Connecticut
A CT man accused of dealing firearms didn’t stop at the border. He dealt drugs in RI too, feds say.
![A CT man accused of dealing firearms didn’t stop at the border. He dealt drugs in RI too, feds say.](https://www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2022/12/02/QRWU4HMUC6FJO2U2BUOR3PZMMU.jpg?w=1024&h=670)
A Connecticut man has been indicted by a federal grand jury and accused of dealing firearms and fentanyl in his home state and Rhode Island.
Daniel Alexander Smith, 19, of Windsor, was arrested last Tuesday and ordered detained during a hearing in federal court in Providence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Rhode Island. The indictment, which was initially sealed, was announced by federal officials on Tuesday.
According to federal authorities, between February and May, Smith sold seven firearms and 90 grams of fentanyl during several transactions while under surveillance by members of the Rhode Island FBI Safe Streets Task Force.
In four of the sales, which occurred in Rhode Island, federal authorities allege Smith sold an AK-47, a Glock 26, a High Standard revolver, a Taurus 9mm handgun, two .22 caliber pistols and about 40 grams of fentanyl. According to federal officials, he also sold a Glock 19x pistol, a High Standard shotgun and about 51 grams of fentanyl in Connecticut while he was under surveillance.
“In each instance, the firearms and fentanyl allegedly sold by Smith were quickly seized by members of the Safe Streets Task Force,” Zachary A. Cunha, U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, said in a statement Tuesday.
Cunha also said authorities carried out a search warrant on Smith’s vehicle when he was arrested last week and seized a loaded automatic Glock 22 firearm with a sear switch attached and a 22-round magazine.
The indictment against Smith charges him with engaging in the business of dealing in firearms without a license and conspiracy to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl.
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Connecticut
Kevin Rennie: Connecticut Bar Association is familiar with silence at crucial moments
![Kevin Rennie: Connecticut Bar Association is familiar with silence at crucial moments](https://www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GettyImages-2154735055.jpg?w=1024&h=682)
Watch your mouth. That was the message from the Connecticut Bar Association’s three top leaders to the organization’s thousands of members, of which I’m one. The June 13 statement was prompted by perpetually aggrieved Donald Trump supporters hurling abuse at prosecutors, jurors and Judge Juan Merchan after the former president’s conviction this month on 34 counts of violating New York law through a 2016 hush money scheme.
The CBA officers, Maggie Castinado, James T. Shearin and Emily A. Gianquinto, condemned but did not name public officials who issued statements calling the trial a sham, hoax, and rigged; abused Judge Merchan as corrupt and unethical; and claimed the jury was partisan and in the bag for guilty verdicts from the start.
The statement excoriated social media posts seeking to breach the confidentiality of the jurors’ identity. What it did not allege is that any Connecticut lawyers were participating in these assaults on the rule of law. Near its conclusion, the trio’s homily got to the point. “It is up to us, as lawyers,” they wrote, “to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.”
And then U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a lawyer, had to go and spoil it all three days later by unleashing the same type of hyperbole. He called the Supreme Court “brazenly corrupt and brazenly political” on CNN. Murphy added that Justice Clarence Thomas is “just a grift,” while Justice Samuel Alito is an open political partisan.
As of Friday, the civility umpires at the CBA had issued no statement chiding Murphy.
The CBA is familiar with silence at crucial moments. Six years ago, a mob of antisemites targeted the renomination of Judge Jane Emons to the Superior Court. Judge Emons was the target of appalling rhetoric. The CBA released no thunderbolts as the House of Representatives refused to vote on her renomination, forcing her off the bench.
A few years ago, I wrote about Alice Bruno, a Connecticut judge who failed to show up for work for two years while continuing to receive her salary and benefits. Emails showed plenty of people knew that Judge Bruno had been missing in action, but they remained silent. Bruno’s fate was decided in a secret proceeding when she was granted a disability pension that currently pays her more than $5,000 every two weeks. She worked, often erratically, as a Superior Court judge for only four years before she stopped showing up in 2019.
Before becoming a judge, Bruno did an 18-month stint as executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association. It remained silent throughout the Bruno saga, which undermined the public’s confidence in the judiciary.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a sensational investigation into the appalling saga of a federal bankruptcy judge and his personal relationship with lawyer Elizabeth Freeman, who had been his law partner and clerk in Houston. One of the nation’s biggest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis, brought in Freeman to work with it on cases before her boyfriend, Judge David R. Jones.
An anonymous letter lit the fuse on exposing the shocking conflicts at work in the nation’s busiest bankruptcy court. Michael Van Deelan, a small investor in a firm that filed for bankruptcy in the Houston court, believed he had not been treated fairly in the shakeout of the company. Van Deelan received a copy of the letter and filed it with the court in an attempt to have Jones disqualified from his case. Van Deelan’s motion was denied and the letter was sealed from public view, the Journal reported.
Van Deelan discovered through an internet search that Jones and Freeman owned a house together since 2017. Plenty of lawyers appear to have known that the two were engaged in a romantic relationship. To expose it would have ended a sweet arrangement that was a bonanza for the firms and their bankruptcy clients who brought Freeman in on their cases.
No one said a word. Only Van Deelan, a 74-year-old retired math teacher, brought justice where corruption ruled. It took an Appellate Court judge only a week to find probable cause by Jones for failing to disclose his relationship with Freeman. He resigned.
It requires no courage for bar association leaders to condemn those discreditable officials who donned red ties and made pilgrimages to New York to stand outside the courthouse to mewl and whine that the justice system was targeting the loathsome demagogue, Donald Trump.
To shine a searing light when something goes wrong in the judicial branch of government when no one is paying attention— that’s what protects the integrity of the system.
Kevin Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com
Connecticut
Providence man killed in Connecticut crash | ABC6
![Providence man killed in Connecticut crash | ABC6](https://www.abc6.com/content/uploads/2023/11/l/f/state-police-ct.jpg)
BROOKLYN, Conn. (WLNE) — Connecticut State Police said that a Providence man was killed in a crash that took place in Brooklyn on Friday.
Police said that two cars hit each other at the intersection of Wauregan Road and Gorman Road.
70-year-old Sergio Valera Urena, of Providence, sustained “fatal injuries” on scene.
The other driver, a 22-year-old from Moosup, Connecticut, was transported to the hospital for minor injuries.
The collision is still under investigation.
Connecticut
New York City girl missing since 2021 found in Connecticut
![New York City girl missing since 2021 found in Connecticut](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/03/22/d97a0aff-d8bd-45ab-bc89-79aee55b7993/thumbnail/1200x630/e693aeee4ef146d2ce74fe2d915ec3f6/developing-story.png?v=cb1f2643a8816828741cfb3a3fb2d931)
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – A young girl who went missing from New York City nearly three years ago was found in Connecticut Friday.
Authorities say the girl disappeared from her home in East New York, Brooklyn in December, 2021. No details of the circumstances surrounding her disappearance were immediately released.
The U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force and Bridgeport Police said they found the girl Friday in Bridgeport. They moved in after receiving a request for assistance from the NYPD earlier this month.
Authorities say the girl, who is now 16, is in good health and is returning to her home with her parents.
A report prepared by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services shows that in 2021, 10,184 children went missing in New York, and 93.2% of children under 18 who disappeared were runaways. That same year, there were two stranger abductions, seven acquaintance abductions, and 40 familial abductions.
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