By Stacey Stowe, The New York Times
Salisbury, Conn., -- Since the investigation of a rape complaint by a scholarship student against two classmates at the prestigious Hotchkiss School here in 1997, the feud between Mark A. Lauretano, this rural town’s lone police officer, and the office of the local prosecutor has been on a low simmer.
But now, the feud may have reached a boiling point, with accusations that it is compromising the quality of law enforcement here and that the State Police unfairly restrict the free speech rights of officers.
In a memo written to his commander, Trooper Lauretano claimed that hostility from a prosecutor and staff members in his office had delayed the signing of his arrest warrant in a dangerous domestic violence case for almost three weeks.
“Apparently anyone victimized in Salisbury, whose case is handled by me, will not be provided the same timely consideration of their complaint,’' Trooper Lauretano, a 22-year veteran of the State Police, wrote in the memo, which was addressed to Lt. Christopher Arciero of the North Canaan barracks. The letter was released to the news media last week.
Trooper Lauretano has been alienated from the office of the state’s attorney since his bitter disagreement with Frank Maco, then Litchfield state’s attorney, over the Hotchkiss investigation, the memo said. Under a policy established by Mr. Maco before he retired in 2002, law enforcement officials said, Trooper Lauretano was banned from courthouses in nearby Litchfield and Bantam and forced to travel 78 miles to Rocky Hill and back to file warrants at the office of the chief state’s attorney.
Friends and critics of Trooper Lauretano agree that the Hotchkiss case caused the rift. As investigating officer, Trooper Lauretano pressed for charges against the two boys, but Mr. Maco decided not to file them. According to newspaper accounts at the time, the complainant, a 14-year-old boy, backed off of his rape claim; Trooper Lauretano said the boy had been persuaded to do so by other police investigators involved in the case. When the boy was about to be interviewed by the police an eighth time, Trooper Lauretano hired a therapist, who said she was convinced that the boy was telling the truth about the sexual assault.
But Connecticut State Police officials said that Trooper Lauretano was not authorized to hire a therapist or to pay for it himself, according to newspaper accounts at the time. He was suspended in 1999 for 60 days and transferred to the Litchfield barracks. No charges were ever filed in the Hotchkiss case.
After he was reinstated as resident state trooper in Salisbury in 2002, Trooper Lauretano was directed to Rocky Hill to process warrants. Later he was allowed to return to Bantam Superior Court, but told to work only with Cynthia J. Palermo, an assistant state’s attorney. It is Ms. Palermo, Trooper Lauretano wrote in his memo, who “has been uncooperative and hostile.’' He wrote that he had “nothing but difficulty and stalling in the handling of arrest and search warrant applications.’'
Trooper Lauretano submitted the warrant in the domestic violence case on Feb. 6, but it was not until Feb. 26, after his supervisor intervened, that the warrant was signed, according to the memo, which was released to the news media by Donald Connery, a Kent journalist who wrote a book about the arrest and wrongful conviction of Peter Reilly in the 1973 murder of his mother in Canaan.
Andrew Wittstein, the supervisory assistant state’s attorney at Bantam Superior Court and Ms. Palermo’s superior, denied that any court employees were being rude or hostile to Trooper Lauretano. Mr. Wittstein said that he ultimately signed the warrant and that the process took only two days - not the nearly three weeks that Trooper Lauretano claimed.
“A two-day turnaround time for any warrant is above standard,’' Mr. Wittstein said.
The Litchfield state’s attorney, David Shepack, said last week that Trooper Lauretano still cannot file warrants at the courthouses in the Litchfield Judicial District. But Mr. Shepack played down the inconvenience and said that Trooper Lauretano had been allowed access to court in Bantam since last summer.
“Certainly Salisbury has full access to the courts, regardless of who brings the complaints,’' he said. But Salisbury’s first selectman, Val P. Bernardoni, who also received a copy of the memo, was not so sure.
“This is preposterous,’' Mr. Bernardoni said. “Now it’s standing in the way of justice being served.’'
In this scenic hamlet where the tweedy and the bookish live in rambling country houses, support for Trooper Lauretano remains. After he was disciplined for his handling of the Hotchkiss case, residents raised $10,000 for his legal defense fund, money he ultimately returned.
“He’s the best town trooper we’ve ever had, and we’ve had some excellent ones,’' said Joseph L. Mulligan, who owns Salisbury Package Store on Main Street, in a comment echoed by his fellow shopkeepers last week.
Joy Mcintosh, the mother of the scholarship student who filed the sexual assault complaint in 1997, has followed the fallout from the case from her home in Brooklyn. Ms. Mcintosh, a native of Guyana, said on Tuesday that she was “behind Mark all the way.” She said other officers had lied to her and mishandled the investigation of the complaint by her son, now 21 and a senior at an Ivy League university.
The memo has prompted Mr. Bernardoni to investigate whether the prosecutor’s policies have compromised the effectiveness of the town’s only police officer, he said.
Robert J. Krzys, counsel to the union for the State Police, said he had asked the state’s attorney’s office to allow Trooper Lauretano full access to the courts. If that does not happen, he said, he will file a grievance on Trooper Lauretano’s behalf. “These petty differences shouldn’t affect how a trooper can do his job,’' he said.
Trooper Lauretano would not comment. He is forbidden by State Police policies from discussing the Hotchkiss investigation publicly. However, State Police officials discussed the internal investigation with Mr. Connery and other journalists, Mr. Connery said.
A ruling is expected in a few weeks in a lawsuit that Trooper Lauretano filed in Federal District Court in 1999 that in part challenges the legality of State Police regulations that restrict free speech by troopers.
A spokesman for the State Police, Paul Vance, also would not comment, citing the lawsuit.
Trooper Lauretano’s lawyer, Karen Lee Torre, said the policies of the State Police violated the First Amendment rights of officers and were intended to prevent officers from telling anyone about violations inside the agency. “What’s happening to Mark is a consequence of his lawsuit,” she said. “He took on the state police, who believe there are no reins on their power.”