Connecticut Postings

NEW HAVEN — FBI Special Agent Chris Halpin testified Thursday that his agency received a court order to wire-tap a cell phone issued to Mayor Mark A. Lauretti by the city of Shelton.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rahul Kale said the prosecution is expected to play at least several of the conversations between Shelton developer James Botti and Lauretti. Botti is accused of bribing the mayor. He is also charged with conspiracy and mail fraud.
Earlier in the day, a Shelton restauranteur who served as a member of the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission testified Thursday afternoon he was pressured by another commission member to attend the June 20, 2006 meeting and vote in favor of James Botti’s development at 828 Bridgeport Ave.
But Daniel Orazietti said it wasn’t Allan Cribbins, then-commission chairman, who previously testified he met with Orazietti.
It was Leon Sylvester, Orazietti said, Shelton’s former superintendent of schools and a man, Orazietti said, he respected.
“He was adamant I go to the meeting,” Orazietti told the 16-member jury in Botti’s federal corruption trial. “I told him ‘I can’t, I had a graduation party that night.’”
The party was at one of Orazietti’s three restaurants.
He said Sylvester told him he would do anything, if Orazietti attended the meeting. Sylvester said he’d “do the dishes” for him. “I need you to go. This is good for the city,” Orazietti testified Sylvester told him.
As Sylvester was leaving the restaurant after meeting with Orazietti for about 10 minutes, Orazietti said he shouted out, “Tell Botti I’m booking Christmas parties now.”
Six months later, Botti booked a Christmas party at Orazietti’s River Road restaurant that cost the developer $2,300, Orazietti said.
Earlier Thursday, a Shelton mason testified this morning that he was twice paid large sums of cash for doing brick and concrete block work on two carriage houses on James Botti’s Maple Avenue, Shelton, property.
Albert Papa, owner of Maral Construction in Shelton, said he received $25,000, in mostly $100 bills, as partial payment for a $45,000 job and later $40,000 in cash as partial payment for a $65,000 job, both on the carriage houses.
Papa also testified that in September 2008, after receiving the $40,000 cash payment, Botti told him not to say anything about the cash deals because “feds are snooping around.”
Still Papa didn’t deposit the cash into any of his bank accounts, and, instead, used the money to pay for “personal expenses.” If he had deposited more than $10,000 at any one time, the bank would have reported Papa’s transactions to the IRS.
Assistant U.S. attorneys, Richard Schechter and Kale spent much of Thursday morning attempting to show, through bank records, that Botti had access to large sums of cash. The 16-member jury already heard that Botti kept a box containing nearly $1 million in $100 bills in his Bridgeport Avenue office.
Botti has been on trial before U.S. District Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr.