Sunday, August 26, 2007

Murry the Wheel

To book Murry the Wheel, with or without his band, email me at:
stevengerickson@yahoo.com


More Murry the Wheel video, added Nov. 5, 2007, 10:20 AM EST:


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I took this video clip last Tuesday [prior to Aug. 26] after nearly being run down by a deer, bounding out of swamp, I was walking along the road.:


Mr. P's open Mic Night

Murry the Wheel with his band, open mic night in Connecticut

This video was taken around Oct of 2006:


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This post accepts anonymous comments. To share these videos with a friend by email, click white envelope below.

Ricky Skaggs Emmylou Harris : Bluegrass


text with video: Clip from TV Documentary featuring a very young Ricky Skaggs and some early footage of Emmylou - including a nice pre 1977 'If I Could Only win Your Love' with James Burton in The Hot Band.
Check out as well juicemusic's upload of the Louvins from the same documentary.


Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder - Halfway Home Cafe

31 years ago ...

AC/DC - TNT (1976 Aussie TV)

Led Zeppelin Whole Lotta Love

Colombian drug lords - trained by the IRA



[click here] for Connecticut's Terrorist Memorial video

Iran Guard on U.S. Terrorist list?



Is this the first time a nation's armed forces are put on a Terrorist List by the US, namely, President George W. Bush?

Does Bush plan to war with Iran to stay in power beyond the next election?

Does labeling another nation's military "terrorists" mean that anything goes, legal or not?

"JIMMY JUSTICE" lets New York City Police have it



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Reasons not to do ecstasy and other drugs:

LENGOA VENETA dialetto veneto figa mona gnocca

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Would Bush try this if he thought he could get away with it?

WW2 Auschwitz liberation: Rare Russian footage

Connecticut is all about police, prosecutorial, judicial, and attorney misconduct

Greer cites report as proof of police disarray
William Kaempffer, Register Staff
08/24/2007

NEW HAVEN — The consultant's report on the Police Department confirmed what detractors have been saying all along: That the Police Department, from the top down, is in total disarray.

At least that was the take of Eliezer Greer, a dogged critic of department leadership who launched an armed citizens' patrol earlier this summer.

Greer on Thursday renewed his verbal assault on department brass, quoting passage after passage from the 97-page study commissioned by the city as evidence of the "dysfunctionality" of department management.

"It's embarrassing to the city to read this PERF report," said Greer, referring to the Police Executive Research Forum, a national consultant hired by the city to review the Police Department. He said he planned to meet with Craig Fraser, the architect of the report, next week to share the views of residents.

Greer has been a vocal critic of the department and Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr. in particular for more than two months, claiming the city abandoned the idea of community policing and in the process abandoned the streets to thugs.

The PERF report portrayed a level of disorganization inside the department: a records division with a two-year backlog; lack of standardization and consistency in internal affairs; and a total absence of accountability in the former narcotics unit that helped foster a culture that led to the FBI raid of police headquarters and arrest of two investigators for allegedly stealing money and, for Lt. William White, running a longtime racket with bail bondsmen to take bribes in exchange for tracking down bail jumpers.

Greer launched the armed patrol 11 weeks ago, making good on a threat his family made to City Hall if crime issues weren't addressed in the community. The catalyst was an evening attack of Greer's bother, a rabbi. Both are sons of influential Rabbi Daniel Greer, whose nonprofit organizations own about 40 buildings in the Edgewood neighborhood, including the one on Whalley Avenue that houses the New Haven police substation.

After announcing his own patrol, he invited the Guardian Angels, the New York-based safety patrol, to New Haven. The group is now trying to establish a permanent chapter.

On Thursday, Greer set up his folding table and laminated Edgewood Park Defense Patrol poster board in front of the police substation on Whalley Avenue.

Alderwoman Elizabeth McCormick, D-24, attended Thursday's event at the Greers' request and stood off to the side. She said she's seen a change in the neighborhood since Greer started the patrols and highlighted his concerns in the media.

"A lot of the crime statistics in this neighborhood are way down. I'll credit a lot of it to what they started by getting everybody to the table, and they focused some attention on this neighborhood and that may not have happened were it not for the media attention this brought," she said.

