It was the latest development in a nearly two-year-long saga that has roiled the state's largest law enforcement agency, resulting in multiple investigations, resignations of top officials, the convening of a federal grand jury and findings by an outside law firm that "serious failures" by leadership coupled with carelessness by troopers, poor supervision and inadequate training allowed faulty ticket data to be entered for years.
During a morning press conference Thursday, Lamont said, referring to federal authorities: "They pulled back, and they are not doing that investigation anymore."
For most troopers with faulty data, Lamont said, "there were mistakes made, but nothing conscious about what was going on."
"There were a lot unsubstantiated allegations about our state police," Lamont added. Save for the potential of a handful of "bad apples" who will be held accountable, the governor said the multiple investigations into the scandal ultimately showed to him the overall majority of troopers do a good job and go about their work with "integrity." He added: "I'm proud of them."
Ronnell Higgins, commissioner of the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which oversees state police, said an internal review of six troopers and one constable are in the final stages and discipline may result. He said the agency expects to share more information about those cases, which were sparked by claims they may have intentionally falsified ticket data, in a matter of "weeks." The officers have been on administrative leave since internal probes began around early February.
When asked if the seven could still face criminal charges, Higgins said it was "too early to tell ... we need to complete our administrative review ... anytime you do an investigation, you're investigating for one thing, but could you find another thing, you absolutely could." He also said it was too soon to know if any of the seven may face the prospect of having their state pensions revoked.
But Higgins emphasized the U.S. Attorney's office, which handles prosecution of federal charges, "is not moving forward. That's a period."
"As the governor shared, there is no federal investigation going on now," Higgins said.
He said his office has been in regular communication with federal authorities "all along ... and we've been told they will not be moving forward with an investigation."
When asked if federal authorities shared why they had ended their probe, Higgins said his office was not told why. "I would leave it for them to describe the 'why' behind that."
Higgins acknowledged even with the closure of the federal probe, the problems unearthed over the past two years with the department's ticket data were "serious."
"Although we are relieved, we have a lot of work to do," Higgins said, referring to a host of reforms the agency is working on implementing in the wake of the scandal. "We're committed to continuous improvement."
The state police ticket scandal began in the summer of 2022 after CT Insider reported four troopers had received light punishment after being found to have created hundreds of "fictitious" tickets in the state police computer system to curry favor from supervisors.
An audit released in June 2023 by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, which tracks police traffic stops to monitor for potential profiling patterns, found tens of thousands of potentially fraudulent or inaccurate tickets records were created within the state police system. A few months later the state's top two officials overseeing state police — former DESPP Commissioner James Rovella and State Police Col. Stavros Mellekas — stepped down amid the scandal.
A subsequent report commissioned by Lamont and led by former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly and her colleagues at a private law firm concluded most troopers likely did not intentionally falsify the records, chalking the problems up to carelessness, poor supervision and inadequate training, but the report found "serious failures" — including by top-ranking department officials — allowed the state's largest law enforcement agency to significantly misreport racial profiling data for years.
A federal grand jury was empaneled to look into possible criminal charges last fall.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office for Connecticut said Thursday the office could not comment or confirm the statements from Lamont and Higgins. Federal authorities are typically mum on such matters.
Ken Barone, director of the racial profiling report, said both his audit and Daly's report showed there were significant problems within the state police's records.
"It has been confirmed that there were substantial deficiencies in how the state police were reporting, collecting and monitoring racial profiling data for about a decade that had an impact on our work," Barone said Thursday. "It was never our job to determine intentionality, but it was our job to determine the accuracy of records."
The bottom line, Barone said, is the state police system failed.
"The system didn't work the way it should," Barone said. "Some people didn't do the right thing. And now a lot of time, energy and effort has gone into making sure this failure can't happen again. The changes that they (the state police) have made are, to me, an acknowledgment that something was wrong."
Lamont said the state handled the state police ticket controversy responsibly.
"We went through an absolutely thorough investigation at the local level," Lamont said. "I think the investigation does this proud and it speaks to the integrity of our state police."
Higgins said the ticket scandal was hard on the law enforcement agency.
"It's been tough, and as I shared very publicly when I first took over, they were feeling pretty beat up," Higgins said. "But the governor took what everyone thought was a really good step in bringing in Attorney Daly, who did some subsequent work as well, and pretty much narrowed down her work, narrowed down our focus."
(c)2024 The Hour (Norwalk, Conn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
