Crime and Corruption in Connecticut

BRIDGEPORT COURTHOUSE FOUND TOO CORRUPT FOR MADOFF CASE

2009-12-16T14:27:00.000-08:00

NEWS RELEASE - IMMEDIATE RELEASE / December 2009

contact: Henry Berry - henryberryinct@gmail.com

BRIDGEPORT COURTHOUSE FOUND
TOO CORRUPT FOR MADOFF CASE

Bridgeport, CT...The case Retirement Program et al v. Madoff, Bernard et al (CV-09-5011561-S) originally filed at the Bridgeport, Connecticut, Superior Court at 1061 Main Street has been moved to the Stamford Superior Court after defense attorneys for the Madoffs and other defendants had been notified of chronic, insoluble crime and corruption at the Bridgeport courthouse. The many defense attorneys from Fairfield and New Haven Counties and New York City were notified of this crime and corruption by Henry Berry, a freelance writer presently living in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport who has been exposing this for the past several years on the basis of first-hand experiences and citizen investigative journalism.

The catalyst for Berry's experiences of and ongoing exposures of the wide-ranging criminal activity and corruption in the private and public sectors of the Fairfield County legal system and other areas of the Connecticut legal system was the theft of roughly $6,000.00 of medical films of his meant for an operation on his neck from an auto injury by attorneys James T. Shearin and Timothy A. Bishop of the Bridgeport office of the Pullman and Comley law firm. Since the theft, Shearin has risen to become head of Pullman and Comley's litigation department. No longer with the firm, Bishop is now a principal in the Stratford law firm Bishop, Jackson, and Kelly.

Other individuals Berry has identified as abetting the attorneys Shearin and Bishop in the cover-up of the theft involving perjury, forgery, subornation of perjury, and other crimes are Bridgeport Superior Court judges William B. Rush, a former Pullman and Comley attorney, and L. Scott Melville, whom Berry has accused of taking a bribe from the Pullman and Comley law firm. Former Fairfield County State's Attorney Jonathan Benedict has also been named, specifically for involvement in a cover-up of an illegal wiretap on Berry's phone.

"It's really no wonder that such crime and corruption flourish in the Connecticut legal system," Berry says. "When I brought it up to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's attention some years ago, he wrote me back saying he wasn't interested in hearing about it, and besides he was helpless regarding it. Criminals and corrupt individuals and organizations throughout the Connecticut legal system have a free pass."

Berry has written a book titled HOW A $6,000.00 THEFT LED TO THE EXPOSURE OF CRIME AND CORRUPTION IN THE CONNECTICUT LEGAL SYSTEM. Links to its chapters are at his website henryberryinct.blogspot.com. Berry can be reached at PO Box 176, Southport, CT 06890; 203-332-7629 office/cell; henryberryinct@gmail.com.

END

BLUMENTHAL - CT'S TRENDY, TELEGENIC, TOOTHLESS ATTY GEN

2009-02-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL - CONNECTICUT'S TRENDY,
TELEGENIC, TOOTHLESS ATTORNEY GENERAL

by Henry Berry, CT resident

Connecticut Attorney General never saw a bandwagon he didn't like. In the past couple of years, he has come out against parolees sneaking into a house at night and killing the wife and daughters; teenagers being killed in car crashes; the pollution of Long Island Sound so it can no longer be used for recreation; consumers being bilked out of thousands of dollars by unscrupulous businesses; and recently, chimpanzees attacking house guests by ripping apart their faces and nearly killing them. Although he hasn't explicitly expressed it, one can assume that Blumenthal is also against fair young things being afflicted by the black death and puppy dogs playing in traffic.

One thing Blumenthal is not against, however, is flagrant, persistent criminal activity in the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office. After I wrote Blumenthal three or four times about past and spreading criminal activity by members of the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office and probably the Chief State's Attorney's office, I received a brief note from him in which he told me he didn't want to hear any more about the matter and he couldn't do anything about it.

