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BRIDGEPORT –For 38 years, Mickey Sherman stood in state and federal courtrooms defending mobsters, drug king pins, even a member of the Kennedy clan.
On Thursday, Sherman, a Greenwich lawyer who frequently appears as a legal analyst on TV, was, himself, the defendant.
Sherman, 63, of Greenwich pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall to two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay taxes on returns he filed in 2001 and 2002.
He faces up to a year in prison on each charge when she sentences him Sept. 27. He also could see his license to practice law suspended by the state.
While Sherman has paid about $397,000 in taxes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Juongbloed said the attorney still owes about $1.1 million in additional taxes, interests and penalties from other years.
– By Michael P. Mayko

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Police investigated two reported car crashes with injuries on Lindley Street in Bridgeport tonight.

The crashes, at the intersections of Lindley and Summit streets and Capitol Avenue and Lindley, were reported within minutes of each other, around 9 p.m.

Initially, injuries were reported. Police and fire officials could not immediately confirm whether anyone was hurt in either crash, but said it appeared there were no life-threatening injuries.

In the first crash, a child was reportedly struck by a car. In the second, at least two vehicles were involved in an apparant head-on collision at the busy corner of Lindley and Capitol.

Police closed off parts of the road and the Fire Department responded, too. Both cars were badly smashed.

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UPDATE: The building at 503-519 East Main St. — a three-story structure with apartments above and retail on the ground floor — has not collapsed. The roof had been partially ripped off by the tornado Thursday and was covered by a tarp. The weight of the stray shower an hour ago seems to have caused part of the roof to cave in.

Eddie Reyes, owner of El Coquito, 496 East Main St., said several residents were inside the building at the time of the roof collapse but everyone appears to have escaped safely.

Now, however, people appear to have voluntarily gone into the building and are throwing their belongings out of the windows, according to one of our reporters out at the scene.

Luz Acevedo, 77, was one of the people in the building at the time. She made it out with one of her cats, although her three other cats appear to be trapped inside.

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Here’s an update on damage caused by Thursday’s severe storm in Stratford:

There’s no dollar estimate of damage yet.
Power has been restored to all of Stratford. Public Works and private contractors are still cleaning up debris, including numerous downed trees.
According to Susan Collier, town finance director:
“We have FEMA coming in today (Monday) to assess all the damage,” she said. “We are keeping track of the cost [of damage] to town property. The majority of the work seems to be done. It’s just cleanup now.”
She said the town’s Public Works Department is back on its regular schedule. She said they worked through the weekend and they’ll be cleaning up until Wednesday or Thursday.
“Right now things look pretty good in the Lordship area,” she said about the section of the town hardest hit by Thursday’s storm.
There was some damage at Sikorsky Memorial Airport, according to John Ricci, airport manager.
He said damage was “minimal in terms of aircrafts.”
However, he added: “We have a couple buildings on the airport grounds that are abandoned that may have been damaged to the extend that they may have to be torn down now because they really got hit badly by the wind.”
He said one is a former hangar building and the other is a former small office building. He said they date back to the 1930s and are on the Main Street side of the airport and have been unoccupied.
“We’re just looking to see if we need to take them down at this point before they fall down,” he said. “My suspicion is that another storm would knock them to the ground.”
He said there was no major aircraft damage.
“One plane was up on blocks and was being worked on and it got pushed off the blocks,” he said. “Another plane tipped a little bit because it wasn’t tied down properly. But it’s minor damage that can be fixed pretty easily.”
Information provided by Staff Writer Brittany Lyte–

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Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today announced that his office has mailed $60,000 in restitution checks to consumers who paid a Bridgeport company for headstones that were never delivered.
Blumenthal said that the checks were sent to 73 consumers who made partial or full payments to the Lakeview Monument Co., LCC for gravestones never supplied. He said that his office will send the same consumers additional checks totaling $18,000 by May, providing them 100 percent restitution.
“I am pleased that our office secured full restitution — every dollar back — for consumers cruelly conned by Lakeview Monument,” Blumenthal said in a press release.
“Consumers will now receive most of the money paid for gravestones never received — with the rest by May,” he added.
“Lakeview extracted hard-earned dollars from vulnerable consumers consumed by grief and loss,” he said. “The company and its owner continued accepting payments for monuments they could not deliver. Lakeview’s failure to provide headstones exacerbated the heartbreak of losing a loved one. This money back enables consumers to pay for headstones memorializing beloved family members.”
Blumenthal, in cooperation with the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP), sued Lakeview in 2008. The action alleged that Lakeview knew in April 2007 that it could no longer fulfill orders, but continued accepting deposits and full payments until it ceased operations in September 2007.
Blumenthal said his office has collected $60,000 from Lakeview owner Richard Miron. A court judgment obtained by Blumenthal’s office requires Miron to pay an additional $18,000 in consumer restitution by May 2011.