Questionable Cases Emerge From Blumenthal’s Office
Questionable Cases Emerge from Blumenthal’s Office
The Hartford Courant
Kevin Rennie
May 2, 2010
Power ebbs and flows in unexpected measures, which should make Attorney General Richard Blumenthal uneasy in his race for the U.S. Senate. In the world of politics, a U.S. senator enjoys far more influence than a state attorney general.
Many lawyers and litigants, however, take a different view. A state attorney general, armed with a large staff and the authority of law, can affect individual fates in ways denied to a bloviating senator. Whatever happens in November, in eight months, Blumenthal will no longer be attorney general, and his clout has begun to slip away.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Stamford ophthalmologist Richard Weber, who was wrongfully prosecuted by the state for Medicaid fraud. Dr. Weber fought back. His case and another provide a disturbing glimpse of how Blumenthal’s office sometimes works.
In 2004, Dr. Weber initiated an action against state authorities for malicious prosecution. Blumenthal’s immediate reaction was to tell the Stamford Advocate that prosecutors acted “responsibly in pursuing the case” against the doctor. Dr. Weber’s lawyer, fearless Michael Kogut, sent a request for all information Blumenthal reviewed before making that decisive claim.
Six weeks later, Kogut got a response from a lawyer in Blumenthal’s office: “I have located no documents responsive to your inquiry.” Blumenthal, graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, made his pronouncement without reviewing any documents.
When Blumenthal’s office settled the case with Dr. Weber by paying him $725,000 several years later, Kogut, according to Dr. Weber, was asked by Blumenthal’s office to send a letter confirming that neither the lawyer, the doctor, nor the doctor’s employees would initiate contact with the press to discuss the settlement agreement. Blumenthal’s office could not find copies of the three letters I’ve mentioned when I requested them the week before last. That is unsettling. We can all understand misplacing one. Not finding three looks like the sort of pattern Blumenthal would condemn in others.
The attorney general’s passion for making news is well-known. His instincts, however, are not flawless and can lead him into trouble, and the consequences for his targets can be tragic.
A bankrupt Connecticut company’s fight with Blumenthal also merits attention.
In 2008, New England Pellet LLC, a company that sold wood pellets for pellet-burning stoves, had trouble with its supplier, with whom it was in a serious dispute. The company had taken payments from consumers for the delivery of pellets during the heating season. It was trying without success to find other sources of pellets. It began offering refunds to customers.
Unhappy customers complained. This is the sort of catnip Blumenthal used to become the state’s most popular official. In December 2008, he denounced the company on television. New England Pellet began to collapse. Maybe it was doomed anyway, though company lawyer James Oliver said last week that one of the principals of the company offered at the time to put $200,000 in escrow to cover refunds to consumers.
But Blumenthal’s office proceeded against the company. It went to court seeking an attachment against the assets of New England Pellet and its owners. The one-sided proceeding was based on a six-page affidavit signed and sworn to by an investigator in Blumenthal’s office. The affidavit claimed, perhaps overreaching, that there was probable cause to believe there would be a judgment rendered for the state against the defendant company and its owners of $1.44 million.
The affidavit claimed that assets were about to be fraudulently transferred to the detriment of the company’s customers. It also went into some detail about improvements made at the home of one of New England Pellet’s principals. Oliver deposed Blumenthal’s investigator this past November and the transcript is a chilling example of government power unloosed. The investigator admits that he had no evidence for some of the most serious claims in his affidavit, and it’s clear he didn’t even understand some of the terms he used in the statement.
In addition, the investigator relied on dubious sources for his sworn statement. The allegations against one of the principals drove him to attempt suicide, according to Oliver.
Until Christopher Dodd announced in January he would not seek re-election, it appeared Blumenthal would be attorney general for life. But now that he’s leaving that office, stories are emerging that may make the next six months eventful.
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For more information, contact the Linda McMahon for Senate Press Office, 860-244-2010