by HN

(UPDATED 10:18 AM EST)

I don’t shine enough light on the corruption here in the Nutmeg State. For forty plus years, Connecticut’s one-party rule has bred and continues to breed corruption.

Recently, the Connecticut Mirror uncovered massive corruption in West Haven. Last month former CT State Rep Michael DiMasso pled guilty to taking cash payments to create hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent checks out of the city’s finance department. Corruption is commonplace in Connecticut. COVID contracts to Governor Ned Lamont’s wife’s company are just the tip of the iceberg of DNC corruption, fraud and authoritarianism. Lamont claims any profits from his wife’s company will be donated to charity. If you believe that.

In 2019 Bridgeport mayor Joe Ganim won re-election after spending 7 years in prison for embezzling more than $700,000 of taxpayer money. Only fools would re-elect a felon. Or useful idiots.

I guess that is why Joseph Stalin said it doesn’t matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes.

Here in Connecticut during the COVID scamdemic, Governor Ned Lamont followed the DNC Operation Lockstep lockdown script, fining residents $1,000 for not quarantining 14 days after returning to Connecticut after travel and other affronts against the people, including barring church services while strip clubs and liquor stores remained open.

The COVID lockdowns and mandates orchestrated and promoted by the Democrat Party turned the Constitution State and other states controlled by the DNC into hellish authoritarian zones.

Many democrat run states are infested with fraud and corruption. As a resident, I can tell you that Connecticut is very corrupt and is fast becoming Communisticut. It is anti-business, anti-property and anti-individual.

The fact is what we see in Connecticut, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states run by Democrats is a cohesive agenda designed to create economic decline in the private sector while increasing loses of individual liberty in favor of massive growth of government dependence, red tape and bureaucracy. This agenda perfectly align with the globalist goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030 and the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset”.

The fact is all authoritarian regimes operate the same way. Those in the inner circle of the party in power are corrupt and live life high on the hog as the masses starve. The inner circle controls the media, censors alternative views and crushes dissent. These totalitarians also continuously profit off the misery of the masses, while claiming to be working to help the very people they exploit.

Here in America, the DNC has long supported the Council on Foreign Relations and the United Nations globalist policies that attack small business, property rights, individual rights and seeks to create a borderless one world totalitarian socialist government ruled by elite “stakeholders” and “shareholders”.

The stated goal of the Council on Foreign Relation is the creation of a borderless one world government. As a result, the DNC, once the number one champion of workers, small business and the little guy has morphed into the number one enemy of the people. The DNC has become a corrupt, criminal organization that should be financially dismantled under the RICO act and the party leaders should be charged with treason. The democrats no longer do anything to help the American people. They divide the people with bogus weaponized cries of racism and bigotry as they weaken the economy by design to help further the CFR/United Nations/World Economic Forum’s globalist agenda.

As such, there is no greater threat to the freedom and prosperity of the America people than the UN/World Economic Forum globalist owned Democrat party.

Former CT Rep. DiMassa says he was paid in cash to process phony invoices

The Connecticut Mirror 

Michael DiMassa, a former state Democratic lawmaker, took the stand in federal court in Hartford on Monday, where he testified about the inner workings of West Haven city hall and how he personally walked hundreds of thousands of dollars in allegedly fraudulent checks out of the city’s finance department.

DiMassa, who previously worked as an assistant to the West Haven city council, pleaded guilty earlier this month to conspiring with three other people to steal state and federal funding from West Haven, a city that has been mired in financial crisis for decades.

As part of his plea deal, DiMassa also signed a cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors, and as a result, he is now serving as the star witness in the ongoing trial of John Trasacco, a Branford resident and one the alleged co-conspirators. Trasacco has been charged with wire fraud and one related federal conspiracy charge, which can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Federal prosecutors on Monday began by asking DiMassa to explain to the jury how he and Trasacco came to know each other before the two men eventually used a string of companies to allegedly steal more than $431,000 from the city’s bank accounts.

DiMassa told the jury that he met Trasacco for the first time at a cigar bar in late 2020. He explained how Trasacco introduced him to an allegedly illegal sports betting operation and how he paid his gambling debts at an Italian restaurant in Branford that Trasacco also frequented.

DiMassa said he’d been a regular gambler for some time at that point and that he would pay his debts in cash at the restaurant by slipping the money to people under the table.

DiMassa, 31, then filled in the gaps between the financial records from West Haven city hall and other evidence that was presented by the federal prosecutors, and he described, in detail, many of the ways that he assisted Trasacco.

He told the jury how he repeatedly met Trasacco at the Italian restaurant and a warehouse in Branford to receive fraudulent invoices, purportedly created by L&H Company, one of the businesses that was formed by Trasacco.

He said he used his position in West Haven city hall to submit those allegedly bogus invoices and to convince the city’s former finance director to approve the payments to those companies.