Sorrrry Attorney General Blumenthal. I guess I was under the mistaken impression that you were the top legal official in the state of Connecticut. When I hear about the attorney generals of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California investigating reports of significant and scandalous corruption by officials in their states, I presumed you would want to know about such activities of officials and agents in the Connecticut legal system. Not long ago, New Jersey's attorney general investigated judges fixing parking tickets. But I guess not even constitutional violations such as an illegal wiretap and criminal activity normally associated with violent gangs such as threats and witness intimidation are enough to concern you.

The Connecticut attorney general Blumenthal runs his office more like a TV program. He appears on television with more frequency than Oprah. It's not unheard of him to appear two or three times during one evening news programs. He's practically got his own TV studio--it's known as WTNH-8, the state's major TV station.

You knew--those of us who regularly watch the evening news--that after the Stamford incident where a crazed pet chimpanzee nearly killed a visiting friend of its owner, Blumenthal was going to get the cameras rolling. And yes, there he was--on Channel 8, within a day of the attack railing against the manic chimp...giving the state a bad image...!...this is Connecticut, by god, not deepest Africa...who does that chimp think he is...!...there ought to be a law...

But maybe I'm being too critical of Blumethal. He's been in office for some time now. Maybe he knows something the rest of us don't. Maybe Richard Blumenthal knows there's a better chance of getting a chimpanzee out of control to be well-behaved than getting Connecticut state's attorneys to follow the law.

A Bridgeport Judge Who Is a Criminal - William Rush

2008-09-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a memo I sent to a judge at the Bridgeport Superior Court who I have identified as a criminal. Judge William Rush was at the center of the tampering with evidence, witness tampering, forgery, perjury, subornation of perjury and probably blackmail and bribery that went on at this Bridgeport courthouse in an effort to cover up the criminal activity of the Pullman and Comley law firm attorney James T. Shearin, judge Rush's protege when he was at this firm before becoming a judge.

Date: September 30, 2008
To: Judge William Rush / fax (203) 579-6928
From: Henry Berry
Re: criminal activity at Bridgeport Superior Court

Judge Rush:

I am coming to the point of my investigating and exposing the extensive, long-running criminal activity at the Bridgeport Superior Court where I am focusing on your relationship to and role in this.

This criminal activity and spreading corruption intensified during your time as administrative judge at this court. Besides this, considering that the Pullman and Comley James T. Shearin who has been proven by me to be a thief and a liar was a protege of yours when you were at the Pullman and Comley law firm before becoming a judge, it is inconceivable that you were not aware of the criminal activity occurring to shield him from accountability. This activity included tampering with evidence, forgery, witness tampering, perjury, subornation of perjury, and conspiracy with regard to these. Considering your centralized and influential position as administrative judge, it is apparent that you in varying ways and to varying degrees had knowledge of this, were probably an instigator of some of it, and were instrumental in implementing it.

James T. Shearin is now head of the Pullman and Comley litigation department, the position you held before becoming a judge. One wonders what legacy you left with your protege stealing close to $6,000.00 of medical films of mine and lying about this to try to cover it up, and then turning to you to help when the cover-up was exposed. With your involvement in the criminal activity of Shearin and others at the Pullman and Comley law firm, you are also spawning a new generation of criminals in the legal system.

I am prompted to get in touch with you at this time after seeing you in a video on a website on a panel of officials in the legal system at the Bridgeport Superior court regarding the issue of whistleblowing. As you know, I have been subject to witness intimidation for some time--including menacing, stalking, vandalism, and one death threat--in my ongoing activities in investigating and exposing criminal activity in the Connecticut legal system. Also, from information from another website, I see that you are a member of something called the Public Service and Trust Commission.

I found your position on these bodies ostensibly formed to deal with problems in the legal system, including presumably criminal activity, comical. The only reasons you would be on these committees is to provide lessons on covering up criminal activity and to telegraph to criminals in the legal system such as the ones you have sponsored, trained, and cooperated with that the bodies are farcical and the criminals in the legal system, including yourself, have nothing to be concerned about.

