Laura Glesby Photo
JP Matt Fantastic (above) recognized patterns revealed in investigatory report.
A text came in from an unsaved number: A young woman from New Haven and an older man living out of state needed a justice of the peace to perform their wedding.
Was Matt Fantastic available?
Fantastic was the recipient of numerous texts like that from the same few phone numbers around the end of 2022. The young woman was typically either Black or Hispanic, and the older man was Indian.
So Fantastic recognized some of the questions that prompted former Registrar of Vital Statistics Patricia Clark to report 93 couples to federal immigration authorities. Those questions became part of an ongoing city controversy and a new investigatory report about how the city office has been handling, or mishandling, requests for marriage licenses.
In the end, Fantastic determined based on government guidance that “it is 100 percent not my responsibility to have an opinion on two people’s decision to be married.”
The investigatory report that the city released on Friday determined that, though Clark overstepped her duties by sending constituents’ highly personal information to a federal immigration officer, some of her “concerns about the applicants were reasonable.”
The investigation found that 80 percent of the couples whom Clark reported to immigration included someone from India. The number of marriage license requests in New Haven approximately doubled to five or six per day around February 2023.
And “the requests particularly involved older Indian men, approximately in their thirties, residing in New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Utah,” the report stated. “The women the Indian men were marrying were New Haven residents who were much younger, approximately nineteen or twenty years old, and of African American and Hispanic backgrounds.”
Fantastic read that description in the news — and recognized the pattern in some of the weddings Fantastic had officiated.
“There were a few numbers that texted me repeatedly” to officiate weddings that fit that description, Fantastic recalled, particularly toward the end of 2022.
Fantastic, who founded the Ninth Square board game hub Elm City Games, has officiated more than 1,500 weddings since 2007. It’s Fantastic’s job to “make sure people are who they say they are” and to check “that nobody is under duress,” Fantastic explained.
To that second requirement, “I always checked in with the woman,” Fantastic recalled, to “make sure this wasn’t some kind of child trafficking thing.” Fantastic never saw signs of exploitation, and in fact observed that the women in many of the couples were more likely to “goof around” and arrive with a family member or friend.
Often, the spouses would neither arrive nor leave together. They would almost never kiss. Many would avoid talking or looking at one another as much as possible.
Each of those behaviors could have a perfectly legitimate explanation, and Fantastic did not take on the task of trying to determine whether these marriages were “authentic” — that would be the job of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), should a member of the couple decide to apply for a green card.
But altogether, those patterns — combined with the third-party coordinators who reached out to Fantastic about multiple couples — raised some questions.
“If you were to ask me if I’ve done weddings that I found suspect, the answer is yes,” Fantastic said. “When people are very obviously not particularly in love, I notice. I’ve been at it over 15 years.”
Quoted Justice "Never Said That"
The city investigation, conducted by New Light Investigations and released on Friday, referenced rumors that a local justice of the peace was “allegedly being paid to arrange these marriages.”
According to the report released on Friday, Clark claimed that local Justice of the Peace Shelley Armatino had informed her that another local justice of the peace was being paid to help arrange some of these marriages. Clark also wrote to a USCIS officer about that alleged scheme, invoking Armatino’s name in that email as well.
As the investigation summarized based on an interview with Clark, “Armatino reported that she had been approached by the person who arranges the marriages, who asked her if she would like the same deal and arrangement as [another justice of the peace], who assists him in finding the women for the marriages.”
The only problem?
“I never said that,” Armatino said in a phone interview on Monday.
She denied ever having spoken to Clark about another justice of the peace’s actions and denied having ever been approached by someone seeking to pay her for arranging marriages. She said that those statements about her had been fabricated.
Armatino had never been approached by an investigator before the report, containing her name, was released to the public.
“Now my name is in an investigation report without someone following up on it or even asking me if those accusations were accurate. And then, now, everyone has a hold of that report,” she said. “It looks to me like I’m blaming another justice of the peace. It looks to me like I’m doing something inappropriate. I’m not too pleased about that.”
Armatino said that she did notice “an influx of marriage coming from out of state,” affecting not only New Haven but surrounding towns as well. She noted that “Certain cultures don’t display PDA in front of people. For me, I’m not judging that.”
“I don’t sit and judge about who should get married and who shouldn’t get married,” she said.
The investigator hired by the city to probe the matter was asked why the report included secondhand unsubstantiated allegations that went uninvestigated.
The author of the report, Jacqueline Manning of New Light Investigations, declined to respond, referring questions to the city.
Mayoral spokesperson Lenny Speiller, said New Light did not question the two justices mentioned in the report “because their conduct was not material to the investigation, which focused on determining if the employee in question had violated the city’s policies and employment conduct rules. The statements by Ms. Clark about the Justices of the Peace represent her opinion alone. The city and the independent third-party investigator are not in a position to advise if Ms. Clark’s allegations are credible. That was not the within the scope of the investigation and would be the purview of federal authorities.”
The city paid New Light $7,962.50 for the investigation and report, according to Speiller.
Im glad found that the money from these not-in-love couples was still good.
However it is incumbent on all us to act ethically and in good faith, when performing our jobs. It is hard to imagine going on with something as sacred and important as a marriage ceremony, if the couple clearly isnt a couple.