Branford Eagle

Legal Writes

Get This Man A Laptop!

by marcia chambers | May 21, 2013 1:45 pm | Comments (1)

Dr. Lishan Wang was transported early yesterday from the MacDougall Correctional Institution in Suffield to New Haven Superior Court on Church Street so that he could evaluate evidence on a laptop before a scheduled 2 p.m. court appearance.

Dr. Wang represents himself in a murder case. Getting him a laptop, a necessity to move the three-year-old case along, is now a major issue.

So Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford devised a plan. Or so he thought. 

Dr. Wang is accused of shooting to death Dr. Vanjindeer Toor (pictured), a former colleague of his at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in New York. The murder took place outside Dr. Toor’s Branford condo on April 26, 2010. Dr. Toor, 34, was a post doctoral fellow at Yale when he was killed. Dr. Wang has alleged Dr. Toor and other Kingsbrook doctors and officials caused his firing in 2008 and ended his medical career.

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Wang Hangs Out A Shingle

by marcia chambers | May 8, 2013 11:16 am

Dr. Lishan Wang, accused of shooting his former colleague Dr. Vanjinder Toor (pictured with son) to death on April 26, 2010, has filed two new federal lawsuits while at the same time preparing to represent himself in his murder case.

He is charged with gunning down Dr. Toor, then 34, who was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

In the last two months Wang, 47, has filed two lawsuits in federal court, one in New Haven against the Branford police department and the state police and one in Hartford against the state Department of Corrections.

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Branford Chief Of Detectives Ends Long Career

by marcia chambers | Apr 23, 2013 7:17 am

Back in 1981, when moustaches were the rage, two young Branford detectives took a minute to pose for a photo. Detectives Bill Carroll (at left in photo) and John DeCarlo were good friends.

DeCarlo went on to get his PH.D in criminal justice, became the chief of the Branford Police Department and joined the professorial ranks at the University of New Haven.

Carroll went on to become the chief of detectives. Overall he had an extraordinary run at the Branford police department, where he supervised homicide, drug and organized crime investigations. When he retired on April 12, it was nearly 44 years to the day that he joined the police force. That day was April 14, 1969.

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Judge-Shopping Pays Off For Desmond’s Killer

by marcia chambers | Apr 15, 2013 7:30 am | Comments (5)

Attorney Richard P. Silverstein wanted accelerated rehabilitation (A/R) for his client Alex Wullaert, who confessed to starving, beating, torturing and strangling his dog Desmond to death in his Branford apartment in January 2012. That could mean no jail time.

To get it he had to go judge shopping.  Last week his shopping skills paid off.

“I thought it was an A/R case from the beginning,” he told Superior Court Judge Maureen Keegan at what would be Wullaert’s 16th appearance in Superior Court on Elm Street.

The judge, a former state prosecutor herself, agreed with Silverstein and granted A/R as car horns outside the courthouse blared support for Desmond, a boxer-pitbull mix, who was 6 years old when he was strangled to death. In her view, she said serious psychological problems should be treated humanely.

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Gun Shop Law? Not So Fast

by Diana Stricker | Mar 15, 2013 10:58 am | Comments (1)

The 154 people who signed a petition asking the town to restrict the placement of gun shops in Branford did not show up at a public hearing Thursday. The majority of about two dozen attendees voiced their support for the new gun shop in the Town Center and their opposition to a restrictive ordinance.

“What bothers me, is we’re on a slippery slope,” said Branford resident Joe Giordano.  He said that 154 signatures out of the town’s 30,000 population is far from being a majority. “This is America,” he said.

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Marcus Law Firm Trial Expected In June

by marcia chambers | Mar 13, 2013 6:17 am

A New Haven Superior Court judge has rejected the Marcus Law Firm’s effort to file a summary judgment motion in a malpractice case filed against it by the Town of Branford. So unless the parties settle, jury selection is expected to get underway on June 4. 