This correspondence is a notice to you that upon your receipt of it I will publicly, widely, and continually be identifying you by name as a criminal in the Connecticut legal system; and that because of your position as administrative judge, you are one who is especially responsible for the spread, perpetuation, and cover-up of it.

Henry Berry
office: 293 Ellsworth St. - 8D, Bridgeport, CT 06605
mail: PO Box 176, Southport, CT 06890
henryberry@aol.com / 203-332-7629 office/cell / henryberryinct.blogspot.com

c: Public Service and Trust Commission, media, other contacts

END

How the State's Attorneys Suckered the Supreme Court Judge

2008-08-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

After assistant state's attorney Linda Howe threatened me with prosecution if I sent out any more news releases on the Pullman and Comley law firm lawyers James T. Shearin and Timothy A. Bishop's theft of my property of nearly $6,000.00 of medical films required for an operation, I sent a letter about the threat to the then Fairfield County State's Attorney Donald Browne. I ended it with, "in case you want to do anything about it [the threat and related growing cover-up of the theft]." After not hearing anything from Donald Browne or anyone else with his office, I made out a criminal complaint against Linda Howe for threatening with the Bridgeport Police Department. When I made out the complaint, a detective supervisor at the Bridgeport P.D. said they would send the complaint to the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office.

While all this was going on, Donald Browne was in his last days as Fairfield County State's Attorney. I learned about this when one time I was at the courthouse I saw a notice about a farewell dinner for him. I figured it wasn't a good time to be trying to get in touch with him about Linda Howe's threat and the cover-up going on in his office. Within another couple of months, Browne was replaced by Jonathan Benedict.

A few weeks after Benedict took over, I called the state's attorneys office to follow up on the criminal complaint I had made against Linda Howe. I told the receptionist answering the phone why I was calling; and said Jonathan Benedict would probably be the one to talk with about any matters concerning the criminal complaint. The receptionist put me on hold. When she got back on the line, she told me that Jonathan Benedict had sent the complaint to the Criminal Justice Commission.

I didn't inquire what the Criminal Justice Commission was, or why the complaint would have been sent to it. I found out what it was by referring to the volumes of Connecticut statutes. The Criminal Justice Commission was a body of high-ranking individuals in the Connecticut state legal system for investigating alleged criminal conduct of state legal officials and meting out appropriate punishment to ones found guilty of such conduct. At the time, it was headed by the Connecticut Supreme Court judge Francis M. MacDonald, Jr. (The judge would later become the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.) As the head of the Criminal Justice Commission, judge MacDonald worked with the Chief State's Attorney (who was John Bailey at the time) in space provided by the Chief State's Attorney's office.

Within a few days, I called the Chief State's Attorney's office to find out if the criminal complaint had been sent to the Criminal Justice Commission. I was connected with a Tim Sugrue; whom I assumed was a lower-level state's attorney. (I have since seen him named as an assistant state's attorney in some case mentioned in a newspaper article.) I told Tim Sugrue that I was calling to get a confirmation that the criminal complaint--which I identified specifically--had been sent to the Criminal Justice Commission. In response to questions from him, I told him how it came to be that my criminal complaint was being sent to the Criminal Justice Commission.

About every three weeks, I called the Chief State's Attorney's office and spoke briefly with TTim Sugrue to see that everything was going along as it was supposed to and if the Commission needed anything from me. Every time I spoke with him, he told me everything was going along as it was supposed to and there was nothing I had to be doing. I would be hearing from the Commission in due course, he always said.

About four months after I was told by the receptionist in the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office that Jonathan Benedict had sent my criminal complaint on Linda Howe to the Criminal Justice Commission, I received a letter from the Commission. Its name and address were in the return address space in the upper left corner of the envelope. The one-page typed lettter was from judge Francis M. MacDonald, Jr.