But Greer also has his detractors. Some say he likes the publicity. Others attribute his activities as an effort to keep the neighborhood in the spotlight.

As Greer addressed the media, one passerby delivered a terse rebuke.

"If the New Haven Police Department is run that bad or run that poorly, why don't you run it yourself?" the passerby said.

City Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts declined to verbally joust with Greer.

He repeated the city's position: Police support any community effort to become engaged, whether as a Block Watch, the Guardian Angels or a neighborhood patrol. It's the guns that concern them.

He said he wouldn't comment on the individual opinions of any city resident.

"There are 130,000 residents. There will be a wide variety of opinions and a wide variety of temperaments," he said.

Police have seen a steady drop in crime in the Edgewood area over the last two months, which Greer attributes to his patrol.

But Smuts said the drop has been citywide and due to a number of policing efforts.

"We've seen a significant drop citywide, and I think that we've been doing a number of things specifically in that district and citywide that you would consider a police response responsible for that drop," he said.


©New Haven Register 2007

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Should Connecticut have a bridge dedicated to blowjobs and drunk driving? More:
http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/2007/08/justice-and-political-influence-is-for.html

Should Connecticut have a memorial on public property celebrating cop killers and terrorists? More:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcinXSA6XvA

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Bush, the "Dick"-tater

Bush Re-Authorizes Martial Law Provisions

Americans have officially been living under a dictatorship since at least 1933

Paul Joseph Watson, Steve Watson & Alex Jones Prison Planet Wednesday, May 23, 2007

President George W. Bush has sparked much alarm by openly declaring himself to be a dictator in the event of a national emergency under new provisions that will effectively nullify the U.S. constitution, but such an infrastructure has been in place for over 70 years and this merely represents a re-authorization of the infrastructure of martial law.

New legislation signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.

[click here] for more from the Fixed Loop blog

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[click here] for list of all my videos

This blogger's email: stevengerickson@yahoo.com

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Official Liars and Thieves want a Perpetual War

Daily Show explores mysteries of missing stuff in Iraq

David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Published: Friday August 10, 2007

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Daily Show host Jon Stewart has a novel explanation for the fact that the military has lost nearly 200,000 firearms in Iraq.

The military says the misplacement of 190,000 AK-47s and pistols was just a "clerical error." Stewart tries to clarify that explanation by displaying "Army Field Weaponry Procurement Form 1-A-3," which has two boxes; check one for "lose these," and another for "don't lose these." Turns out the Army just checked the wrong box.

"This is not the first mysterious happening of our four-year venture in Iraq," Stewart notes, citing previous disappearances of 380 tons of explosives, $12 billion in cash and 300,000 barrels of oil per day.

"How does this happen?" he asks. "Explosives, guns, oil, money. These aren't things people would just take for no reason, and they they've vanished without a trace in Iraq. Coincidence? Or profound incompetence?

"I say neither," Stewart continues. "As a geographical cartologist -- amature -- I believe the unique topographical features of Iraq form a natural -- but extremely powerful -- magicians hat."

The satirical host says if we could just "reach our hands deep enough into the sands of the Euphrates, we would find the money, the weapons, the oil and -- let's say -- 40 percentage points of President Bush's approval rating."

The following video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast on August 8.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Conspiracy Of Silence



Text with this youtube.com video:

Conspiracy of Silence, a documentary listed for viewing in TV Guide Magazine was to be aired on the Discovery Channel, on May 3, 1994. This documentary exposed a network of religious leaders and Washington politicians who flew children to Washington D.C. for sex orgies.

Many children suffered the indignity of wearing nothing but their underwear and a number displayed on a piece of cardboard hanging from their necks when being auctioned off to foreigners in Las Vegas, Nevada and Toronto, Canada.

At the last minute before airing, unknown congressmen threatened the TV Cable industry with restrictive legislation if this documentary was aired. Almost immediately, the rights to the documentary were purchased by unknown persons who had ordered all copies destroyed.

