News for Norm Pattis

A former small-time drug dealer has successfully challenged an odd law requiring illegal narcotics traffickers to declare their inventories to the state tax department and allowing the state to extract big penalties from those who don’t.
Randy Weinberg, convicted of selling pain pills in New London, claimed that the obscure tax law is selectively enforced and inconsequential in terms of collecting revenue. The purpose of the law, he argued, is to punish drug dealers twice —...

Lawyers representing Sandy Hook families are accusing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of placing his Infowars website into bankruptcy as a last-ditch effort to avoid an upcoming trial to establish damages for falsely claiming the 2012 shooting was a hoax.
“This was their only avenue to stop this trial from happening,” Cordt Akers, a lawyer representing some of the families, told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday after a state judge in Austin, Texas, postponed the trial that...

The federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election appears to be gaining traction, with the Justice Department having brought in a well-regarded new prosecutor to help run the inquiry and a high-profile witness seeking a deal to provide information.
Alex Jones, the host of the conspiracy-driven media outlet Infowars and a key player in the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement, is in discussions with the Justice Department about an agreement to detail his role...

Four months after eight families who lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook shooting won their defamation case against conspiracy extremist Alex Jones in Connecticut, the fight to determine damages is just beginning.
Motions are flying from both sides in state Superior Court as the families prepare to question Jones under oath for a final time before a jury decides damages in the fall.
The fighting made headlines in January when Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis granted families...

Gov. Ned Lamont announced on Friday the head of the state Office of Policy and Management (OPM) will be stepping down.
Melissa McCaw's resignation came at the same time as the federal investigation involving the office's former second in command, Kostantinos Diamantis who is McCaw's deputy in the OPM.
In a news conference Friday, the governor said McCaw's resignation was not a surprise at all. In fact, he said she just wanted a fresh start from the Office of Policy and Management,...

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced Friday his budget chief Melissa McCaw is stepping down to take a job with the city of East Hartford. Her departure comes amid a federal investigation surrounding her former deputy and hundreds of millions of dollars in state spending.
McCaw, appointed by the Democratic governor as Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management in January 2019, is leaving the Lamont administration a little more than two weeks after the administration released a new...

The House committee investigating the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol last year is seeking the phone records of Alex Jones’ security guard, the latest sign that the select committee is ramping up its investigation into Jones’ possible role in planning the riot.
In a Tuesday court filing first obtained by Politico, a lawyer for Jones said Timothy Enlow has been subpoenaed by the House committee for his phone records. Enlow has worked for Jones since 2018 and was notified by...

It’s a story every taxpayer will want to hear. A scandal at the highest level of state government involving the alleged misappropriation of more than a billion dollars meant to build schools.
FOX61 obtained the federal subpoena that was served on the Lamont administration back in October. House Republicans seized the opportunity on Thursday to step to the microphone.
“We are calling for a bipartisan commission to be formed,” said State Rep. Vincent Candelora, the...

The city of Hartford hired a new consultant on a school building project — even through it already had a different consultant under contract for the same work.
Elsewhere in the state, several cities and towns building new schools said they were told to reject low bids for demolition work and hire a contractor that charged more.
Similar issues are becoming public as federal investigators dig in on an investigation focused largely on the state’s pricey school construction...

The House panel investigating the Capitol riot seems to have a new area of interest—the people who were closest to Alex Jones on Jan. 6. In a court filing reported by Politico late Tuesday, it was revealed that the security guard who escorted Jones from the White House’s Ellipse to the Capitol that day has been told to hand over his phone records to House investigators. Timothy Enlow, who has protected Jones since 2018, was reportedly told by AT&T on Feb. 9 that the committee...