In his letter, the judge explained that the matter brought to the Criminal Justice Commission's attention concerning Fairfield County assistant state's attorney Linda Howe was not a matter for the Commission to look into further because upon review of Linda Howe's letter to me, no evidence of wrongdoing had been found. Judge MacDonald closed his letter by saying I should get in touch with the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office if I wished to pursue the matter.

Linda Howe's letter to me? No mention of the criminal complaint Jonathan Benedict had told me through his receptionist he was sending to the Criminal Justice Commission and Tim Sugrue assured me had been received by the Chief State's Attorney's office and given to the Commission. My criminal complaint on Linda Howe's threatening me, not her letter to me of her sophistic reading of my complaint against the Pullman and Comley attorneys, was the fundamental of the issues I was raising about how she and other state attorneys were involved in the cover-up of the theft of my medical films. Jonathan Benedict with the complicity of the Chief State's Attorney's office had switched evidence. The state's attorneys had suckered Connecticut Supreme Court justice Francis MacDonald.

I tried to get in touch with judge Francis MacDonald at his office in Waterbury and the Supreme Court in Hartford to let him know what had happened. I sent letters and faxes and made phone calls, once speaking with the secretary in the judge's Waterbury office. I never did get any information on whether judge MacDonald had been informed that he had been suckered by the state's attorneys. I did though in some subsequent newsletters refer to Jonathan Benedict's involvement in this suckering of the Supreme Court judge as another instance his and other state's attorneys' systematic, determined abuse of the legal system.

Fear and Trembling at the Fairfield County State's Attorney's Office; Or Who's Got Another Crow

2008-07-15T12:36:00.001-07:00

By now, the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office must know about this blog I started a little while ago. Time for another death threat:

The Fairfield County State's Attorney Jonathan Benedict calls up his Chief Inspector Frank Garr: "Frank, Berry's at it again. Let's see if we can't shut him down this time. It didn't work last time. But maybe he'll get the message this time. You got another crow?"

Frank Garr: What?! You know these things don't grow on trees. We were budgeted for only one crow this year, and we already used it. We don't issue death threats every day, you know, Not even every year. But this is an unusual situation. The guy can actually put two and two together."

Jonathan Benedict: "Got any ideas?"

Frank Garr: "I'll call the Pullman and Comley boys. They've got more money than the state of Connecticut. Maybe they can purchase a crow."

Frank Garr gets in touch with James T. Shearin (nicknamed Tim) at the Bridgeport office of the Pullman and Comley law firm: "Tim, you know Berry's started a blog now. Next time you decide to steal thousands of dollars of a client's property, I hope you'll think twice about it. And if you do steal the property, try not to leave an itemized list of it where it can be found. OK? But anyway, I'm not getting in touch with you once again for a tete-a-tete to try to fathom your motives. We've got a problem here. We've run out of crows. Not that we had that many to begin with."

James T. Shearin: "Sounds like your problem, Frank. But let me tell you again how much we appreciate the way Jonathan Benedict is taking most of the heat for the crime we committed. A stroke of genius on our part, if you ask me. Not that it was all that hard. You think we're dumb here, go talk to your boss about dumb."

Frank Garr: "Maybe one of these days. It's not exactly the sort of conversation you want to have with your boss. About the crow..."

James T. Shearin: "Yes, I almost forgot. I might be able to come up with one. We have contacts. Sometimes we have one for emergencies. I'll be back in touch."

Frank Garr: "A sparrow will do. We're getting desperate. See what you can do."

James T. Shearin: "10-4, Frank. One bird coming up for the bird brains."

