GOP evokes Griswold murders
Lawmakers say slain family would be alive had Malloy policies not benefited suspect
Griswold — Republican lawmakers at a news conference Tuesday said that three members of the Lindquist family who were murdered in this “sleepy town” in December 2017 would be alive today if not for Malloy administration policies they say enabled suspect Sergio Correa to be released early from a 10-year prison sentence and to remain in the community after he violated the terms of his probation.
State Rep. Kevin Skulczyck, R-Griswold, a former first selectman here and a retired correction officer, assembled a group of lawmakers and candidates at Town Hall after learning the gruesome details of the murder-home invasion that resulted in the deaths of Matthew Lindquist, 21, and his parents, Janet and Kenneth Lindquist.
Skulczyck called for reinstatement of the death penalty, which was repealed in 2012, and said the Second Chance initiatives instituted by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and criminal justice Undersecretary Mike Lawlor have enabled violent criminals and those addicted to drugs to “reoffend and reoffend and reoffend but stay out (of prison) and not pay the price.”
State Sen Len Suzio, R-Meriden, said Correa’s incarceration record indicated he had been granted 364 days of “good time” under the Risked Reduction Earned Credit program enacted in 2011 as part of Malloy’s Second Chance policies. Suzio later emailed a spreadsheet from the Department of Correction that con-
firmed that Correa received the RREC time.
“He was out of jail almost a year earlier than he should have been,” Suzio said. “The victims would still be alive had he been where he was supposed to be.”
Suzio, who said he received and is analyzing millions of records from the DOC, contends the initiatives that enabled the Malloy administration to close prisons amid claims that crime is down are a joke within the prison system, where inmates receive time off their sentences for taking programs such as the History of the Philippines.
He said he has no problem with policies pertaining to nonviolent offenders but the public must be protected from violent criminals. Suzio said that since the RREC was enacted, 119 murders or manslaughters and 154 sex assaults were committed by Connecticut prisoners who were released early. He cited other figures indicating, he said, that 5.7 violent crimes a day have been committed by “supposedly reformed prisoners.”
Officials within the Malloy administration countered immediately that the Griswold crimes were not a result of the governor’s Second Chance Society Initiatives and that violent criminals are serving a greater proportion of their sentences under Malloy’s administration than they had served under the two previous Republican governors.
Sentenced to 10 years in prison for armed robberies and other crimes he committed as a 16-year-old, Correa, 26, had been incarcerated since 2008 and had served more than 85 percent of his sentence, which is mandatory for violent offenders, before he was granted parole, according to DOC officials.
“I can’t agree with Senator Suzio’s assertion that Sergio Correa would have been incarcerated at the time of the murders if not for the application of Risk Reduction Earned Credit (RREC),” DOC spokeswoman Karen Martucci said in an email. “Correa’s release into the community was based upon a Parole Board decision and not based on credit application.”
Correa appeared before a three-member panel of the Board of Pardons and Paroles on Nov. 14, 2016, that included retired FBI agent Robert A. Murphy, former prison warden Pamela Richards, and former paralegal Rufaro Berry. Granted parole, he was released to a halfway house in January 2017 and eventually moved into his grandfather’s home on Donald Street in Hartford.
The good time credits he earned were applied at the end of his sentence and did not impact the length of time he spent in prison, according to DOC officials. He was discharged from parole supervision on Sept. 8, 2017. Correa’s community supervision then became the responsibility of the Department of Adult Probation, which is under the jurisdiction of the Judicial Branch.
Though his court record indicates Correa committed about a dozen “technical” violations of the conditions of his probation by failing to schedule and attend counseling sessions and getting charged with minor motor vehicle offenses, Correa was not charged with a violation of probation until February 2018, when he was arrested for drug possession in Hartford. By that time, he was a suspect in the Griswold crimes.
Michael Hines, assistant director of adult probation for the state Judicial Branch, said in an interview last week that probation officers try to work with offenders to become productive members of society. He said there is no formula for how many technical violations an officer will tolerate before applying for an arrest warrant for violation of probation and that decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
Skulczyck said that under the Malloy administration’s policies, addicts under community supervision are testing positive for drugs seven or eight times without being rearrested. He said the Malloy agenda appears to be driven by national politics, not reality.
“When we look at what happened in Griswold, we had an issue that started with a drug problem,” Skulczyck said. “The young man had been battling a heroin addiction. He cut a deal, as we know, for a swap of guns for drugs. He invited these animals down from Hartford to come down to his house to take the guns. What he did was he introduced the devil into his house that night.”
Skulczyck said he was sure Matthew Lindquist didn’t know his actions would lead to his death and the torture and death of his parents.
State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, called the Malloy initiatives an “abject failure” and renewed a call she made as a candidate for lieutenant governor four years ago for the resignation of Michael P. Lawlor, Malloy’s undersecretary for criminal justice and policy planning.
Lawlor deferred questions to Malloy’s office, which released a printed statement.
“The legislators making these claims are either wholly ignorant of the facts, or purposefully using a tragedy to score political points,” Malloy spokeswoman Kelly Donnelly said. “The simple truth is that violent offenders are serving a greater proportion of their original sentences than they did under Connecticut’s previous two governors. It’s also undeniably true that crime, inclusive of violent crime, in Connecticut is at historic lows and have declined faster than any other state by a wide margin according to data released by the FBI. Make no mistake, those that do commit crimes will be and are held accountable for their actions. And law enforcement and our courts are working hard to ensure justice is served in this tragic case. Our hearts break for the family, friends and loved ones of the victims in this horrific incident.”