State v. Mallozzi

Citations

• 225 Conn. App. 787

Syllabus

The defendant, who had been convicted of fourteen counts each of false statement in absentee balloting and forgery in the second degree, appealed to this court. The defendant, who was the Democratic city chairman for the city of Stamford during the 2015 municipal election cycle, regularly appeared at the Stamford town clerk's office to ''check on'' ballots. L, the Republican town clerk, admitted that she gave certain absentee ballots to the defendant and his associates, even though deliv- ering a ballot to an individual other than the applicant was improper. Other individuals in L's office accepted applications from the defendant, even though many of them should have been rejected because they were not filled out properly. P worked in the town clerk's office under L's supervision, and she prepared ballot sets for the defendant to pick up and would write the defendant's initials on the applications. After receiving a complaint, B, an investigator for the State Elections Enforce- ment Commission, conducted an investigation, which revealed a ''scheme'' between the defendant and L involving the submission of thirty-one fraudulent absentee ballot applications and twenty-six fraudu- lent absentee ballots to the Stamford town clerk's office. During the bench trial in the present case, the trial court directed the state to file an amended information to add an individual name for each count of false statement in absentee balloting. K, a handwriting and document examination expert, testified on behalf of the state. K compared hand- writing exemplars given by the defendant to the handwritten information on the ballot applications and opined that there were indications that the questioned signatures and the defendant's exemplars shared common ownership. The trial court denied defense counsel's request to disclose a handwriting expert to rebut K's opinions, as well as his motion to strike P's testimony, which was provided during the state's case-in- chief, after she asserted he