State investigating nude photos
Danbury State’s Attorney initiates criminal investigation into how former Brookfield High students’ pictures landed on internet
DANBURY — The Danbury State’s Attorney has launched an investigation into how nude photographs of former Brookfield students allegedly wound up on the internet.
News of the investigation came Tuesday as a state Superior Court judge in Danbury denied a motion from plaintiffs seeking documents from 11 Brookfield school officials and members of the town’s police department that could shed light the matter.
Handed down by Judge Barbara Brazzel-Massaro after a hearing conducted on Zoom, the refusal for a petition for a bill of discovery came in deference to the ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by Danbury State’s Attorney David Applegate’s office into a former Brookfield police officer, Steven Rountos, who resigned while under internal investigation in December.
“A period of another two months to wait and see what is happening with the state’s attorney’s investigation certainly is practical and certainly is called for in this particular circumstance,” said Brazzel-Massaro. “So, I am going to deny any of the documents being provided to counsel right now from the (11 people) that were named here.”
Attorneys representing the two female students, who graduated in 2017 and 2019, filed a verified petition for bill of discovery in state Superior Court in Danbury on Aug. 23, outlining the inquiry for evidence and stating a federal agent investigating the matter told them he found, through a search warrant, the photographs on a cellphone and flash drive in possession of Rountos, a former school resource officer assigned to Brookfield High School.
According to the filing, the former students reported the matter to the Brookfield Police Department but became frustrated with a perceived lack of response before filing a report with officers from the Danbury Police Department, who ultimately passed the matter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
News of the state's investigation comes more than two weeks after Brookfield Police Chief John Puglisi confirmed a federal investigation into the matter to CT Insider, stating agents with the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security took over the department's inquiry into the matter based on a recommendation from a victim's advocate.
On Tuesday, the attorney representing school administrators, Brookfield Board of Education members, and members of the Brookfield Police Department reported the Danbury State's Attorney is conducting its own investigation while the federal investigation remained ongoing.
“The state's attorney is looking at this, when we put our affidavit together we actually had it reviewed by Attorney (David) Applegate who also indicated that he is not sure (The
U.S. Department of ) Homeland Security has ceased doing what they were doing,” attorney Michael Rose said.
The attorney representing Rountos, Charles DeLuca, told the judge, “... that Mr. Rountos is going to be exercising any rights that he has under Article 1 section 8 of the Connecticut Constitution and the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Section 52-199 of the Connecticut general statutes.”
“I came in for Mr. Rountos, apparently (The Town of ) Brookfield is not going to be defending him in any type of action. I am not exactly sure why, since the bill of discovery asks for documents that presumably would have been generated during his course of employment ... so he is on his own on this, with me, and we are going to be exercising his rights,” DeLuca said.
“That is going to be our position,” he added.
Neither DeLuca nor Rose returned calls seeking additional comment.
In her ruling Tuesday, Brazzel-Massaro stated she had “grave concern about providing documents at this point to anybody,” citing fairness to the defendants named in the filing and an “extreme prejudice to the state's attorney's performance of their duties.”
Plus, she added, a statute of limitations for any civil action brought around “negligent supervision” of students would not expire until June.
The judge stated for the record that her decision came, “without prejudice, to renew in a period which will permit the state's attorney to be able to conduct their investigation to determine whether or not anything is going forward.”
“We do not want to impede the state's attorneys' investigation, we have never had wanted to do that, we just want to make sure this is moving along and our clients are able to have the information they need at the proper time,” said attorney Catherine Keenan, representing the plaintiffs.
The judge said the education board and school officials should preserve “anything that was not provided to the police department as part of the investigation.”
“Everything needs to be maintained and preserved, and if in fact, this does go forward and it comes to light that the Board of Education or one of the officers or individuals involved in the Board of Education or the police department has in any way destroyed any of these items, then I would assume that counsel is going to come in for a contempt motion,” the judge said.
“And I can tell you right now, if that happens, I will look at it.”