END

The Film Michael Clayton and the Fairfield County Legal System

2008-07-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Many of you have probably seen the popular film Michael Clayton starring George Clooney. In this film, the attorney Michael Clayton (George Clooney) was targeted because he knew about criminal, scandalous doings at a large law firm through his friendship with one of the firm's top lawyers who had left it in disgust and on the point of madness from his involvement. I can't help but feel something like this character Michael Clooney. I know a lot about criminal, scandalous activity throughout the Fairfield County legal system, and have been exposing it over the past several tears. As in the film, individuals in the legal system have been targeting me with attempted entrapment, defamation, witness intimidation, and threats. In the film, Michael Clayton went to law-enforcement officials, who before long arrested the corporate attorneys who were committing the criminal activity and who were also a threat to him. In my case, however, it turns out the law-enforcement officials willingly became a part of the criminal activity. I wonder what Michael Clayton would have done if he had run into the situation I have.

The scale of the crimes is different in either case. In the Michael Clayton movie, the corporate law firm was covering up evidence of harmful, and in some cases deadly, consumer medical products (I forget the specifics). In my case, the attorneys James T. Shearin and Timothy A. Bishop at the corporate law firm Pullman and Comley stole about $6,000.00 of medical films of mine needed for an operation. Nonetheless, there is clear, incontrovertible evidence of criminal activity in either case. Michael Clayton is partly a morality tale about the effects of the truth and the intervention of law-enforcement to put a stop to crime.

In Fairfield County, however, the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office's response was to perpetuate and nurture crime, to join with the criminals in an extensive, long-running cover-up of the crime. Sounds like fantasy, but it's the state of affairs large numbers of citizens find themselves in these days not only in Fairfield County but around the U.S. Law-enforcement agencies, as well as other areas of government, have become both overt and surreptitious representatives of major commercial institutions to the detriment of human rights and rights of citizenship. The law-enforcement officials and other government officials and the corporate lawyers and their confederations in higher-level corporate positions think the concept of human rights and rights of citizenship (to be protected against theft, for instance) are quaint, antiquated concepts and values.

The Criminal Cast

2008-07-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

The following individuals are the primary criminals in the criminal activity and corruption I'll be relating in this blog known to me at this time. In this posting, I'll cite the crimes of each without giving the abundant, interrelated evidence in support of this. This evidence is documents, compelling circumstantial evidence, and actions of the named individuals. Evidence is covered in the course of the chapters of my book-in-progress; an annotated contents of this book with links to chapters is in the right column of this blog; or I will give the evidence to anyone interested if they contact me directly at henryberry@aol.com.

The primary criminals are:

James T. Shearin, partner of the Pullman and Comley law firm, currently head of the litigation department: Stole close to $6,000.00 of medical films of mine; lied that I had ever dropped off my films at the Bridgeport office of the Pullman and Comley law firm; made false statements to law-enforcement officials; tampered with evidence, witness tampering, forgery, perjury, and conspiracy with regard to these crimes to try to further cover-up the original crime of theft.

Jonathan Benedict, current Fairfield County State's Attorney, and one of the lead prosecutors in the Michael Skakel case: has knowledge of an illegal wiretap on my phone; cover-up of the illegal wiretap; in a civil case, a judge ruled that he has in effect admitted to my allegations of an illegal wiretap by his office and that he is involved in the cover-up of it after he refused to turn over documents relating to the illegal wiretap to me; involved with the criminal element in his office, the Pullman and Comley attorneys James T. Shearin and Timothy A. Bishop, and judge L. Scott Melville in cover-up of the theft of my films; complicit with the criminal element in his office of witness intimidation of me.

Timothy A. Bishop: former associate lawyer at the Pullman and Comley law firm, currently a principle in the Stratford, CT, law firm Bishop, Jackson, Kelly: involved with James T. Shearin in the theft of my medical films and the cover-up of it; more or less same crimes as listed above under James T. Shearin.

L. Scott Melville, former and now partly retired judge of the Bridgeport Superior Court: illegally misdirected court documents relating to contempt of court against Pullman and Comley attorneys James T. Shearin and Timothy A. Bishop (and also the Hartford lawyer Anita Varunes for submitting a perjurious affidavit) for forgery, witness tampering, tampering with evidence, perjury, and conspiracy relating to evidence of their theft and cover-up of it; by his misdirection of the court documents so that he would rule on them, covered-up his own illegal relationship with the others; presumed to have taken a bribe or some other recompense from the Pullman and Comley lawyers or law firm for his role in the cover-up.