A copy of this videotape was furnished anonymously to former Nebraska state senator and attorney John De Camp who made it available to retired FBI Agent Ted L. Gunderson. While the video quality is not top grade, this tape is a blockbuster in what is revealed by the participants involved.

(The Boys' Town Scandal, Boys Boy's for word search Washington DC Black Republican Larry King Republic sex scandal child porn exploitation political influence bribes corruption misconduct obstruction of justice censorship Nebraska Senator Federal Franklin Credit Union Cover up influential lavish spending controversy news media IRS FBI investigation)


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http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/

Tycoon force fed News and Censorship?

When there is a monopoly on news, there is a monopoly on news. It is skewed for Big Business and the powerful. The "editor" can make stories, the "editor can keep stories from getting press. Where is freedom in America?

NEWS FOR SALE - CITIZEN MURDOCH


Text with video:

Rupert Murdoch owns The Wall Street Journal and just about everything else
http://www.docfactory.org/murdoch/

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[click here] for my videos

Connecticut's Mafia style legislators

There are victims of Connecticut's legislative, judicial, and executive branch corruption [click]


ROSS TAYLOR, July 24, 2007

Lashing Back Against DeLuca [Hartford Courant article]

In-Law, Admitting He's `No Angel,' Calls Senator A `Liar'

MARK COLELLA, 40, of Waterbury, who is married to the granddaughter of Sen. Louis DeLuca, responded angrily to DeLuca’s attempt to arrange to have someone intimidate Colella after allegations that Colella was beating his wife. Colella says he never mistreated his wife; her only comment is, “We have a great marriage.”

By CHRISTOPHER KEATING | Capitol Bureau Chief
August 5, 2007

Mark Colella asked to meet at a fast-food restaurant across the street from a Southington truck stop. He showed up an hour early to scope out the territory.

Seated outside at a picnic table with his back to the restaurant, Colella could see every car that entered and left the parking lot. He quickly looked up several times as male customers approached the restaurant at lunch time. His head spun around to scrutinize a noisy U-Haul truck driving by.

Colella says he's not having an easy time these days - constantly looking over his shoulder and carrying a weapon after being told by FBI agents that mobsters were looking to harm him.

In June, he was thrust onto the public stage after state Sen. Louis C. DeLuca said Colella's alleged physical abuse of his wife, DeLuca's granddaughter, had spurred DeLuca to ask a Danbury trash hauler with mob connections to intimidate him.

The scandal has revolved around DeLuca, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor conspiracy charge for asking James Galante, the trash hauler, to intimidate Colella. But Colella, who says he has never hurt his wife, also says the threat of being injured, or worse, hangs over him day and night. He sleeps only a few hours at night and often jumps at the slightest noise.

What's more, he says, he is mentioned in virtually every news story about DeLuca.

"I want my name cleared," Colella said in a lengthy interview. "I'm no angel. But I didn't do what he said I did. The guy's a liar. There's no other way to put it. I'm not going to be the focus of this guy's spin, and I'm not going to be the whipping post. There's always two sides to every story. All they have is his side."

Ordinarily, family quarrels are private matters. But the rules change when a dispute involves the FBI, mob connections and the family of a longtime state figure such as DeLuca, the former highest-ranking Republican in the state Senate.

Two months after DeLuca's guilty plea, Colella is still angry about being constantly on guard and about being accused of abuse he says he never committed. And he blames one man: Lou DeLuca.

"I'd like to smack his teeth down his throat," Colella says. "I consider him an enemy. I can't do anything to him because I'll go to jail."

DeLuca, who has stopped talking publicly about his case because he says he could be called as a witness in a potential Galante trial, did not return telephone calls to his home, his press aides or his attorney.

Although DeLuca has resigned as Senate GOP leader, he is under increasing pressure to resign his seat as well. He's held that seat, representing 10 Waterbury area towns in the 32nd Senate District, since 1990.

Top senators announced last week they will form a bipartisan committee to investigate the senator's guilty plea. The committee could recommend sanctions, including reprimand, censure or expulsion from the Senate. A key Republican senator, David Cappiello of Danbury, has already called for DeLuca to step down. After Cappiello's statement, DeLuca released his own statement saying, "Once again, I am not resigning."

