U.S. Attorney’s office to investigate CT state troopers’ issuance of phony traffic tickets

The U.S. Attorney’s office has taken charge of an investigation into whether there were crimes or other sorts of violations committed by Connecticut state troopers who have issued tens of thousands of phony traffic tickets, possibly poisoning the state’s efforts to collect data on traffic stops.

Late last month, Chief State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin was asked by Gov. Ned Lamont to investigate what has emerged as a ticketing scandal. But a half dozen people with knowledge of the matter said this week that Griffin, in order to avoid conflicts that could emerge from parallel investigations, has acceded to a request by federal authorities to take over the case.

Griffin declined to discuss the matter Wednesday, as did the office of U.S. Attorney Vanessa Avery. Gov. Lamont’s office said Tuesday it had not “received any notification” about federal authorities taking charge. And the state police did not immediately respond to a request for copies of correspondence received from federal prosecutors or the FBI.

Report: CT state troopers may have falsified at least 25K tickets

The U.S. Attorney’s role as lead in an investigation raises questions about how it will interact with a so-called “process” investigation by former U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly. Lamont has asked Daly to examine internal state police processes to determine how troopers were able to issue thousands of suspect tickets, why the misconduct occurred, how it continued for a decade or more and what data processing and other steps can be taken to prevent a repeat.

Daly’s husband and former law partner is Alfred U. Pavlis, the top assistant in the U.S. Attorney’s office. In that position, he has supervisory authority over investigations and prosecutions by the office. In the past, federal prosecutors have recused themselves from investigations to avoid appearances of conflict. The office declined to discuss the matter Wednesday.

Griffin’s office, working with a team of state police detectives, had been investigating the issuance of falsified traffic tickets for about a year, after learning that, at least five years ago, four troopers had fabricated hundreds of traffic stop tickets, apparently in the belief that the productivity the high numbers showed could lead to overtime, better assignments, promotions and other prerequisites.

Since then, a state audit has shown that a far greater number of troopers may have falsified tens of thousands of tickets. In short, the officials said, troopers apparently figured out ways to  “game” the agency data processing system.

In some cases, since troopers are not credited with citations issued at minor accident scenes, some are suspected of having issued on-scene citations, logging out of the agency computer system and logging back in to issue another citation, for credit.

There have been cases, the officials said, when troopers are suspected of simply making up tickets for non-existent drivers. In one case, a trooper issued more than 1,000 citations and listed the ethnicity of all recipients as Native American, something the officials suspect was a personal protest against requirements to determine race of offenders.

A big concern among state officials is that the so-called “ticket scandal” has skewed the state’s efforts to collect and report data on drivers in traffic stops — data that has been ordered, collected, analyzed and reported to ensure, among other things, that minority drivers are not stopped at disproportionately high rates.

Although federal prosecutors would not discuss the case, other lawyers said there are crimes which could be subject to investigation. The entry of fraudulent data could be considered a computer crime or, in rare cases, forgery under state law. Since highway safety enforcement is substantially funded by federal grants, the entry by troopers of phony data to increase overtime could be construed as theft from a federal program.

There also could be a civil rights component of a federal investigation. Should it be determined that falsification of tickets was sufficiently widespread to skew demographic data collection on highway stops, the federal government could attempt to enter into some sort of consent decree with the state to resolve the problem and prevent its recurrence, lawyers following events said.

State and federal prosecutors have a history of cooperation in Connecticut and several officials said there have been ongoing conversations between the two offices on how to best handle the ticket scandal.

Among other things, federal authorities are far better equipped with investigatory tools needed to understand complex investigations of an agency like the state police. For decades, the state legislature has refused to provide state prosecutors with efficient access to investigative grand juries and investigative subpoenas — legal tools essential to compelling testimony from reluctant witnesses in complex crimes.

Officials in both the state and U.S. Attorney’s offices acknowledge that they were continuing the ongoing discussions and said there was talk at one point of parallel investigations. The U.S. Attorney’s office said it would take the investigation on July 5, a week after Lamont asked Griffin to take it.