At a hearing called by judge L. Scott Melville where he made a ruling which covered-up his own role in the attempt to cover-up the theft of my medical films by tampering with evidence, witness tampering, etc., I called the Pullman and Comley attorneys criminals; and when I did so, I waived my right to protection of statements from defamation made in a legal proceeding. When I did so, judge Melville said that if I was not careful, the Pullman and Comley attorneys I had called criminals would be suing me for everything I had. Well, of course the Pullman and Comley attorneys, knowing they were criminals, weren't about to sue me for defamation. But I thought I'd give judge Melville the opportunity to sue me.

Since the hearing I have been naming judge Melville as one of the criminals involved in the attempted cover-up and obstruction of justice regarding the theft of my medical films. In one fax sent to the general fax for judges at the Bridgeport Superior Court on Main Street, I addressed it to the Honorable Criminal L. Scott Melville. I've named him as a criminal in several news releases and other communications. After some investigation as to his role, I said in news releases that judge Melville was presumably bribed or received some "token of appreciation" from the Pullman and Comley attorneys for his role in protecting them from accountability. And of course, like the other criminals relating to the cover-up of the theft, judge Melville hasn't sued me for defamation.

Although the individuals named above haven't sued me for defamation or anything else although I have been naming them as criminals for the past few years, agents of their have engaged in various types of witness intimidation, including threatening, vandalism, and even a death threat.

(Note: In future postings, I'll be exploring the connections between the notorious Michael Skakel trial for the murder of his neighbor Martha Moxley when they were both teenagers in Greenwich and Jonathan Benedict and his Fairfield County State's Attorney's office's conception of the law and similarities of questionable and/or illegal activities in the two cases. Also, I'll be disclosing the effects of the criminal activity in the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office on Connecticut state politics and economic activity in Connecticut.)

The Law in Name Only

2008-07-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

In commenting a while ago on one of the frequent cases of a Connecticut public official being convicted of crimes and sentenced to jail, the Fairfield County, Connecticut, Congressional representative Christopher Shays remarked, "They don't think they're going to get caught." But the criminal public officials and private attorneys I will be naming in this blog have a more cynical, imperious attitude that even this. These criminals don't even care if they get caught.

The criminal element in the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office and the Pullman and Comley law firm partly jointly and partly independently tried to cover up their crimes out of an awareness of the decency of the mass of ordinary people and their antipathy for criminals. But once the criminals did get caught because of their inherent remoteness from these norms of decency and respectable conduct and their stupidity, they didn't care that they caught. Their positions in the Connecticut legal system afforded them them means to engage others in a metastasizing cover-up and associated criminal activity including an illegal wiretap, witness intimidation, tampering with witnesses, and tampering with evidence. All of this is evident on the basis of incriminating documents, compelling circumstantial evidence, and demonstrable actions of the criminals. And yet the criminals in high-level positions of the Connecticut legal system continue to work within the system as if they have not demonstrated themselves to be hardened, repetitive, flagrant criminals. And they continue to be widely accepted within the legal system as if they are not criminals who have evidenced massive abuse of the system.

In another posting coming soon, I will be giving the broad outlines of the intertwined criminal activity of the Fairfield County State's Attorney's office and the Pullman and Comley law firm; and also identifying the criminals known at this time from evidence I have and what I have witnessed and experienced. In addition to reports and exposes intended to alert Connecticut citizens of serious criminal activity occurring in their legal system which coincidentally reflect a cynical, hostile mindset and related activities among many parts of government and professional circles around the United States, I will be proffering ideas and measures citizens can take to resist this criminal activity. The blog, too, will comment on media reports and information from other sources about activities by organizations and individuals in Connecticut having a bearing on its main concern of the criminal activity I have touched on above.