Paul Bass Photo
Stratton, at right, in court Wednesday with attorney Balzano.
Prominent attorney and former city Alder Michael Stratton Wednesday was ordered to surrender any firearms he owns and to avoid “assaulting” or “threatening” his romantic partner, as new details — and denials — emerged about the incident that set the case in motion.
The new details raise a question: Did Stratton “punch” his partner in the lobby of the Kelly House apartments in the early morning hours of June 13, as the state alleges? Or did he merely “push” her shoulder and refrain from hitting back when she subsequently bloodied him, as Stratton insisted Wednesday?
Both sides argue that a surveillance video — at this point absent from the public record — proves their case.
Stratton, who’s 49, made his first appearance in the case, in Room F on the third floor of the Elm Street courthouse, on charges of third-degree assault and breach of peace. Police had arrested him Tuesday after he turned himself in at 1 Union Ave. — a day after his prominent personal-injury law firm announced that he was resigning as a partner.
Stratton had intended to plead not guilty Tuesday. He never got the chance. Instead, Judge Jane Grossman issued an order protection against Stratton that he “surrender of transfer all firearms and ammunition” and “not assault , threaten, abuse, harass, follow, interfere with, or stalk” a 20-year-old woman identified as his “intimate cohabitant.”
“You know who this person is?” the judge (pictured) asked Stratton.
“I live with her,” he responded.
Then the judge set a September court date for him to respond to the charges. Stratton said afterwards that he plans to plead not guilty at that point. He also said he plans to file a “malicious prosecution” lawsuit against the state to recoup an estimated $7 million that he claimed this incident has caused him. He also said the only weapon he owns is a taser, which he promised to surrender.
“This is a layup,” Stratton said of his potential suit, which he’ll have to wait to file until he can get his criminal charges dismissed. “I’m not here to be a gold digger.” But the state “brought a case” with no merit, he argued, a case that “caused me to lose my law firm. It’s a $7 million deal.” He calculated that that figure after accounting for what he called a generous severance payment he received from the firm, he said.
“Closed-Fisted” “Punch”?
Stratton based his malicious prosecution argument on details in the arrest warrant affidavit, which was made public Wednesday.
The affidavit was written by Officer Jason T. Jackson. The first part describes the events of June 13, when he and another officer were called to the Kelly House between midnight and 12:30 a.m. (Previously police had reported that the incident took place a little more than an hour later.)
The officers encountered Stratton in the lobby with a 20-year-old woman with whom he had been living in the Kelly House, which is at 196 Crown St. at the corner of Temple. At the time, Stratton was in his sixth month as a city alder representing the Prospect Hill neighborhood. (He has since resigned the seat, citing family concerns.)
Stratton told police that his partner has repeatedly punched him in the face; his lip was bleeding. His partner told the police the same story. (She told the same story later that day to the Independent, as well.)
The report quotes the partner as stating that the couple had “had some drinks,” then hit the Owl Shop on College Street. “While at the Owl Shop someone said something to Stratton which got him upset so he stood outside. [The partner] said they decided to go home and they began to argue. She said that when they got back to 196 Crown Street he was threatening to break up with her. She said that she did not want him to leave so she grabbed him and in doing so ripped his shirt.”
The file released Wednesday includes a victim’s statement Stratton handwrote that night. It describes how the fight began in the lobby, then continued in the elevator upstairs.
“She said, ‘You think I’m a dumb black girl from Bridgeport.’ I said, ‘No I actually love you but you can’t act like this.’” He wrote that he had taken out a two-month sublease on the apartment “to see if the relationship worked. The age difference was clearly a problem. But I did care for her. She struck me in the room and tried to keep me there. I fought to get out. She punched/kicked. I yelled.” He returned to he elevator, called 911, went downstairs along with her to greet the cops.
That night the officers arrested the girlfriend on assault and breach of peace charges. They did not charge Stratton.
For days after that incident, rank-and-file cops spread a story that two officers had gone upstairs to the couple’s apartment, saw a small amount of marijuana, and failed to write a report about it. Rumors circulated of a cover-up. In the face of the rumors, Police Chief Dean Esserman ordered an internal investigation into the officers’ conduct; the investigation ended with the chief ordering two cops to undergo retraining because they hadn’t filed a written report. The amount of marijuana found in the room was reported to be “very small.”
In the course of the investigation, officers reviewed surveillance video from the Kelly House lobby. That is the subject of the second part of Officer Jackson’s affidavit.
Jackson wrote that the video shows the couple “stop[ping] at the door of the elevator. Stratton then punches [the partner], closed fisted, on her left side. Stratton hits her, but she does not move. It should be known that the video does not have sound, but it does appear that Stratton is yelling at [her]. Stratton then throws a punch with his right hand, closed fisted, but does not hit [her]. He stops his hand right before it makes contact with [her]. After that Stratton then pushes [her], with his right hand, in her left should forcing her body to move to the right of the screen. There is a short period where Stratton appears to be arguing with [her] about something. He then grabs at [her] bag with his left hand trying to take it from her. Stratton pulls the bag towards him, but cannot get [her] to let go of it. As he pulls at the bag [she] won’t let go and she is swung to the left side of the lobby. At this point [she] begins to fight back and punches Stratton in the face closed fisted. After [she] hits Stratton in his face he walks around the lobby of the building for a few seconds holds his upper lip …”
The affidavit notes that the woman “never stated that Stratton had hit her.”
