Legal Writes

Warrant: Yearslong Beef Preceded Teen's Murder

by | Jul 30, 2024 1:00 pm | Comments (4)

Paul Bass file photo

Latasha Brown at a 2021 vigil across from Edgewood Park, one day after the murder of her son Tashawn: The cycle of violence continued.

Latasha Brown was driving towards the city’s homicide memorial when her son opened the car’s rear door and allegedly started shooting.

She was on her way to pay tribute to another son who had been murdered the year before. 

En route, according to police, the son she was traveling with became a murderer himself.

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Cops: Killer's Mom Was At The Wheel

by | Jul 25, 2024 5:43 pm | Comments (7)

Asher Joseph Photo

Unique Trujillo, a close friend of Joshua Vazquez, at Thursday's arrest announcement.

Police announced the arrest of the young man they said shot 16-year-old Joshua Vazquez to death one and a half years ago — and arrested the alleged shooter’s mom as well.

Joshua Vazquez’s family and friends gathered at the Shack community center in West Hills Thursday to mourn his murder and to recognize police for arresting his alleged shooter, who is now 19 years old.

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Fired Cox Cop Loses Arbitration

by | Jul 24, 2024 5:45 pm | Comments (8)

NHPD image

Ofc. Diaz, Sgt. Segui, and Ofc. Pressley lifting Cox into wheelchair on June 19, 2022.

(Updated) State arbitrators have upheld the city’s decision to fire Sgt. Betsy Segui for her supervisory role in the mishandling of a detainee who suffered paralyzing injuries while in police custody — and expressed dismay that the arrested cop still thinks she did nothing wrong on that fateful night.

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Arrest Made In 16-Year-Old's Murder

by | Jul 19, 2024 3:21 pm | Comments (7)

Thomas Breen photo

Police Chief Jacobson (right), with Mayor Elicker: Working to "lower the temperature in the city" after last weekend's shootings.

A year and a half after 16-year-old Joshua Vazquez was shot and killed on a Monday afternoon in the West Hills neighborhood, city police have arrested an already-incarcerated 19-year-old on one felony count of murder.

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Fair Rent Rejects 9 Retaliation Claims

by | Jul 17, 2024 2:55 pm | Comments (31)

Arthur Delot-Vilain photo

Emerson Tenants Union members RJ Hinds, Stephanie Perez, Alexander Kolokotronis, Yvonne Byrd-Griffin, and James Blau: On the losing end of Tuesday's Fair Rent rulings.

Because.”

That was the key word in the Fair Rent Commission’s rejection of a host of tenants union retaliation complaints, on the grounds that the Emerson Apartments’ new landlord had done no legal wrong in not renewing their leases.

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Killed Peace Activist's Memory Kept Alive

by | Jul 16, 2024 9:07 am | Comments (1)

Jabez Choi Photo

Yusuf Gürsey at a pro-Palestinian rally in April, before his death.

At a memorial service for 70-year-old local peace activist Yusuf Gürsey, friends and colleagues joined in person and over Zoom from all over the world — California, Puerto Rico, Turkey — to share stories and poems for the hit-and-run victim.

All knew him as a lover of languages, a beach fanatic, and a seemingly shy but loyal friend who had a fierce commitment to the liberation of all oppressed people.

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Drug Rehab Workers Seek Back Pay

by | Jul 3, 2024 3:11 pm | Comments (0)

Thomas Breen file photo

The now-closed addiction treatment center on the Blvd.

Late Retreat exec Scott Korogodsky: Sought to answer employees' questions, days before taking his own life.

A top executive at a for-profit drug rehab company sought to reassure hundreds of employees — including more than 160 in New Haven — who hadn’t been paid in weeks. 

They needed to hear from someone in charge, especially after the company’s CEO had just died by suicide, leading to the sudden closure of addiction treatment centers in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Florida. 

So he wrote everyone an email.

When will employees be paid? We hope to have a definitive answer toward week’s end,” the executive, Retreat Behavioral Health Chief Administrative Officer Scott Korogodsky, wrote on June 23. 

What are the chances these employees would keep their jobs?

