On Dec. 22, 1999, at 6:22 p.m., a 4-year-old boy, Kyle Kalik Boone, went to the emergency room of William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich with an earache. Less than nine hours later, he was dead.
Kyle's parents eventually hired Hartford Attorney Joseph Moniz to represent them in their negligience lawsuit against the Hospital and its staff. Moniz has since been disbarred and has had his law license revoked. Prior to being disbarred though, Kyle Boone's parents had sued Moniz for malpractice in the way he handled their case against Backus Hospital and its staff.
The malpractice case against Moniz apparently is still ongoing and since I'm not an attorney, the cases twists and turns can be confusing. To read more about the Kyle Kalik Boone death and the subsequent lawsuit, click here to read it in the Courant's archives
One point clearly detailed in the malpractice suit against Moniz though, was a garnishment of his assets and income to satisfy a potential judgement against Moniz.The attorney for Kyle Boone's parents, Robert Reardon of New London, had obtained the garnishment through the Superior Court. Attorney Sidney Schulman of Bloomfield was set up as the Trustee to handle any assests identified for claims arising against Moniz and his disbarrment.
It all seems pretty clear up until this point. Then the path led to Hartford City Hall and everything changed and now Contempt of Court charges are hanging in the balance against Hartford's Corporation Counsel Saundra Kee-Borges, Moniz and Schulman.
The attached Motion for Contempt lays it out in detail. Apparently though, Moniz, before being disbarred, had served as an attorney on the Cintron-Vaughn consent decree case and was owed legal fees for his work. Schulman was also involved in the case and also collected fees. As part of the garnishment detailed earlier, former Corporation Counsel John Rose and the current Corporation Counsel Saundra Kee-Borges were advised by Attorney Reardon that the court order for garnishment included any payments to Moniz by the City.
Rose apparently complied with the garnishment at one point and forwarded Moniz's payments to Schulman, acting as the trustee. When time came for another payment of $62,500 from the City to Moniz, according to Reardon's complaint, Kee-Borges ignored the court order and instead paid the $62,500 directly to Moniz.
There seems to be a lot of questions surrounding the City's position, and some of those will hopefully be answered in response to an FOI request I submitted today. In court transcripts it is alleged that Kee-Borges was made aware of the garnishment and went ahead and issued the check to Moniz in defiance of the Court order. Further testimony states a somewhat cavalier attitude by the Corporation Counsel when she was actually served by a State Marshall with the Court Order.
According to the transcripts, Kee-Borges was served by the Marshall with the garnishment and she replied to the Marshall that he was a few minutes too late, Moniz just left with his check.Transcripts of a hearing before Hartford Superior Court Judge Aurigemma are detailed below in the PDF file "Contempt Motion" and begin on page 8.
Much more to come on this.
Contempt Motion
Moniz and Schulman were selected by Nick Carbone on Cintron and Carbone is friendly with Sandy Borges also and would want him to receive his money.2 + 2 equals 4..(wink)
ReplyDeletePS...Nick Carbone is also VERY close to Pedro. As OMB Chair Pedro appointed Carbone to the tax committee that he set up.
ReplyDeleteuh, not true Abe. Carbone was never on the Tax task force. His nephew showed up to almost every meeting but was not an official member. Also, the characterization that Pedro and Carbone are VERY close has absolutely no basis in fact.
ReplyDeleteI can say with 100% certainty that Nick Carbone was not on the property tax review commission. He did come to several of the meetings and made his opinions known, but he was not a memember of the commission.
ReplyDeleteFun, fun.
ReplyDeleteAnti-cop activism, ambulance- chasing, disbarment, 2nd mortgage, child support, septic tank...
This was Pedro's pick for top city lawyer? She's been in there what, 3 months and she is already being charged with contempt of court. What a disgrace, she's making John Rose look good.
ReplyDeletePedro's is either not the man he tries to make us think he is or he's a bad judge of character by hiring Sandra to run arguably the most important department in the city.
I'll be waiting to see how he handles this. Will it be Eddie Perez style of protecting her and downplaying the incident or will he put the city before his relationships and fix corp council once and for all.
I'll try and be optimistic but my money says he wont do sh*t.
Am I the only one that thinks it's weird that our Corporation Counsel doesn't know how to stop payment on a check? Hearing stuff like this sickens me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rich Wareing, Nick Carbone was never on that committee because as memory serves me, hopefully correctly,while he was the choice of Pedro, he was blocked by Jim Boucher from serving on it.While Nick is the sparkplug of "Cintron" and very friendly with Schulman,Moniz,Pedro and Sandy, there is no way that any of them would be checking in with him regarding legal tactics.
ReplyDelete