‘We are doing a lot of things right’

Colangelo takes on challenges at Department of Criminal Justice

Newly appointed Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo is hoping to combat a perceived public relations problem while expanding existing efforts to bring the Division of Criminal Justice into the 21st century.

In an interview Friday with Hearst Connecticut Media in his Rocky Hill office, Colangelo discussed his plans for the division, which administrates prosecutorial operations for the 13 judicial districts and accompanying geographical courts.

His new office is accented with baseball memorabilia and a gray gargoyle that seems to overlook his desk from its perch atop a cabinet. A

piece of wall art reads, “a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

The 53-year-old was appointed as the state’s top prosecutor Jan. 30 while he was state’s attorney for the Judicial District of Stamford and Norwalk overseeing the criminal cases spawned from the highly publicized death and disappearance of Jennifer Dulos.

The case has drawn international attention and an intense glare on the Judicial District as police spent months searching locations throughout the state looking for the missing New Canaan mother of five while building a case against her estranged husband, Fotis Dulos.

Colangelo was appointed chief state’s attorney on Jan. 30 — the same day Fotis Dulos died from an apparent suicide. Colangelo is still the lead prosecutor in the cases against the co-defendants, Michelle Troconis and Kent Mawhinney, at least until his replacement in Stamford can be appointed.

The longtime prosecutor said during his interview with the state’s Criminal Justice Commission that the division is suffering because there’s a perception that the work of the prosecutors is not promoted.

“The mantra is that we’re doing things wrong,” Colangelo said Friday. “But we are doing a lot of things right at the Division of Criminal Justice, prosecutors are going to court every day and doing the right things for the safety of the community.”

About 40 percent of cases are nolled or dropped, he said. It means there are more opportunities for people charged with crimes to enter court diversionary programs and not have the offense on their record.

“We are deciding what we should spend our resources on,” Colangelo said.

Colangelo plans to meet with community leaders throughout the state and all 13 state’s attorney’s offices to determine areas that need improvement and to identify problems that need to be addressed. Prosecutors should be out in the community, attending events and talking to people, he said.

As the Stamford and Norwalk state’s attorney, Colangelo often attended public meetings where he could speak to residents about issues they were facing.

“My thought always is, if we can reach one person, that’s what we should be looking at as prosecutors,” he said. “If you’re just sitting behind your desk, you are doing your job, but not you’re not doing your job as a prosecutor.”

In recent weeks, Colangelo has attended a symposium on collateral consequences in the hopes of getting other prosecutors to understand the “ripple” effect that a conviction has on families and friends, and he’s assembling a team to examine best practices for conviction integrity, another issue that advocates for criminal justice reform are seeking the state to address.

Colangelo will also seek more funding for the division to come into compliance with a 2019 law that requires his office to gather various arrest and sentencing information, which must be forwarded to the legislature annually to determine if racial inequities are occurring. At this point, the law is an unfunded mandate, Colangelo conceded.

Colangelo is seeking funding for 13 paralegals or litigation support specialists who will work at each of the state’s attorney’s offices. During the last legislative session, the cost of hiring the 13 paralegals was pegged at $690,000. The paralegals would work with the new case management system to help channel the proper data to make sure the division is in compliance with the 2019 prosecutorial transparency law.

The case management system will revolutionize the work of the division by connecting the state’s attorney’s office to other criminal justice agencies throughout the state. The system will also modernize the division, which uses paper files. The antiquated system prompted Colangelo’s predecessor, Kevin Kane, who retired in November, to quip last year that the division was still operating as if it were the 1940s.

There is a scant $28,000 in the fiscal year 2021 budget for training prosecutors.

“We do in-house training, but having the ability to send people to training is important,” Colangelo said.

Colangelo is also trying to expand the Early Screening and Intervention program, which since 2017 has diverted offenders of low-level crimes from court to the resources they need for help.

“It’s a great program and I think we’ve definitely proven that it works,” Colangelo said. “But the issue is the funding. It’s getting the money to expand.”

The program provides for a dedicated prosecutor and resource counselor at the Waterbury, New Haven, Hartford and Norwich and New London geographical courts. The prosecutor and resource counselor assess low-level offenders for issues such as substance abuse or homelessness that may be driving criminal behavior at the start of their court cases.

The defendants are then connected with service providers or diverted to Judicial Branch programs to address their cases without having to make a court appearance every month to deal with the charges. The average defendant only sees a judge twice during the process, officials said.

Kane’s staff estimated that the program would save the public 54,000 court appearances and save 4,500 hours of court time annually, freeing up judges, prosecutors, public defenders and staff to deal with more serious cases.

“It’s so important to be able to screen out and deal with those cases,” Colangelo said. “If someone has an issue that can be dealt with outside the court system, that’s ideal. I’d like to think that given the opportunity those people aren’t coming back into system.”

But it all depends on funding. Gov. Ned Lamont cut $150,000 from the division’s fiscal year 2021 budget and the legislature did not fund the EIS expansion or the 13 paralegals last year.

While arrests and crime are down, Colangelo concedes, the work of prosecutors has increased three- to four-fold with the introduction of body cameras and other electronic evidence.

One iPhone can hold 128 gigabits of information, which translates into 33,554,432 pieces of paper that would take 65 years to read, he said.

“My people are doing more with less,” he said.

Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media Richard Colangelo, who was appointed last month as Connecticut chief state attorney, is interviewed at his office in Rocky Hill.

Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media Richard Colangelo, who was appointed Jan. 30 as the new Connecticut chief state attorney, is photographed on Feb. 28 for an interview at his office in Rocky Hill.