Senate Republican Minority Leader Lou DeLuca pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor threatening charge in 2007 after soliciting a Danbury trash hauler with organized crime ties to confront a man he believed had abused his granddaughter
DeLuca received a suspended sentence and resigned from the Senate rather than face expulsion
The trash hauler DeLuca turned to was later convicted of federal racketeering and admitted to paying mob tax to a Genovese crime family boss
Lou DeLuca was the top Republican in the Connecticut Senate. In June 2007, he pleaded guilty to a threatening charge after asking a man with organized crime ties to arrange for someone to confront his granddaughter’s husband.
DeLuca had been serving as Senate Republican Minority Leader when, at a diner meeting in April 2005, a Danbury trash hauler named James Galante passed him a handwritten note, according to CBS News. The note asked whether DeLuca wanted someone to “pay a visit” to a man he believed was physically abusing his granddaughter. DeLuca said yes and provided the man’s name and address, CBS News reported.
On June 1, 2007, law enforcement arrested DeLuca. Three days later, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor second-degree conspiracy to commit threatening, according to CBS News. He was sentenced to six months suspended and a fine. When the Senate moved toward an expulsion proceeding, DeLuca resigned.
Galante was no ordinary businessman. By the time DeLuca’s case became public, Galante was already facing 72 federal counts including racketeering, tax fraud, and extortion stemming from an FBI investigation into organized crime’s control over the trash-hauling industry in Connecticut and New York, according to CBS News. Federal prosecutors said Galante had paid tens of thousands of dollars in quarterly mob tax to a Genovese crime family boss.
In June 2008, Galante pleaded guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy charges and agreed to forfeit 25 trash-hauling companies worth more than $100 million, according to the Department of Justice. The same federal investigation also produced charges against Joseph Santopietro, the former Waterbury Republican mayor whose earlier corruption conviction was covered earlier in this series.
By Kevin Coughlin
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