Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Senator Lou DeLuca has painted himself into a corner from which he cannot escape. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had been tapping the phone lines of “trash magnate,” so one newspaper put it, James Galante, who supposedly had ties to the Mob, when they stumbled upon DeLuca. DeLuca was having family problems. He had contacted Galante, who signaled DeLuca that he would dispatch, with DeLuca’s approval, a couple of tough guys to intimidate Mark Collela. DeLuca was fretting that Collela had abused his grand daughter, whom Collela later married. The FBI arranged a decoy to talk to DeLuca. The conversation between DeLuca and the FBI agent, posing as a confederate of Galante’s, has not been disclosed in full, but in the course of their tete a tete, DeLuca was offered a bribe, which he refused but did not report. DeLuca, in an expansive mood, promised he would do anything possible to help Galante. DeLuca may have been signaling Galante, through a third party he thought was a business assoc...