What has brought DeLuca to this crisis in his career at the age of 73 stems directly from his conflict with the 40-year-old Colella.

The clash reveals a far different picture from the portrait of family unity on display only seven months ago. In a tale told by Colella - and confirmed by the official Senate transcript - many DeLuca family members gathered then at the state Capitol to celebrate the senator's return as top Republican leader.

All In The Family

It was Jan. 3, 2007 - opening day of the legislative session.

On this festive occasion, lawmakers invite their closest relatives and friends to the ornate chambers to share the joy of their election victories from the previous November. The celebration prompted DeLuca to pick up his microphone for some heartfelt remarks.

"As we all know, you can't do this without family," DeLuca said, according to the Senate transcript. "And I thank the support of my family these many years for not only their support, but their dedication, and especially my wife, Alice, who, as you know, answers the phone and probably solves more of the problems before I get home.

"Also, joining us here today are two of my daughters - my daughter, Gail, and her son, my grandson, Oliver. My other daughter, Kathy, and her daughter, Casey, and her husband, Mark Colella. And for the first time in this chamber, my first great-grandson, Rocco Colella."

Fellow senators broke out into applause as they had for other families, but few knew that day about the complicated relationship between DeLuca and Mark Colella.

Colella himself had no idea that DeLuca had met with Galante in a Woodbury diner nearly two years earlier to ask him to have Colella threatened because of alleged physical abuse of his wife, Casey. Colella says he knew nothing about DeLuca's involvement until the senator pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor conspiracy charge.

What Colella did know that day was that two FBI agents had come to his home to tell him that mob associates were looking to physically assault or even kill him. And he still believes that the assault could be carried out by mob associates in the future.

"This is not over by a long shot," Colella says. "It's never going to be over."

Casey Colella, who is caught between her family and her husband, has kept a low profile during the two months that her grandfather's problems have been in the newspapers. She declined to speak in detail about the situation, saying she would rather not talk at all.

"I just want all of this to go away," she said. "As far as me and my husband are concerned, we have a great marriage."

Tough Guy

A self-styled tough guy, Mark Colella first stepped forward as a colorful character in the DeLuca saga during an appearance in early June outside the Waterbury courthouse following DeLuca's sentencing on the misdemeanor charge.

The 5-foot-6 Colella, standing before a knot of reporters and TV cameras, boasted about being "100 percent Sicilian." Anyone who tries to intimidate him, he announced, better "bring a lot of bullets."

At the time, Colella - who had just learned DeLuca was involved in the threats - said he had nothing against the senator and thought the former Republican leader had been given bad information about the alleged domestic abuse.

Aside from that appearance, Colella has remained relatively quiet. But now, Colella says, every time DeLuca's conviction is mentioned in the media, he is dragged back into the story. And he is tired of it.

"This guy came out like a hero, and I came out like the villain," Colella says. "That blows my mind."

Colella emphatically rejects DeLuca's account of why the senator approached Galante. DeLuca has stated that he went to the trash hauler only after Waterbury police told him they could do nothing because his granddaughter - Colella's wife - would not file a criminal complaint against her husband.

"You're telling me a senator went to the Waterbury police and they turned him away?" Colella asked. "The guy is lying and lying and lying."

DeLuca also initially told the FBI that he went to Galante to arrange a job for Colella, according to his arrest warrant affidavit. Two weeks later, he admitted that the discussion with Galante concerned scaring Colella.

Colella says he is telling the truth. He says his life is an open book, even though some of it is not complimentary.

Some say that Colella has the type of record - both criminal and personal - that could alarm any grandfather who was concerned about his granddaughter.

A convicted felon who says he has been in prison "four or five times," Colella admits he has fathered five children by four different women. The children range in age from 5 months to 16 years. Court records in Waterbury show years of disputes between Colella and his children's mothers over thousands of dollars in child support. At the peak, he says, he owed more than $30,000 but has now whittled that down to about $3,500.

A one-time used car salesman who now says he's a "car wholesaler" in Waterbury, Colella has had financial problems that were documented in a 2004 financial affidavit in court in which he wrote "0" under "total cash value of all assets."

