the last 18 months," said Fabrizi, who has been
mayor for more than three years. For now, the U.S. attorney's office
says it has no plans to prosecute him for the drug use.

Other cases include a former mayor and city council member from
Middletown -- who pleaded guilty late last month to fraud for
embezzling money from his law clients -- and a new charge against
Joseph Santopietro, the former mayor of Waterbury. Santopietro
previously was convicted on bribery charges stemming from his conduct
as mayor in the 1990s. Now out of jail, he has been charged with
racketeering conspiracy for allegedly serving as a consultant to a
mob-affiliated garbage-hauling business.

These cases are just the latest in a long string of charges against
officeholders this year. There was Rowland's former chief of staff,
who was sentenced to jail in April for bribery and tax offenses. There
was a postmaster who stole from a customer, a public-works official
who lied to federal investigators, and a state transportation worker
who helped rig a bidding process and got a free TV from the winning
contractor.

It all adds up to a big problem, officials here say. Statistically,
the state's corruption prosecutions still don't equal those of places
such as New Jersey, Illinois or Mississippi. But many fear that
businesses will be driven away, or that voters and potential
candidates might be disillusioned by a perception that Connecticut is
- -- as one pol has put it -- "Louisiana with foliage."

"We thought we were a state of Yankee integrity," said Howard L.
Reiter, a professor of political science at the University of
Connecticut. "Clearly, that's not the case anymore."

Observers of Connecticut politics say that part of the problem was
that ethics rules went unenforced here for so long, allowing corrupt
practices to become ingrained before large-scale prosecutions began in
the 1980s and 1990s. Another problem is the state's network of
political machines, which incubate Republican and Democratic hopefuls
in systems in which friendship and favors rule.

In recent years, the two most prolific incubators have been a pair of
old manufacturing cities in Connecticut's western half. Waterbury, in
addition to being Rowland's home town, had three mayors charged with
crimes, and two of them imprisoned. In Bridgeport, Fabrizi's
predecessor, Joseph P. Ganim, also a Democrat, was convicted of taking
bribes and kickbacks.

In the Ganim case, one of those doing the bribing was Lennie Grimaldi,
a public relations consultant. Grimaldi said that the city's political
culture dictated that he lavish gifts on the mayor or else worry that
his clients would be frozen out of city business.

"It started off with, you know, buying dinners, and then expensive
dinners, and then a little bit of wine, and then the gifts. . . . It
became this monster," recalled Grimaldi, who served 10 months in
prison and has become a successful freelance writer after his release.
"I didn't have the guts to say no to a mayor that had a tremendous
amount of economic power over me."

Last year, the Rowland scandal galvanized legislators to try to change
the atmosphere. They created a system that bars political
contributions from state contractors and lobbyists, and aims to reduce
the influence of donors overall by providing public financing for
candidates in future elections.

Locally, some officials have made their own efforts at doing politics
strictly by the book. These days, Waterbury Mayor Michael J. Jarjura
(D) said, even fruit baskets sent by constituents won't be accepted.

"I know they're just trying to be kind," Jarjura said, "but we
immediately send it back, and we document that we sent it back."

These efforts at reforming the system are now widespread enough that
Rowland's defense attorney, William F. Dow III, said he fears the good
in the state's old system might be lost.

"Government will operate less efficiently" if politicians obsess over
avoiding appearances of impropriety, Dow said. "I think this dotting
the i's and crossing the t's is going to have a chilling effect."

The chill isn't here yet, though. Instead, last week saw another of
the kind of embarrassing spectacle Connecticut is seeking to avoid, as
defendants in the garbage-hauling case were arraigned in New Haven's
federal court.

In that case, prosecutors allege that a slew of Connecticut businesses
used mob muscle to keep competitors away from the routes where they
picked up trash. Those charged include an 86-year-old man alleged to
be mob boss "Matty the Horse," plus a number of lower-level players
who appeared in court wearing pompadour haircuts or tailored suits.

Then there was Santopietro, the former Republican mayor of Waterbury,
who stood out because he wore just slacks and a sensible-looking
short-sleeved dress shirt. Out of the whole bunch, he was the only one
who looked like a civil servant.