HARTFORD, Conn. — A legislative leader was arrested Friday on charges that he tried to have a businessman at the center of a federal racketeering probe arrange to rough up someone the senator believed was abusing a relative.
State and federal authorities said Senate Minority Leader Louis DeLuca in 2005 sought help from James Galante, a Danbury trash hauler currently awaiting trial on 72 counts of tax fraud, racketeering, threatening and extortion.
"You got a job for us?"
"When you approach someone who is alleged to be a member of organized crime or affiliated with organized crime and you ask for this help, and you slip a note to them in a diner as opposed to even having a conversation, I think it's fair to draw an inference that you don't exactly have the best of intentions," U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said Friday.
DeLuca, a Republican from Woodbury, was booked on a misdemeanor charge Friday of second-degree conspiracy to commit threatening. He was scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Waterbury Superior Court.
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