He says he has spent about three years in prison for various offenses, including being held before a trial for spousal abuse. Colella says this was a case, involving his first wife, that he eventually won at trial. All records of acquittals are erased from public records, and a clerk at the courthouse in Waterbury said there are no public records available on Colella.

State prison records show that he served one year at the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown for credit card theft, but there was no record of the time that Colella says he was in prison when he was unable to pay a high bail.

"That's all we have for criminal cases," said Joan Ellis, the freedom of information administrator for the correction department. "That's all we got."

Colella was imprisoned four other times: stints of two days, one day and five days, in civil cases, and one in 2005 for failing to pay child support. Court documents in Waterbury show that Casey Reilly, DeLuca's granddaughter, paid the bond money to get Colella released on Oct. 21, 2005. That was more than six months after DeLuca had complained to Galante about the couple's relationship.

While there is little consensus in a domestic case that involves different versions by DeLuca, Colella and the Waterbury police, many of the details that Colella provided about his life, even those that were derogatory, were later proved accurate by court papers or other documents.

How It All Started

The Mark Vincent Colella saga began in January 2005 when he first saw Casey Reilly, a waitress at the Spartan Restaurant & Bar. The Italian place features pizza, grinders and fried seafood on Chase Parkway in Waterbury. Colella immediately knew Casey was the one for him.

She walked over to his table to take the order. He blurted out his feelings.

"I said, `Some day, I'm going to marry you,'" Colella recalls. "There was something about her."

Three weeks from the moment he saw her, they were married before a justice of the peace. It was Valentine's Day, 2005.

No one in the bride's large Italian family knew about the secret wedding, and they did not learn about it until two weeks later.

"She didn't tell her family," Colella says. "She comes from Woodbury - a very sheltered world with pretentious snobs."

It was a full year, Colella says, before he met Lou DeLuca, who had played a key role in raising his granddaughter.

There were immediate problems between Colella and the DeLuca family. First, Colella is 14 years older than his wife. Second, he had a criminal record and had served time in prison. Third, Colella already had three other children by three different women.

The DeLuca family suggested that the hasty marriage be annulled, to no avail.

But less than two months after the wedding, in April 2005, according to the FBI, DeLuca met with Galante in the Woodbury diner - before DeLuca had ever spoken a word to Colella.

Today, Colella speaks fondly of his wife, who has given birth to two children.

"My wife is the mirror image of me. She's tough," Colella says. "You take a swing at my wife, and you better sleep with one eye open."

That toughness is part of what frustrates Colella. He says there is no way that he would be beating a woman who can certainly handle herself.

"My wife's no pushover," he says. "They make it sound like I got her chained in the basement, and I'm whipping her."

Beyond having his name printed in every major Connecticut newspaper following DeLuca's guilty plea, Colella's troubles have continued.

Based on an anonymous letter, Waterbury detectives showed up at his house about four weeks ago to check Casey for bruises, Colella says. They interviewed his wife and him separately; the detectives left, Colella says, after they found nothing.

Waterbury Police Chief Neil O'Leary did not return telephone calls seeking comment for this article.

Living In Fear

Colella is constantly on guard, he says, because he firmly believes the threats made against him could still be carried out - even after the arrests of DeLuca, Galante and Richard Caccavale, a trusted Galante associate who prosecutors say was involved in the planning of Colella's intimidation.

As a result, Colella sleeps every night with a weapon on him - not under the bed.

He refuses to sit in his recliner with his young children in his Waterbury house for fear that bullets will come crashing through the picture window.

For the first year after he learned about the mob threats from the FBI, Colella says, he checked all the closets of the condominium where he was living for fear that someone might be hiding there.

"The psychological aspect was worse than taking a beating," Colella says. "My wife said, `You're freaking out.'"

Today, he changes cars every few months - made easier because of his work as a car wholesaler in Waterbury.

"I had to go to the doctor's because I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown," he says. "This is all because of Sen. DeLuca. I go out and start my car and then I get my wife and kids in case they come and shoot me. How would you like to live like that?"

