Connecticut Criminal Defense Law Blog

The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled on Monday that police must obtain a warrant before placing a GPS tracking device on the vehicle of a suspect. The decision is considered the first major decision to clarify constitutional privacy rights in the digital age.

The ruling upheld the decision of an appeals court which overturned the conviction of a nightclub owner charged with drug possession. Police obtained that conviction with evidence gathered by means of a GPS tracking device which was placed on the man's car.

On Wednesday, a 48-year-old Naugatuck man pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The charges stem from his participation in a mortgage fraud scheme spanning a decade and costing lenders $7 million. Sentencing is yet to occur, but the man faces up to 40 years in prison.

In an interesting larceny case, a Westport man was recently charged with defrauding a Fairfield resident in a transaction involved what was supposed to be dirt from the original Yankee Stadium. The Westport man is accused of requesting that the alleged victim invest money in various marketing gift items, including key chains said to contain dirt from the ballpark.

The alleged victim, according to sources, provided the man with 35,000 for a 20 percent share in the investment deal between 2008 and 2009, but the deal never panned out. Police have charged the man with first-degree larceny and third-degree forgery.

On Jan 2, a Stamford drug dealer was sentenced to 20 years in prison. His conviction is the result of his role in a cocaine trafficking ring in southwestern Connecticut.

Another individual involved in the ring, a 31-year-old man, will be serving eight years of supervised release based on the ruling of a U.S. District Judge. A federal jury has found him guilty of one count of possession with the intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine, and one count of conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine on Dec. 13, 2010.

A string of car break-ins throughout New Haven, Litchfield, and Fairfield County between Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 led to the arrests of three men suspected to be connected with this larceny case.

On Jan. 4, state and local police held a meeting to work together in an effort to identify the suspects, and to pool together information regarding the influx of break-ins, according to police reports. Police reports further stated the suspects made walking trails, church parking lots, and gyms as their targets. The report indicates undercover collaborative police task forces were sent out for surveillance.

More than 200 people in Wallingford are claiming to be victims of debit card fraud, which police say is the biggest fraud operation in the history of the city.

One man from Connecticut said his card number was used to make a purchase at a Mississippi Wal-Mart in the amount of $400 while he was sitting at his home. He and his wife reported a total loss of $700.

A lawyer in Connecticut is standing up for a number of state employees who allegedly committed fraud, and asking the governor to allow some of those workers to repay the money they received.

Following Hurricane Irene in August, the federal government provided aid in the amount of $12.4 million to the state in order to assist people with low incomes and who were not part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Roughly 24,000 state citizens, including 800 state employees, received aid to help replace spoiled food.

On Sunday, a new DUI law took effect which will allow repeat offenders to avoid license suspension with the use of an ignition interlock device. We wrote about this new law in a blog post a couple weeks ago. As we noted, the new law is intended to help offenders to face the consequences of their conviction while obtaining the proper treatment.

In addition to the use of ignition interlock devices, the law will allow the DUI offenders to be released to home confinement for treatment in place of serving mandatory minimum prison sentences.