New Haven Independent

DePino serves on the Board of Police Commissioners, which oversees a department currently embroiled in an ongoing investigation that has already snared two members of the narcotics unit, with more arrests expected. (Click here for more on the scandal.)

DePino also runs a state Capitol lobbying firm, DePino Associates. In that capacity, he represents Accredited Casualty & Surety, whose top figure in Connecticut is bail bondsman Paul Jacobs. Jacobs is one of three family-member bondsmen who were also arrested by the FBI as part of the probe on conspiracy charges for allegedly paying bribes to a city cop. Jacobs’ attorney says he’s innocent. (Cllck here to read a 57-page FBI affidavit which includes details of the alleged scheme.)

DePino showed up last Friday at the first meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners since the scandal broke, to tell his colleagues that he was recusing himself from all issues involving the scandal.

He had previously checked with city officials about whether he faced a legal conflict of interest wearing both hats. He said they told him doesn’t. But he decided to recuse himself anyway.

“My role as a police commissioner has nothing to do with Mr. Jacobs’ role in this scandal,” DePino said Wednesday, “but I don’t want any perception of a conflict.”

Key Role

DePino played a key role on behalf of Jacobs and Accredited Casualty & Surety in the state last legislative session in killing a bail-reform bill that could have cut into Jacobs’ company’s business.

For years some legislators had investigated, then sought to reform, the bail industry. One of their concerns was the effect that Accredited was having on the state’s bail bond industry. It was helping to greatly increase the number of bail bondsmen working in the field, with a strategy of gaining more market share by offering cheaper payment plans, in the critical view of State Rep. Michael Lawlor (at left in photo). Lawlor, who chairs the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, has been a leading voice for the reform. He said he has had a “bad feeling” about an industry turning toward corrupt practices.

The legislature undertook a study of the industry. It found, among other things, that many defendants were now paying less than the legally required 10 percent of their bonds up front after they’d been arrested. Instead, bondsmen solicited customers (defendants, or their relatives, who lacked houses or other assets to put up as collateral for bonds) with offers of payment plans.
Click here to read that December 2004 report by the state Legislative Program Review & Investigations Committee.

Lawlor introduced a bill last session that, among other reforms, would have required a standard 10 percent up front payment for bail bonds, and would have moved oversight of bondsmen from the state Insurance Department to the Public Safety Department. The bill was gaining momentum toward passage, Lawlor . Then DePino, working for Jacobs’ company, turned it around by organizing opposition among black and Latino lawmakers, who succeeded in getting the bill killed.

DePino noted Wednesday that other groups expressed concerns about the reform bill, including the NAACP and the ACLU. He argued that the bill would have led to overcrowding in state jails. “.It would result in a lot of people, particularly minorities, staying in jail. Seventy percent of the people who make bail in Connecticut are minorities.”

He also argued that because bail bonds are an “insurance product,” the Insurance Department has the expertise to regulate the industry. Mike Lawlor countered that the Public Safety Department better understands the criminal justice system.

Lawlor also argued that the current practice promoted by Jacobs’ firm actually increases the cost of bonds. Prosecutors and judges thought they were keeping defendants behind bars with $100,000 bonds, then saw them going free, Lawlord said, so they would seek and set bonds of $500,000 instead — more money for the bondsmen, but more cost for the defendants and their families.

“You won’t get one judge to say that,” DePino responded. “Bail cannot be set on a person’s ability to pay. That’s a big no-no.” He cited an Office of Legislative Research report (click here to read it) that found that greater competition among bail bondsmen lowers bond rates.

The battle may be rejoined this year. Lawlor did not reintroduce the reform bill this session. But in the wake of the New Haven scandal, he decided he will try to tack some of its provisions onto a different bill under consideration.

Extra Tidbit

From page 40 of the 57-page FBI affidavit released last week in the narcotics unit case, concerning an alleged conversation between Lt. Billy White (alleged recipient of bribes from the Jacobs family) and an undercover FBI informant (“UCE”):

“White complained about how the other bondsmen did not want to pay the money. White told the UCE: ‘Bobby [Jacobs] said those other guys don’t want to pay for shit, that’s why I said if we ever caught that other kid we’d have to hold him hostage ‘til they gave us the money.’”