Re: 7/6/00 - 2 cops testify in probe; more city officers expected to go before grand jury
2 cops testify in probe; more city officers expected to go before grand jury
By William Kaempffer, Register Staff July 06, 2000
At least two city police officers have testified so far in New Britain, which is where the one-person grand jury is based, and several others have received subpoenas, sources confirmed.
According to sources close to the case, Officer Keith Wortz and Sgt. Arthur Granucci, both New Haven officers, have testified.
Wortz is the whistleblower who brought allegations to State’s Attorney Michael Dearington that high-ranking members of the detective bureau hid information from North Haven detectives investigating a murder.
Granucci briefly aided North Haven detectives in the weeks after the 1996 murder before being ordered off the case. He was ordered to stop, sources said, because he had not sought approval from his superiors to assist North Haven.
Capt. Brian Sullivan, former head of detectives, and Sgt. Edward Kendall, former head of the forensics unit, were placed on paid administrative leave May 30 by Police Chief Melvin H. Wearing who said there were questions of "integrity and credibility" over how the murder case was handled.
The chief said information the men gave in an internal probe of the murder case "suggested there was information which should have been turned over to North Haven police." Dearington applied this spring for an investigative grand jury to examine potential criminal misconduct after receiving conflicting statements on the murder probe.
His request was granted and Superior Court Judge Carmen Elisa Espinosa was appointed the grand juror.
Neither Granucci nor Wortz could be reached for comment Wednesday. Neither is considered the target of the investigation.
A number of North Haven police officers also have testified before the grand jury, sources said.
As with most inquiries, the grand juror is expected to call a series of secondary witnesses to build a foundation of evidence in the case. The case revolves around the 1996 slaying of Philip Cusick, 23.
Authorities believe he was killed in New Haven in a soured drug deal and his body later left outside his North Haven home.
The case, which is being investigated by North Haven police, remains unsolved.
In 1998, two New Haven detectives interviewed an alleged witness who named a possible suspect. The detectives, Stephen G. Coppola and Edwin Rodriguez, took a taped statement and the witness picked the suspect out of an array of photos.
North Haven police, however, never received the information. The tape is now missing and a transcript of the statement languished in Kendall’s drawer for two years.
The detectives said their boss, Sullivan, ordered them to halt the investigation per order of the chief.
Kendall, Sullivan’s second-in-command at the time, said he witnessed the order and placed the transcript in his desk.
Wearing says he never gave such an order and launched an internal probe into the allegations in April.
Wearing said Wednesday he had not yet been called to testify before the grand jury but anticipated a subpoena at some point.
It remains unclear why the supervisors would have withheld the witness statement from North Haven police.
©New Haven Register 2000
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