Colella says he consulted doctors on his condition, and court documents confirm that at least two doctors in Waterbury were involved last year in psychiatric evaluations.

When asked during the interview if he was armed, Colella reached toward his belt and quickly flipped open a switchblade.

Colella knew that he was not initially dealing with high-level mobsters. If that were the case, he says, he would already be dead. He says he has no fear of low-level thugs and Waterbury tough guys. His real concern lies with potential future dealings with higher-level mobsters.

"I'm more scared of the Easter bunny than I am of Jimmy Galante," Colella declares. "He's a nobody. He's a victim."

Galante's attorney, Hugh Keefe, responded, "The gentleman is absolutely, 100 percent correct in that he has nothing to be afraid of from Mr. Galante, and neither does anyone else."

Keefe, who has represented Galante for more than a year, has consistently downplayed the government's wiretapped evidence against his client as simply trash haulers talking tough and not following through on that talk.

Galante currently faces 93 counts in an updated indictment that charges him with racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, witness tampering, mail fraud and extortion. Prosecutors say Galante has paid nearly $800,000 in "mob tax" since 2001 to the New York-based Genovese crime family in a criminal scheme that allowed him to control the garbage industry in western Connecticut and neighboring suburban New York. Of 32 people charged so far in the case, 24 have pleaded guilty, said Tom Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.

The fast-talking Colella admits he could fit an Italian stereotype. He admits he might have been overdressed for the interview, wearing a pin-stripe suit and saying that he looked like Al Capone. He has no regrets about his comments outside the courthouse in June that anyone threatening him better have a lot of bullets.

"I stand by what I said that day," Colella says, drinking a Coke. "If anybody comes to hurt my family, they better watch it. I'm not going down without a fight."

A Strange Relationship

DeLuca and Colella have had a complicated relationship. Even though DeLuca had asked Galante to have his associates threaten Colella, the two had appeared to get along.

Besides being introduced in January on the Senate floor, Colella says he has met DeLuca about eight times and been to DeLuca's Woodbury home perhaps four times - all after DeLuca's meeting with Galante.

He recently was invited to DeLuca's home for a picnic, Colella says, though he turned down the offer.

"He's a very charismatic guy," Colella says. "But [convicted murderer] Jeffrey Dahmer was a likable guy when he worked in that chocolate factory. ... They tried to have me killed or beaten up. You want me to say something good about them?"

Colella says he simply wants to go back to living a low-key existence in which his name is no longer in the news.

"I got married thinking I would live a nice, quiet life," Colella says.

"I just want to be left alone. I don't want to be rich. I don't want to be famous. I just want to be left alone. ... We would have a great marriage if everybody minded their business."

Contact Christopher Keating at ckeating@courant.com.

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http://judicialmisconduct.blogspot.com/

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Connecticut Terrorist Memorial Video



[click here] for still photos and more information

Friday, August 03, 2007

Habeas Corpus Protest

Connecticut abuse of citizens

Losing Control: Bringing Maydelle Home
Maydelle Trambarulo's expected 30 to 60 stay in Connecticut has lasted over three years.
By Betsy Yagla
Kathleen Cei Photo
Daughter Anne Haines (second from right) estimates travel to Connecticut and lawyers fees have cost her family $250,000.

Maydelle Trambarulo's family has spent the last three years fighting to free the elderly New Jersey woman from Connecticut.

Maydelle is 76 years old and suffers from dementia and Parkinson's disease. Ralph, her husband of nearly 52 years, lives in New Jersey. The Connecticut probate court system has essentially divorced the two by dividing their finances and not allowing Maydelle to go home. Her grandchildren think she's been kidnapped by the courts and her husband thinks she's dead. Maydelle thinks she's being punished. Ralph is 80, and is too ill to travel the five hours it takes to come visit her.

Maydelle's problems started after she fell and broke her hip in 2004. Ralph and Maydelle had recently moved from New Jersey to Delaware to be near their son, Paul. Visiting nurses helped the aging couple. So did Paul and his partner Brian Pincin, who lived just six blocks away. Ralph and Maydelle had lived in a large two-story New Jersey home for 47 years. Their four children worried about their safety, so the couple downsized and moved closer to family.