Judge Angela C. Robinson denied permission to Frederick L. Murolo, who represents the Marcus Law Firm, to file the summary judgment motion, which he made suddenly last month in a case nearly five years old. In this instance judicial permission was required to file a summary judgment motion because a trial date had been set. Both the Murolo law firm and R. Bartley Halloran, who represents Branford, agreed to the date last August.  Once a trial date is set, this type of motion is typically precluded. 

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Shelley Marcus Squeaks By

by marcia chambers | Mar 7, 2013 9:03 am | Comments (3)

All of Governor Malloy’s nominees for new state judgeships sailed through the legislative approval process yesterday except for Shelley Marcus, a former Branford town counsel, whose selection to the Superior Court bench was up in the air all day.

By nightfall, the governor’s nomination of Marcus, 61, squeaked by the state House of Representatives by a vote of 79 to 54 with 18 absent. To get her judgeship she needed 67 votes.  And by 7:30 p m. she made it.  The Senate vote was not close: 31 to 4.

In a highly unusual display of bipartisan opposition to a gubernatorial nominee, legislators slammed Marcus for alleged incompetence as well as for what one lawmaker called “by far the worst performance I have seen” at a confirmation hearing. The governor and other leading Democrats stuck behind the politically connected nominee. Supporters defended her as competent for the job and the victim of a local town political vendetta.

Branford State Rep. Lonnie Reed voted against her while Pat Widlitz, who represents two districts in Branford, voted for her. Branford state Sen. Ed Meyer voted against her. Only Meyer publicly discussed his views on the Senate floor.  Democratic state Rep. Roland Lemar of New Haven also voted no.

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On Eve Of Hearings, Marcus Law Firm Makes A Filing

by marcia chambers | Feb 28, 2013 9:49 am

As former town counsel Shelley Marcus (pictured) prepares to address questions from the state legislature Friday on her fitness to be a state judge, her law firm has moved to try to end a contentious malpractice suit filed by the town of Branford against her law firm.

That suit was filed against the Marcus Law Firm in 2008. The firm has waited until now to file a motion to have the suit dismissed.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy recommended Shelley Marcus and 14 other nominees to positions on the state Superior Court bench late in January. All are expected to appear Friday in Hartford at a public confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee. The General Assembly must approve their judicial appointments. 

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Prosecutor “Not Concerned” About Wang’s Confession Tape

by marcia chambers | Feb 26, 2013 6:30 am

A two-hour video taped statement that Dr. Lishan Wang made to Branford police, after he was arrested in connection with the murder of Dr. Vanjinder Toor nearly three years ago, will not be admitted at his trial unless Dr. Wang takes the stand.

The issue of Dr. Wang’s statement to police formally surfaced in Superior Court on New Haven’s Elm Street last week, although the prosecutor said he informed Dr. Wang’s former public defenders in the case more than two years ago that he did not intend to use the statement at trial. As it turned out, Dr. Wang, 47, had asked for an attorney at the time of his statement. The police apparently did not understand what he was saying; had they understood, the interview should have stopped. 

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Email? What Email?

by Diana Stricker & Marcia Chambers | Feb 6, 2013 5:13 pm | Comments (4)

Branford Town Clerk Marianne Kelly (pictured) testified in U.S. District Court in Hartford yesterday that she actively participated in a Guilford “gifting table” for about a year and simply adored the experience. But when it came to two specific lines of inquiry, she clammed up.

She is the first elected official to testify about the tables, which the government calls a pyramid scheme. She admitted on the stand that she was concerned about the gifting table investigation because she is an elected official. 

If the prosecutor who called her to testify thought she would weave together the role of the Ed Marcus family and law firm for the jury to see, he found out in court yesterday just how short her memory was. 

Two Guilford women, key organizers of gifting tables on the shoreline are on trial charges of criminal wire fraud, conspiracy and filing false tax returns. A third has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in federal court in March. Kelly smiled at them in the courtroom.

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