At the State Capitol, Rep. Larry Pemberton Jr. (D) is sworn into the Connecticut General Assembly representing the 139th District on Wednesday.

The Norwich native is the first Native American to hold this position.

Pemberton Jr. was elected in a special election due to the death of previous Rep. Kevin Ryan.

State leaders and members of Connecticut’s tribal communities were in attendance.

Pemberton Jr. says he’s “looking forward to doing work for the district.”

Bye-bye, Banksy.

A Brooklyn family is about half a million dollars richer after selling a mural of a little robot that the iconic graffiti artist Banksy painted on their Coney Island building for 13 years ago.

The Ruoccos decade-long effort to cash in on “The Tagging Robot” ended last month, when an arts company took down an entire section of their Stillwell and Neptune avenues brick wall and shipped it off to a trendy brewery in Connecticut, the family said.

“Brooklyn family strikes gold!” Richard Ruocco, of Bergen Beach, joked to The Post Wednesday.

The Ruoccos had been trying to pawn off the famous mural since they effectively hit the art world lottery, when the enigmatic graffiti legend painted the bot on their building in the middle of the night back in October 2013, shortly after Superstorm Sandy.

The piece, which the family lovingly calls “Mr. Robot,” depicted the android spray painting a barcode, and was one of several barcode murals that Banksy blanketed across the globe that fall.

The Ruoccos initially had no idea that the graffiti was by a famous artist until swarms of gawkers came to witness the viral sensation.

They immediately protected Mr. Robot behind a roll-down gate and hired a security guard — and started looking to make a bundle off the work in the arts market.

“Why not? What are we going to do with it? Leave it on the wall and lose the money,” said Ruocco, who is cousins to the Russo family behind Gargiulo’s in Coney Island.

Unfortunately, the hype around Banksy died down and buyers were hard to come by until Ruocco’s older brother, Anthony, read that a Connecticut beer garden had acquired another Banksy mural that was left in The Bronx during the same era as “Mr. Robot.

Foolproof in Bridgeport last February installed a massive wall showing a young boy spray painting the words “Ghetto 4 Life” on a brick wall while a butler in formal attire stands beside him holding a tray of spray paint cans — which initially caused an unwelcome stir for “insulting the neighborhood,” CT Post reported at the time.

Anthony Ruocco called the brewery over the summer and “brokered the deal” to pass along the Robot mural, Ruocco said.

“We didn’t sell it for what we originally wanted. We lowered our price and he went for it. Not too many people were willing to buy a brick wall,” said Ruocco, adding that the buyer also had to pay about $75,000 for art shippers to remove and transport the mural.

Representatives for Foolproof did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

An incredible video shows Fine Art Shippers meticulously shoring up a portion of the brick wall into steel framing and jackhammering it out into one piece before shipping it off to Bridgeport, a journey first reported by Coneyologist.

Ruocco did not want to share how much cash the family received for the piece, but teased that it was for “less than half a million bucks.”

“That’s too personal. No one needs to know that, except my accountant,” he said.

He and his five siblings evenly split the sale, which leaves “enough to buy a nice car each.”

“We’re a very fair family. I know that’s what our parents would have wanted us to do. We shared everything right to the penny,” said Ruocco.

One of the siblings has already treated themselves to a cruise and Ruocco dreamed about buying a new car for his collection, though he admitted his wife would make him get rid of one before adding another.

The Ruocco siblings, now all in retirement, are planning to sell the building where the Banksy mural once lived. It had once been the site of Aiello’s catering, which the family ran from the 80s to the 90s.

Systemic problems with medical care, frequent lockdowns and unsanitary conditions jeopardize the well-being of people in Connecticut prisons, according to a new report.

Correction Ombuds DeVaughn Ward on Tuesday released a detailed account of conditions inside state correctional facilities.

The 57-page document describes routine staffing shortages, poor sanitation and inconsistent access to health care, nutrition, legal services and communication.

Ward, who serves as an independent watchdog for the corrections system, wrote that state prisons now operate in a state of “sustained institutional failure.”

