Foley clocks 80 mph on Route 9, cited for speeding

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Republican Tom Foley, the prohibitive favorite to win his party’s endorsement for governor later this week, got pulled over Monday night by State Police for traveling 80 miles per hour on Route 9, his campaign confirmed.

The posted speed limit on the two-lane highway, which runs from Farmington to Old Saybrook, is 65 miles per hour, with the exception of a 3-mile stretch near Middletown that is 45 miles per hour.

Foley was returning to Greenwich from a fundraiser for state Sen. Art Linares in Haddam.

“He got a ticket for violating the limit,” Chris Cooper, a spokesman for Foley, told Hearst Connecticut Media. “There’s not a lot more to it than that.”

An incident report was not immediately available from State Police, who have computerized motor vehicle citations.

Foley’s conduct behind the wheel has been scrutinized on multiple occasions during his consecutive bids for governor, including in 2010, when he came within 6,500 votes of winning the state’s highest office.

In 1981, Foley was arrested on a first-degree attempted assault charge in Southampton, N.Y. The charge, which was eventually dropped, stemmed from a motor vehicle accident that Foley described as a minor fender bender during the 2010 governor’s race.

Foley’s account of the incident conflicted with a police report, which stated that Foley rammed his Toyota Land Cruiser into the back of a Mercury sedan carrying five people on Montauk Highway after attending a party.

In 1993, Foley and his first wife were both charged with breach of peace following a child custody dispute in which he pursued his estranged spouse by car in Greenwich. The charges in that case were also dropped. No records of the incident, one in which Foley previously denied he tried to run his wife off the road, were found when requested by the newspaper.

CORRECTION: An earlier version is this blog post gave the wrong speed limit for Route 9.

Neil Vigdor