Teresa Sirico, an East Haven realtor and Ralph's niece, visited them in their new Delaware home after several years of no contact. The Trambarulo family had gathered to celebrate Maydelle's August birthday and help out after she broke her hip.

Sirico told the Trambarulos that Maydelle should go to Connecticut with her to get care from Yale doctors. The family says Sirico told them she would take Maydelle to Connecticut for 30 to 60 days and then return her to her Delaware home. Maydelle was only semi-lucid; she didn't fully understand what was going on. But after some discussion, the family agreed the trip would be a good idea and helped their mother grant Sirico power of attorney over Maydelle.

"That sounded good, we wanted the best for her," says Alice Wright, Maydelle's daughter, in a phone interview from her Florida home.

But three years later Maydelle is still in Connecticut. She missed her husband's 80th birthday. She missed their 50th wedding anniversary. She's missed her grandchildren's birthdays and several graduations. She doesn't understand why her family has to keep coming to Connecticut to fight Sirico and the Probate Court system to bring her home to New Jersey.

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Maydelle was brought to Connecticut in August 2004 but was never taken to Yale as Sirico proposed. Instead, she was deposited at an assisted living facility in Woodbridge, and in 2006 she was transferred to Mariner's Point in East Haven after a brief stay in Derby. When she did have hip surgery it was at the Hospital of St. Raphael with a doctor who works both at Yale and St. Raphael. On Sept. 15, 2004, Sirico filed for conservatorship over Maydelle.

There are now two lawsuits going on to bring Maydelle home. There is an appeal at the Superior Court in which her family says Connecticut has no jurisdiction over a New Jersey woman. And there is a motion in the Probate Court to overturn the conservatorship and return Maydelle to her family.

In Superior Court last month, Sirico testified that she notified Maydelle's family of what she was doing. The family gasped and called her a liar. The judge told them to quiet down.

Maydelle's oldest daughter, Anne Haines, says she received notice of the application two days after Sirico filed it.

In 2004, control of Maydelle and her finances was handed over to attorney Mark Dellavalle, who specializes in foreclosures and car accidents. In granting conservatorship to Dellavalle, the judge divided the elderly couple's assets, worth upwards of $1 million, as if they were divorced—Ralph only has access to half of their money, while the other half is being spent by Maydelle's lawyers.

When Ralph decided he wanted to return to New Jersey and buy a home, he had to take out a mortgage.

Dellavalle charges Maydelle $200 an hour for his services. Maydelle also has a court-appointed attorney, Paul Whitaker (who also specializes in foreclosures), and a guardian ad litem, Robyn Berke, a Bridgeport attorney who is supposed to tell the judge what is best for Maydelle. They're also being paid by Maydelle.

All medical and financial decisions concerning Maydelle are made by Dellavalle, with input from Whitaker, Berke and Sirico.

"How can these perfect strangers know what's best for our mother?" asks Haines, the eldest of Ralph and Maydelle's three daughters. "It seems to us to be a tremendous conflict of interest. Is it what's best for my mother or what's best for their checkbook? They're getting paid. If she leaves Connecticut, that's the end of their gravy train."

For the 18 months between Nov. 10, 2004 and May 5, 2006, Dellavalle charged Maydelle $48,555. Maydelle's husband and her four children are fighting their mother's lawyers in court to bring her home. Maydelle's money is paying the lawyers who keep her here.

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Maydelle needs help dressing, washing and with personal hygiene. She's depressed and confused. She's told Sirico and her lawyers she wants to stay in Connecticut. But she cries to her children that she wants to go home. "Every time I talk to her she says 'Why am I being punished? Why am I in prison?'" says daughter Alice Wright.

"Every time we're visiting she'll say 'I'm ready, let's go.' We have to say, 'Mom, we're working on it.' She doesn't understand why she just can't go home to New Jersey," says Wright.

"The key question from our point of view is, what does the woman want? And what kind of care is she getting?," says Judge James Lawlor, the state's Probate Court administrator. "I was satisfied that her wishes were being respected and her care is good. I certainly wouldn't ship the woman off to New Jersey just because someone else wants her there."

