Senate urged to investigate DeLuca

Waterbury Republican-American - July 13, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Republican-American

HARTFORD A statewide advocacy group is urging the state Senate to conduct a bipartisan investigation of former Senate Minority Leader Louis C. DeLuca.

The Connecticut Citizen Action Group says DeLuca's admissions to conspiring with a reputed mobster and offering to use his position to help the suspected racketeer cast a cloud over the legislature.

CCAG Executive Director Tom Swan said Democrats and Republicans need to investigate DeLuca, R-Woodbury, to dispel public doubts and suspicions.

"I think there is a hesitancy to act," he said.

On Thursday, Swan wrote Senate President Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, and Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, asking them to appoint a bipartisan committee to look into DeLuca.

Williams and McKinney said they haven't reached any agreements other than to continue to discuss the idea.

"Sen. McKinney and I have had a couple of discussions regarding this matter, and while we haven't completely resolved the issue, we have decided that if we do go forward it will be in a bipartisan manner," Williams said. "I fully anticipate this issue will be resolved well before the start of the 2008 legislative session."

While CCAG and other observers may say the Senate is taking too long, McKinney cautioned against rushing into any decision to investigate DeLuca.

If the Senate proceeds, he said Republicans will insist any investigation be open, fair and consistent with past precedent.

The CCAG suggested the Senate model a DeLuca investigation on the impeachment investigation of former Gov. John G. Rowland.

In 2004, the House of Representatives appointed a committee of five Democrats and five Republicans to determine whether to recommend Rowland's impeachment. Rowland resigned before the House committee made a recommendation.

DeLuca pleaded guilty on June 4 to a misdemeanor charge of conspiring with Danbury trash magnate James Galante to threaten the husband of one of his granddaughters.

Galante is under federal indictment in an alleged Mafia-backed scheme to protect his trash hauling routes from competition. He has pleaded innocent.

DeLuca admitted that he asked Galante in April 2005 to have someone threaten his granddaughter's husband because the senator said he was physically abusing his granddaughter.

A federal wiretap uncovered the plot, and law enforcement was able to thwart it.

State and federal authorities also said DeLuca offered to use his position in the legislature to protect Galante's business interests.

DeLuca admitted to making that offer, but he has insisted that he had no intention of making good on it.

He made the offer after an undercover FBI agent posing as a Galante associate had offered him a $5,000 bribe. The senator refused the bribe. In declining, he said he nervously offered to help Galante in order to placate the FBI agent and get away from him.

DeLuca also initially lied to FBI interviewers last September about the purpose of his April 2005 meeting with Galante. He recanted and told the truth three weeks later.