Hauler With Ties To Newtown Refuse Handling Sentenced To Prison

NEW HAVEN (AP) — A Connecticut trash hauler whose Danbury-based transfer station handled Newtown’s refuse was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Wednesday for a price-fixing conspiracy that authorities say was supported by mob muscle, violence, and extortion.

US District Judge Ellen Bree Burns imposed an 87-month prison term on James Galante, 55, of Danbury on September 3. He pleaded guilty in June to racketeering conspiracy and fraud charges.

Authorities said Mr Galante paid a quarterly mob tax to the Genovese crime family in exchange for muscle to stifle trash hauling competition and drive up rates for customers. Mr Galante’s businesses handled nearly 80 percent of the refuse in southwestern Connecticut.

His eventual arrest and indictment, and the subsequent turning over of operations at Mr Galante’s Danbury transfer station to federal contractors, resulted in the town facing an increase in fees. In February, Public Works Director Fred Hurley, who oversees Newtown transfer station operations and waste processing, told the Board of Selectmen that a rate increase to process construction debris through the former Galante-owned facility had been ordered by federal authorities.

Mr Galante was CEO of Automated Waste Disposal (AWD), a company holding waste disposal contracts for most of western Connecticut, along with Westchester and Putnam Counties in New York.

Mr Hurley said at the time, that in order for the town’s role in the process to remain revenue neutral, fees for demolition disposal brought to the Newtown dump would increase from $30 to $39 per cubic yard, and that tipping fee increases imposed by federal authorities at AWD would go from $77.50 to $99.50. He learned the ultimate end fee represented a state average, but the increase seemed extreme because it had been undercharged going back to 2000.

“It’s ironic that we thought we were being overcharged [by AWD] but we were actually undercharged,” Mr Hurley said at the time. “This increase represents normal escalation going back to 2000.”

The town is under the state’s solid waste plan to designate a transfer site that is the AWD facility, Mr Hurley said, and increases are exclusive to demolition debris. Following a question from Selectman Herb Rosenthal, Mr Hurley confirmed that if fees were not raised here, the town would have to absorb the increases at the transfer station in Danbury, which would ultimately come out of the town budget affecting all taxpayers and not just those making minor dump runs with construction waste.

Mr Galante admitted to trying to rig a bid for a contract to operate a transfer station, tampering with a witness, having no-show employees, accepting payroll kickbacks from employees, skimming cash from his businesses, and violating the salary cap on his minor league hockey team, the now- defunct Danbury Trashers.

In his plea bargain, he agreed to surrender dozens of businesses worth more than $100 million, six racing cars, properties in Southbury, and $448,000 in cash seized by investigators. He also agreed to pay $1.6 million in income taxes and withdraw from the trash industry.

Mr Galante did not comment in the courtroom Wednesday. He was ordered to report to prison on October 15.

“No mercy,” his lawyer, Hugh Keefe, said after the hearing. Mr Keefe had argued for less prison time, noting that Mr Galante and his wife had donated more than $3 million and many hours of their time to a variety of charities, civic groups, and other causes.

The judge said she was not diminishing the Galantes’ charitable acts, but added that “it was the people who were the victims of his conspiracy who in large measure funded those contributions.”

Ms Burns said she based her sentence on a need for deterrence, saying Mr Galante had a previous tax fraud conviction, and an effect on the customers of trash hauling companies.

“They lost a lot of money over the years,” the judge said.

Prosecutors said the sentence should send a clear message to the garbage hauling industry that such anticompetitive schemes will not be tolerated.

“The real winners today, we hope, are the consumers,” Assistant US Attorney Ray Miller said.

Mr Galante was one of 33 people charged in the 2006 case. All but one have since pleaded guilty, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Mr Galante paid a quarterly $30,000 mob tax to alleged Genovese crime family boss Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello in exchange for mob muscle to stifle competition.

Mr Ianniello pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and tax evasion and was sentenced to two years in prison. On several occasions, authorities had to intervene to stop physical violence during the investigation, prosecutors said.

(John Voket of The Newtown Bee contributed to this story.)