After hearing both sides' arguments on Monday, New Haven Probate Judge John Keyes says he will visit Maydelle to ask her himself what she wants. But Maydelle does not like probing questions from strangers. Maydelle is warm and sweet with family members. She smiles, laughs and make jokes. But when I visited her she fielded questions from strangers with a "Why do you ask?" instead of an answer.

Theoretically it doesn't matter what Maydelle says, because legally she is considered incompetent. Her lawyers are supposed to do what she wants and what is best for her. Yet how much weight can a lawyer give to statements made by someone who's legally incompetent? Maydelle could say she wants to live on Mars for all the law cares.

There's another legal conundrum here—a vagueness to the current law that allows cases like Maydelle's to go forward. A conservatorship is supposed to be filed in the district in which the conservee, or ward, resides or has domicile. A domicile, legally speaking, is a permanent place of residence. In Maydelle's case, that would be New Jersey, where she lived at the same address for 47 years. A residence is merely where you are living currently. Sirico filed for conservatorship in Woodbridge, where Maydelle had been for less than a month.

Is Maydelle a Connecticut resident? Her family certainly doesn't think so.

The changes to the conservatorship laws might rectify this. Starting in October, when a conservatorship is placed on someone whose domicile is not in Connecticut, the conservatorship must be reviewed every 60 days. It must be canceled if the person hasn't had an opportunity to return home. Maydelle hasn't been given that option yet.

Two of Ralph and Maydelle's children live in New Jersey and two are in Florida. On a good day, it's a five hour drive from the Haines' New Jersey home to their mother's new East Haven residence. Wright and brother Paul fly from Florida when there's a court date. The families rent cars to travel between their mother and their father and pay for hotels in Connecticut.

"This has probably cost our family $250,000" in travel costs and lawyer's fees, estimates Haines.

Sirico was reached by phone but would not agree to be interviewed. Her only comment was: "What I've done is what's in the best interest of my aunt. The court record speaks for itself."

In court, Sirico said she rescued Maydelle from a "despicable" household. Sirico visits Maydelle once a day, sometimes more. She takes her to doctors' appointments and to water therapy.

*

This isn't the first time Sirico has applied for conservatorship over someone.

Court records show that in 1996, Sirico applied for conservatorship over her mentor, Fred Devita, after he had a stroke. She was denied, but she did get power of attorney. Sirico had worked for Devita until he invited his daughter Mary to work full-time in his realty office. Mary and Sirico did not get along, so Devita asked Sirico to leave. Devita's wife and his other daughters also did not get along with Sirico, according to court documents.

After Devita had a stroke, Sirico began showing up at the hospital and also at the family home. Sirico began to manage Devita's rental properties. She also took him grocery shopping, to doctors' appointments and to water therapy.

In court testimony, family friend and attorney Frank Grazioso says Sirico told him Devita's daughters were neglectful and didn't want to be involved.

But the three daughters took care of their ailing mother who had Alzheimer's and cancer. Daughter Mary even had her mother move in with her. After her mother moved, the locks on the family home were changed.

According to court documents, Grazioso, who was friends with Devita for 45 years, says Devita told him Sirico "was doing this as a favor. It was one of his justifications to me for having her do it. This isn't going to cost the girls anything."

Mary testified she once heard Sirico telling her father's therapist that he didn't want to see his children until after an upcoming court date. "He doesn't want his kids visiting," Mary says she overheard. She entered the living room where Devita, Sirico and the therapist were. "Is that true? Do you not want me here?" she asked her father. He said no, and then took her hand.

The daughters also say that Sirico told Devita that daughter Karen Connolly had poisoned him.

After Devita died Nov. 1, 1999, Sirico tried to remove Mary as the executor of her father's will. After a judge wouldn't let her, Sirico sent the family a bill for $25,000 for services she had provided Devita. The judge ruled in favor of Sirico.

Maydelle's family knows what happened between the Devita family and Sirico. They've talked to his daughters and they've read the court files. But they say they're not going to worry just yet about whether Sirico will sue. Right now they're concentrating on getting their mother back.

byagla@newhavenadvocate.com


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