The sister of a former state employee is seeking $1 million each from state Rep. James O'Rourke and a Cromwell bar following the employee's death.
The lawsuit is related to the unexpected death of Carol Jean Sinisgalli, a 41-year-old state Department of Motor Vehicles employee who received a ride from O'Rourke on a cold night more than two years ago and was later found frozen to death.
O'Rourke, a Cromwell Democrat who lost his bid for re-election in November, said that the woman had knocked his glasses off while she was inside his car as he was giving her a ride home.
Both Cromwell and Rocky Hill police have said that Sinisgalli had been involved in a clash with a man in a wheelchair at O'Leary's Digger McDuff's Tavern in northern Cromwell at about 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 21, 2009. A call from the bar came into the Cromwell police about "an unwanted person,'' but Sinisgalli left the bar - leaving behind her shoes and purse - before police arrived.
In the parking lot, Sinisgalli got into the back seat of a car driven by O'Rourke, whom she knew. Soon after, on Dividend Road in Rocky Hill, Sinisgalli got out of the car. Since there were houses in the area, O'Rourke assumed she lived there.
A cross country skier found Sinisgalli's body the following day - Jan. 22 - at about 4:45 p.m. in a desolate, snowy field near the railroad tracks. The body was well off Dividend Road in an area near the Connecticut River, which runs parallel to the tracks. Sinisgalli lived not far away on Brookwood Drive.