Boughton-Galante draft post

Coincidence?


Hartford Courant 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 style="font-weight:bold;">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 and their names, as well as the record date of the
contribution, are listed below (take note of the name DiNardo):

(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 for the April 2003 and take note the 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?

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