“I did not make that finding lightly,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

“When you look at any of the metrics that you would judge a functional correctional system on, I could not think of one that … the state of Connecticut was meeting to standard,” he said.

In a statement, the Department of Correction (DOC) said it strongly objects to Ward’s findings. While there is room for improvement, the report draws wide-ranging inferences from singular occurrences, and contains unsupported allegations that “appear to serve only to foster an extremely negative perception of the agency,” the department said.

DOC plans to submit a detailed response to the report by Feb. 20.

‘Basic standards of sanitation’

Among its significant findings, the report describes unsanitary housing conditions across a range of facilities, including mold on showers, mice in food preparation areas and a lack of toilet paper and hygiene supplies.

Ward wrote that he personally observed black mold during visits to MacDougall–Walker Correctional Institution, and saw vents heavily coated in gray mold at Hartford Correctional Center.

A photo included in the report shows a bathroom with black and white mold spots spread across the ceiling. Another shows a dead mouse lying on the floor of the dining area at Osborn Correctional Institution.

Courtesy Office of Correction Ombudsman

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“Prolonged lack of access to showers, inadequate hygiene supplies, soiled bedding, rodent infestations, and poor ventilation—especially during periods of extreme heat—pose significant health risks and undermine basic standards of sanitation, dignity, and humane treatment,” the report reads.

Delayed diagnosis and treatment

Ward, an attorney who previously represented incarcerated people who were denied adequate medical care, also described ongoing health care challenges, including delays in diagnosis and treatment.

The report notes that DOC missed an Oct. 1, 2025 deadline to develop a comprehensive health care services plan, which is still pending.

The report also includes numerous anecdotes from incarcerated people who described not receiving timely or adequate treatment.

Courtesy Office of Correction Ombudsman

In one example, Ward wrote his office received a complaint in October from the family of a person incarcerated at York Correctional Institution who experienced delayed treatment for a known ear condition, despite recognizing the signs of a recurrence. A specialist at UConn Health later determined earlier intervention could have prevented additional surgery, according to the report.

DOC’s Health Services Unit doesn’t maintain a centralized system for tracking sick-call wait times, or wait times for outpatient or specialty medical services, which limits DOC’s ability to monitor delays and identify backlogs, according to the report.

“Delayed diagnosis and treatment may increase long-term medical costs borne by the State and increase exposure to grievances and litigation,” the report said.

Lockdowns and staffing shortages

Staffing shortages are a significant and recurring problem, according to the report, which indicates that facilities are frequently placed in modified or full lockdowns because there aren’t enough staff on duty.

The frequency of lockdowns results in family members missing visitation, and lack of access to core activities, such as bathing, recreation, educational programming and medical care, the report said.

“These conditions affected not only incarcerated individuals but also staff, who were required to work extended hours under increasingly strained conditions,” it said.

Rudy Demiraj, a service representative of AFSCME Council 4, one of the largest unions representing DOC employees, agreed staffing is a significant concern.

Council 4 represents approximately 4,000 DOC workers, including correction and parole officers.

Demiraj, a retired correction officer, said the union has long advocated for the department to address staff recruitment and retention. Officers are sometimes required to work back-to-back shifts when not enough staff are available, Demiraj said.

“It’s a difficult environment to work in for eight hours, and it becomes an even more difficult environment to work in for 16 hours,” he said.

Governor: ‘DOC must do better’

In a written statement, Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration highlighted recent progress at DOC, but acknowledged the need for improvement.

The department has strengthened oversight of administrative leave, improved compliance with rules for training and documentation, and done better with asset management and medication administration, according to Rob Blanchard, a spokesperson for Lamont.

Nevertheless, “repeated findings across multiple audits show this is about whether our systems are built to succeed,” Blanchard said.

He added the problems highlighted in the report are systemic rather than the fault of an individual.

The governor’s administration will continue working to strengthen internal controls, clarify accountability, modernize systems and ensure clear performance metrics, he said.

“For the safety of our correctional officers, those in our custody, and Connecticut taxpayers, DOC must do better,” he said.