Retreat is committed to continuing the late CEO’s mission to provide quality substance abuse care and mental health services to all our communities.”

Three days after sending that email, Korogodsky took his own life. The clinics and treatment centers stayed shut.

Now Retreat’s workers are turning to the courts to try to recoup lost pay.

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Retreat Owes City $230K & Climbing; Deeper Financial Chaos Revealed

by | Jun 27, 2024 4:29 pm | Comments (8)

Maya McFadden photo

Happier days, before the collapse: site director Jarel Gallman, public relations director Jackie James, CEO Peter Schorr, Alder (and former facility employee) Ron Hurt, Mayor Justin Elicker at New Haven facility's 2020 ribbon-cutting.

A drug rehab company that shuttered its two New Haven facilities amid two executive suicides over the last week is nearly $230,000 behind in local real estate taxes — with its next $103,000-plus city tax bill due next week. 

That’s among the revelations that are emerging about years of financial woes and corporate anarchy” that plagued for-profit Retreat Behavioral Health before its sudden collapse this past week throwing hundreds of patients and workers into the cold in three different states.

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No "Inclusionary" Apartments Built So Far

by | Jun 25, 2024 2:39 pm | Comments (34)

Thomas Breen photo

"IZ" affordable apartments approved, but not built, at 50 Fitch.

Two and a half years after the city adopted a law designed to require affordable housing to be built as part of New Haven’s market-rate construction boom, the city’s Inclusionary Zoning” law hasn’t yet created a single new reduced-rent place to live.

Most of the 50 IZ” affordable apartments approved so far appear to be indefinitely held up by the high cost of borrowing money — even as other, non-“IZ” affordable developments move ahead.

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Dixwell Row Homes Head To Auction

by | Jun 20, 2024 3:33 pm | Comments (9)

Arthur Delot-Vilain photo

University Row Homes resident Demeka Anderson: "We're the only ones that are sensing the urgency because it's our lives."

Thomas Breen photo

1 of 2 Henry St. auctions, scheduled for Saturday.

A row has broken out at row homes on Henry Street — leading to holes in the roof, allegations of mismanagement, ownership confusion, back-tax frustration, and two properties heading to the foreclosure auction block this weekend.

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Condo Owners Vote To Pay Full Water Debt

by | Jun 19, 2024 12:13 pm | Comments (3)

Jay Appi file photo

Fixing the leak at Winters Run.

The members of a Fair Haven Heights condo association have voted to pay their entire $138,000-plus overdue water bill — and will now try to collect from the complex’s former property manager, whom they accuse of failing to promptly address the leak that left them in such a financial mess.

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Funeral Carries Slain Officer Home

by | Jun 17, 2024 12:41 pm | Comments (5)

Jabez Choi photos

Minneapolis officers with Mitchell's casket on Monday.

Mitchell's cousin, Mamie Gardner: “He always had a pleasant smile. Always.”

(Updated) Police officers kicked their motorcycles into gear on Dixwell Avenue early Monday morning for the start of the funeral procession for Minneapolis officer and New Haven native Jamal Mitchell, who was killed in the line of duty last month.

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Murder Victim's Aunt: "It's Not Over For Us Yet"

by | Jun 11, 2024 1:52 pm | Comments (1)

Thomas Breen photo

James's aunt Teresa Clark (center) with Mayor Elicker and Chief Jacobson.

Teresa Clark wiped away tears as she thanked police for so quickly making an arrest in the stabbing murder of her nephew, Travis James — and she braced herself for the long road still to come as she prepares to see his alleged killer in court as she supports the prosecution.

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Condos Drowning In Water Debt

by | Jun 10, 2024 2:09 pm | Comments (15)

Arthur Delot-Vilain photo

Rose Appi with the pod that's been storing her furniture since March.

A years-long leak has sunk a Fair Haven Heights condo association into $138,000 in debt — landing the group in bankruptcy court, and leading to a legal fight over whether the association’s water bill or urgent maintenance should be paid for first. 

Meanwhile, Winters Run resident Rose Appi has been living with all of her furniture in a storage pod since March as construction crews work to repair the source of the water problem beneath her condo’s kitchen.

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