Rethuggery In Conn.

HARTFORD, Conn. — A legislative leader was arrested Friday on charges that he tried to have a businessman at the center of a federal racketeering probe arrange to threaten someone the senator believed was abusing a relative.

State and federal authorities said Senate Minority Leader Louis DeLuca in 2005 sought help from James Galante, a Danbury trash hauler currently awaiting trial on 72 counts of tax fraud, racketeering, threatening and extortion.

"When you approach someone who is alleged to be a member of organized crime or affiliated with organized crime and you ask for this help, and you slip a note to them in a diner as opposed to even having a conversation, I think it's fair to draw an inference that you don't exactly have the best of intentions," U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said Friday.

DeLuca, a Republican from Woodbury, was booked on a misdemeanor charge Friday of second-degree conspiracy to commit threatening. He was scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Waterbury Superior Court.

DeLuca, 73, said in a written statement that he made a bad decision and was embarrassed by his actions.

"I tried to protect a family member who was vulnerable, who was in a physically abusive domestic relationship and who needed help," he said. "My family and I went to the police three times to get help for my relative, but the police said that they couldn't help because the victim wouldn't file a complaint."

DeLuca said he was frustrated by the situation and discussed it with Galante, whom he met a few years earlier when Galante made a large contribution to a charitable cause sponsored by DeLuca.

Authorities said that in April 2005 at a Woodbury diner, Galante passed DeLuca a note that asked, "Do you want me to have someone pay him a visit?"

DeLuca told Galante "yes" and gave Galante the name and address of the alleged abuser, authorities said.

An assault never happened. Prosecutors, who recovered the note in a search of Galante's home, said they stopped it by parking a police car in front of the house of a Galante associate who was to deliver an assault.

Hugh Keefe, Galante's attorney, said the charge seemed "like much ado about nothing."

"I hope (DeLuca) takes it to trial and wins, because it sounds like a stretch to me," Keefe said.

Neither DeLuca nor authorities identified the relative who was allegedly being abused.
The misdemeanor charge has a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a fine of $2,000.
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Associated Press writer Pat Eaton-Robb in Rocky Hill contributed to this report.


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....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free