Assistant State’s Attorney David Strollo reviewed the videotape, then applied for the warrant to arrest Stratton. Judge Anthony Avallone signed the warrant on July 2. Rather than go looking for him, police waited for Stratton to turn himself in, which he did this Tuesday morning — determined to fight back.
An Open-Handed “Push”?
Prosecutor Laura DeLeo, at left, discusses the restraining order in court Wednesday.
Outside the courtroom Wednesday, Stratton said he had viewed the video for the first time the afternoon before at the office of his attorney, Alphonse J. Balzano of the firm Balzano & Tropiano. (“It’s an honor and a privilege to represent Mr. Stratton. He is one of the most benevolent people I know; everyone I know in the legal community looks up to this guy,” Balzano made a point of telling a reporter.)
Looking over the warrant for the first time, Stratton called it packed with lies.
He never “punched” his partner, he said. He never closed his fist, he said. And he noted that the affidavit notes that his partner was never moved from her position when he supposedly hit her.
“If I hit somebody with a closed fist,” he remarked, “they’re going to move.”
He acknowledged that, yes, he made contact with her before she hit him. They were arguing, he said. He wanted to get the keys to his car show he could leave. The keys were in her pocketbook. She refused to hand them over, he said. So he reached for the pocketbook.
“I’m then seen [on the video] touching and pushing her on the shoulder twice,” Stratton said, demonstrating several times with a firm open-handed shove to a reporter’s shoulder (a demonstration he repeated for a courthouse lawyer in the hallway later in the morning).
“There’s a tug of war. She wins the tug of war. I step back. There’s no further contact.”
Yes, he said, he made the “first physical contact — in an effort to say, ‘Give me my keys.’ She doesn’t go backwards. It’s not a hard push or shove.” When she subsequently punched him hard, repeatedly, in the face, “I don’t respond.”
Reviewing the affidavit, Stratton and attorney Balzano then made his case for a malicious prosecution suit: The authorities knew there was no basis to charge him with either breach of peace or third-degree assault. The former charge requires that it occur in a public place, they said — and, they argued, the hallways of a private apartment building with no one else in it is a private place. The latter charge requires intent to hurt as well as evidence of physical injury, they continued — the state never had evidence of the woman being injured.
“There certainly wasn’t an intent to cause injury,” Stratton argued. “The wasn’t an injury. It’s like Rihanna and Bobby Brown. You have to show a black eye, a broken nose.” (Prosecutor Strollo has declined comment on the case. His boss, New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington, said his office doesn’t comment on pending cases.)
Sec. 53a-61 of the Connecticut General Statutes defines third-degree assault this way: “(a) A person is guilty of assault in the third degree when: (1) With intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes such injury to such person or to a third person; or (2) he recklessly causes serious physical injury to another person; or (3) with criminal negligence, he causes physical injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon, a dangerous instrument or an electronic defense weapon.”
Elsewhere in the state statutes, “physical injury” is defined this way: “‘Physical injury’ means impairment of physical condition or pain.”
Meanwhile, Stratton vowed, he will file a motion to have the case dismissed — and then, he said, proceed to making the state pay.
An earlier version of this story follows:
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
Michael Stratton emerged from the police lock-up Tuesday afternoon determined to fight back against domestic-violence charges — by pleading not guilty and perhaps by filing a malicious prosecution lawsuit.
He didn’t enjoy spending hours in a cell with “a hundred flies on a piece of balogna in the toilet” while waiting to post bond after police arrested him, he told the Independent.
But one way he no longer plans to fight back: He no longer plans to mount a campaign for mayor next year, he said.
“Once I got perspective on it, I’m not running for mayor. I’m not running for dogcatcher. New Haven has to wake up and pay attention to people who try to do good things for it,” he said.
He announced that he has formed a new law firm, in the meantime. On Monday, he resigned as partner in the prominent law firm Stratton Faxon.
Stratton, a former city alder representing the Prospect Hill neighborhood, surrendered to police for arrest on a domestic-violence charge Tuesday, a day after resigning his post as a partner in one of the state’s most prominent plaintiffs’ law firm.
Stratton, who’s 48, had been wanted since July 2, when police issued a warrant for his arrest on misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace in connection with an argument he had with his girlfriend on June 13 at the Kelly House apartments.
Without making prior arrangements with the police, Stratton showed up alone at the front desk at police headquarters alone Tuesday. He said he arrived at 7:15 a.m. He told the sergeant on duty that he had a warrant out for him, according to Assistant Police Chief Al Vazquez. He was subsequently arrested.
