Justice reform director charged with violating probation
BRIDGEPORT — The director of a national criminal justice reform organization has been charged with allegedly interfering with Waterbury police during a potential home invasion investigation and violating probation on a larceny conviction in Trumbull.
Louis Reed, who once served as director of Mayor Joe Ganim’s second chance initiative until his arrest in 2016, was charged with interfering with police and violation of probation.
Reed, of Stratford, turned himself in to Stratford police last month after being informed there was a warrant for his arrest. He was released after posting $500 bond pending arraignment in Superior Court on April 20.
Reed is the national organizing director for #Cut 50, a criminal justice reform program that successfully lobbied to get President Donald Trump to sign First Step, the federal inmate release program. He has been interviewed in national media and photographed with Kim Kardashian West.
“Any comment that I have has been covered by other reporters who have more sensitivity to the issues that are reported regarding people impacted by the criminal legal system and/or communicated to the public myself,” he stated in an email to
Hearst Connecticut Media.
In October 2018, Reed pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree larceny and was later sentenced to a five-year suspended term and three years of probation.
According to the recent arrest warrant affidavit, on Oct. 15, 2020, Waterbury police responded to a home there on a complaint of a possible home invasion. The caller stated that two masked men had entered the residence.
When police went to the home, they were confronted at the door by a man later identified as Reed who told them there was no problem there and refused to let officers enter the residence, the affidavit states. Reed then allegedly began yelling in the face of one of the officers, the affidavit states. He was charged with interfering with police.
The affidavit states that a tenant of the home later told police that there had been no home invasion. He said Reed was the landlord and had entered the home with another man, both wearing masks because of the pandemic, to fix the dishwasher.
But on the basis of the arrest and his alleged actions with police, Reed’s probation was violated, the affidavit states.
Reed previously served a 13-year federal prison sentence on a number of charges including shooting a 5-year-old boy.
Reed, in a prior interview, claimed he got his $57,000 a year job with the city after meeting mayor — then inmate — Joseph Ganim on a prison bus.