DiMassa also testified that he personally asked officials in the city’s finance department to hold the checks for those invoices so that he could pick them up and hand-deliver them to Trasacco.

“It was just easier to pick up the check,” DiMassa testified.

In return for allegedly pushing those payments through the city’s finance department, DiMassa said, he received several kickbacks from Trasacco.

In at least two instances, DiMassa said, Trasacco slipped a “wad of $100 bills” into his pocket while he was drinking at the Italian restaurant in Branford.

“He slipped money into the left pocket of my suit pants,” DiMassa said. He said one of the payments was for $5,000.

Trasacco also allowed DiMassa to use his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., for free, while he and his girlfriend visited Hollywood, Universal Studios and Rodeo Drive.

That type of relationship continued, DiMassa said, even after he grew concerned about the allegedly fraudulent invoices being detected due to the large amount of money the company received and the small amount of supplies Trasacco had provided.

The invoices that Trasacco’s company submitted were for thousands of masks and other supplies. But DiMassa said Trasacco only provided one small shipment of those items, which included 280 masks.

To try to avoid notice, DiMassa said, he persuaded Trasacco to use different companies and to change what type of services they were billing the city for.

As part of that effort, DiMassa said, he helped to organize several meetings between Trasacco and Thomas McCarthy, West Haven’s public works director.

During those meetings, DiMassa said, Trasacco convinced McCarthy to hire another of his companies to pick up leaf bags for residents in the city.

That company, KAT Environmental, was paid at least $85,000 to pick up that yard waste for the city, according to invoices reviewed by the Connecticut Mirror.

The payments to KAT Environmental were not part of the federal indictment filed against Trasacco, and McCarthy has not been accused of anything by federal prosecutors. But the meetings between the three men were discussed at length during the trial to paint a picture of the connections that DiMassa helped Trasacco to develop.

DiMassa said the business relationship between West Haven and KAT Environmental quickly soured when city residents started complaining that their leaf bags were being left on the curb.

At that point, DiMassa said, he helped to organize a follow-up meeting between McCarthy and Trasacco at a diner in West Haven.

At the diner, DiMassa said, Trasacco offered to resolve some of the problems with the leaf bags by delivering political advertising for West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi and several city council members ahead of the primary election in 2021.

McCarthy, who was also the treasurer for Rossi’s mayoral campaign, took Trasacco up on that offer, according to DiMassa, and he gave Trasacco a stack of “political literature” to deliver to homes in West Haven.

McCarthy and Rossi did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

The relationship between KAT Environmental ended not long after the political primary, DiMassa told the jurors, but he and Trasacco’s relationship did not.

At that point, DiMassa said, Trasacco suggested they use a third company, JIL Sanitation Solutions, to submit new invoices to the city.

According to DiMassa, Trasacco decided JIL Sanitation would bill the city for sanitizing public buildings using UV light, which is something he had read about online.

Emails obtained by federal prosecutors show Trasacco emailed DiMassa several invoices from JIL Sanitation. And DiMassa said he followed the same steps to cut a check from the city.

The cleaning services were never provided, DiMassa said, but public records show the company was paid more than $184,000 for purportedly sanitizing city hall, the West Haven police station and several other buildings.

JIL Sanitation did not do business with the city for long, however.

According to DiMassa, the alleged scheme came to a halt in early October 2021 after members of the media and the FBI learned of the payments that DiMassa allegedly diverted to Compass Investment Group, another company that he controlled.

DiMassa said he came into work one day and learned that the FBI was in city hall and that the CT Mirror was asking about payments to Compass Investment Group.

At that point, DiMassa said, he called Trasacco to inform him that “the jig is up.” He told Trasacco that federal officials were meeting with the city’s attorney and that the CT Mirror was asking questions.

Trasacco’s defense attorneys did not get a chance to question DiMassa under oath on Monday.

But the federal prosecutors sought to preemptively explain to jurors why DiMassa, who benefited from the alleged scheme, was now willing to testify.

DiMassa told the jurors that he wanted to “make some amends” for the damage he caused in West Haven.

But he also acknowledged, after further questioning, that he was hoping the federal judge in the case would look more favorably on him when he is sentenced early next year.

related:

Wife of former CT lawmaker pleads guilty in West Haven theft case | Connecticut Public (ctpublic.org)

CONNECTICUT GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION EXPOSED:

Corruption alive and well and living in CT Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration (lawenforcementtoday.com)

Lamont claims his family has not profited from a state contract connected with his wife’s firm (wshu.org)

Connecticut’s corruption culture matures in the Lamont era (theday.com)

https://www.theday.com/local-columns/20221001/corruption-investigations-are-on-a-lamont-friendly-election-season-schedule/

https://www.change.org/p/lamont-corruption-crony-loots-0-7-billion-stay-night-at-hotel-with-female

OP-ED | Scandal At Lamont’s OPM Demands Legislative Probe | CT News Junkie