He was then placed in the police lock-up and held on $2,500 bond.
Like others generally arrested at the time he was, Stratton was too late to make it to arraignment, and an earlier release, Tuesday. His arraignment is expected to take place Wednesday.
Maureen Keegan, the presiding judge at the state courthouse, told the Independent that marshals came to her after 11 a.m. Tuesday to see if they could bring Stratton in to be arraigned, as a special case. She said no. “I have a standing order,” she said: She doesn’t process any new arraignments after 10 a.m. on Mondays through Thursday (11 a.m. on Fridays). She said she refused to make an exception in this case.
Bail bondsman “Big Steve” Tracey arrived at the lock-up around 11 a.m., Stratton said. But Stratton wasn’t able to post bond and be processed until 1:30, he said.
“I’m ready to go. Big Steve was there. I’m ready to do the paperwork. “I’m in the cell. I’ve got a hundred flies on a piece of balogna in the toilet.”
Upon his release, he went home to a new apartment he’s renting in the Prospect Hill neighborhood. Soon after arrival, he was served with divorce papers, he said.
And “my law firm dissolved yesterday. I’m a free man,” Stratton declared. “I don’t have the same sense of doom when life changes. I think it’s an opportunity.”
Arraignment — & Lawsuit? — Loom
Police originally went to the Kelly House, on Temple Street, at 1:41 a.m. on June 13 in response to a domestic violence call. Stratton had been in an argument with a 20-year-old woman with whom he was living at the apartment building. He said the woman repeatedly hit him after he told her he was breaking off the relationship; she subsequently told the Independent the same story. Police arrested her that night.
For more than a week following the arrest, the police rank-and-file were abuzz with rumors that officers at the scene had gone into the couple’s apartment, noticed marijuana present, and filed no report about it. Those rumors prompted Chief Dean Esserman to order an internal investigation into the officers’ conduct that night.
In the course of the investigation, police reviewed video surveillance footage from the Kelly House. They said the video showed Stratton repeatedly striking the woman. Based on viewing that footage, Assistant State’s Attorney David Strollo applied for the arrest warrant, which a judge, former state Sen. Anthony Avallone, signed.
The internal police investigation ended with the chief ordering two cops to undergo retraining for their handling of the response, because they hadn’t filed a written report. The amount of marijuana found in the room was reported to be “very small.”
“Feel bad for responding police. Bogus reprimand for not giving me a $75 ticket for having half a joint in the sublet,” Stratton wrote on his Twitter feed on July 13. “New rule:smoke it all.”
He also wrote, in reference to his case: “I Am in full trial lawyer fight mode. It’s not in me to back down.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Stratton said he planned to review the surveillance video for the first time, at his lawyer’s office. He declined to name the lawyer.
Based on that video, he will decided whether or not to file a “malicious prosecution” suit based on his arrest. In either case, he plans to plead not guilty in his criminal case, he said.
He said his arrest warrant left out key exculpatory information about his case: “It doesn’t mention the witnesses on the fourth floor who saw me receiving punches and giving none. It doesn’t mention my calling 911 twice. No mention of [his girlfriend] saying at no time did I strike her. It doesn’t mention that I was bleeding as I came off the elevator.”
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
“True Stratton” Formed
Whether or not he files that suit, Stratton intends to continue filing suits on behalf of other people, he said.
On Monday his employer, Stratton Faxon Trial Lawyers LLC, based at 59 Elm St. in downtown New Haven, announced that it has a new name: the Faxon Law Group Trial Lawyers.
“He hasn’t left the firm. His role here has changed,” the firm’s main partner, Joel Faxon, told the Independent Tuesday.
Stratton will continue trying cases, Faxon said. “That’s what he does. He’s very good.” But rather than a partner, he will work for the firm “of counsel” so that he can concentrate more on his political activities, according to Faxon.
“He has flexibility” this way, Faxon said. “This [running the firm as a partner] requires full-time effort.”
Stratton and Faxon have worked together since 1994, originally at the Birdgeport firm of Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder. They started their own firm in 2003, building one of the most successful practices in the state focused on multimillion-dollar wrongful death and catastrophic injury lawsuits. It has also sponsored New Haven’s annual labor day road race.
Stratton told the Independent that he has formed a new firm, called True Stratton, which will specialize in trial work. He said he’s scouting for a space in New York City to open a satellite office. He will also work out of his old 59 Elm St. office in New Haven, he said.
“They gave me a very generous buyout package,” he said of this old law firm. “I don’t have to work anymore. But I’m going to do more public-interest work and personal injury cases. When somebody’s case come sup for trial, and they don’t feel they have the skills or time to devote to it, they hand it off to me. That’s what I’m good at.”
to Mr. Bass:
Re: the mstratton debacle
You and the NHI need to do some investigative reporting into the financial mismanagement of education here in New Haven.
There is a compelling story here that if revealed will shock the nation and help the most vulnerable among us.
You can start by not censoring this post.