New Haven Independent

Rabbi Shmully Hecht (pictured), one of New Haven’s biggest landlords, came to New Haven U.S. District Court Thursday to stand up for Dennis Bozzuto, a trash-hauler who was about to be sent to prison for a year for taking advantage of him.

Bozzuto owns John’s Refuse, a Northford-based trash-hauling company that does a lot of business in New Haven. In an hour-long hearing that featured lingo like “banging” and “body punches,” Senior U.S. District Judge Ellen Bree Burns sentenced him to a year in the slammer, three years’ supervised release and a $10,000 fine.

Bozzuto, 37, of Madison, pleaded guilty in November 2006 to one count. His arrest was part of a larger federal probe into corruption and mob ties in the waste-hauling industry in Connecticut and western New York. The investigation has so far led to charges against 33 individuals and 10 businesses.

Bozzuto was a minor player, going along in a crooked trash-hauling scheme controlled by James Galante that duped customers with false bids and inflated prices. Galante is accused of running a “property rights system” where companies used extortion and threats to maintain control over business on their turf.

Bozzuto (at right in file photo, with his brother Andy) pleaded guilty to taking advantage of two customers by inflating bids at the order of high-ranking racketeers.

Hecht, who lives and runs his business out of New Haven, was one of those customers — an alleged victim of Bozzuto’s criminal act.

In March 2005, Hecht’s company Preperty LLC solicited bids for trash collection on a Waterbury apartment complex. Knowing the property was in Galante territory, Bozzuto sought advice from alleged racketeer Richard Galietti then faxed a bid of $14 per yard, twice as much as the rate from the Galante-owned ADS company.

According to court documents, Hecht ended up finding a company outside of the racketeering network to take on the trash contract. His property managers then reported being “strong-armed” by ADS and, “on one occasion, ordered the salesperson to leave the property and never return or the police would be called.”

Approaching the lectern in a black suit, Hecht told Judge Burns he had no doubt the trash industry is “run by a bunch of monsters.”

“They talk to you on the phone as if they’re about to come over there and kill you,” he said.

Looking back at Bozzuto and his family — two brothers with gelled, salt-and-pepper hair, tan women in silky shirts — he said he understood how the Bozzutos could be confused for operatives in that same world.

“They sort of look like they’re out of a movie,” Hecht told the judge, turning around to gesture at them. “Look at them — a bunch of good-looking guys. They look like the Italian trash mob!”

“But they’re the exception in this industry,” Hecht continued.

Hecht, whose company owns over 1,000 apartments in New Haven, said he has dealt daily with the Bozzutos for 10 years.

He choked up as he spoke of the kindness of Dennis Bozzuto, a “simple garbage man” who would wave at him from his truck on Prospect Street and was always fair about billing.

“Hey Shmully, where’s Australia?” Bozzuto once asked him, upon hearing of Hecht’s upcoming business trip.

“He’s a simple, decent guy,” Hecht told the judge. He got worked up, speaking so fast the stenographer had to ask him to slow down. He denied he had been victimized by Bozzuto’s role in perpetuating the unfair system.

“I definitely have never been a victim of anything Dennis Bozzuto has done.” If anything, Hecht said, Bozzuto was the victim.

Hecht spoke, wiped a tear and shook his buddy Bozzuto’s hand. Bozzuto stood quietly in a gray suit. His attorney, Robert Casale, argued his client was an “unsophisticated” man who did not socialize with the elite racketeers and only agreed to go along with the “property rights system” after months of pressure. After he took away a lucrative, multi-year, million-dollar-plus contract to manage North Branford’s municipal trash, Bozzuto came under pressure from Galante operatives and was punished by getting locked out of a Danbury dump.

Bozzuto only caved in after 10 months of figurative “body punches,” Casale argued.

The government prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Raymond F. Miller, said Bozzuto sounded like a good guy but “body punches” was an overstatement. In recorded phone conversations, Bozzuto sounded more “jocular” than “intimidated” by Galante’s men, Miller said.

“It’s difficult to sense in those tapes any intimidation,” Judge Burns agreed. She said the two men, Bozzuto and Galietti, sounded like they had a good “rapport.”

Swayed in part by some testimony that painted Bozzuto as a giving, compassionate man, Judge Burns took sympathy on the defendant when it came time to sentence.

Bozzuto faced a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000 after pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. According to a plea agreement, he agreed to a sentence of 15 to 20 months.

Burns ordered a sentence below that range: 12 months, three years’ supervised release plus a $10,000 fine. She said she meant the sentence to be a general deterrent to trash-haulers out there. “Hopefully this prosecution can put an end to this system of conspiracy to participate in racketeering,” Burns said. Bozzuto is due to voluntarily surrender himself on May 15.

After the hearing, an emotional Hecht went up to shake Burns’s hand. Outside the courthouse, he milled with Bozzuto’s family.

“I didn’t feel hurt, I’ve been helped by him,” he said of Dennis Bozzuto. “His prices are the lowest, the best service.”