The bitter battle between Democrats Ned Lamont and Dannel Malloy continued Friday with more charges and countercharges between the campaigns.
Lamont's campaign manager, Joe Abbey, criticized Malloy for accepting campaign contributions from employees of companies that held contracts while he was mayor. In addition, he raised the issue of the 17-month criminal investigation by the chief state's attorney's office that focused on city contractors who performed work on Malloy's home in the affluent Shippan section of Stamford.
Malloy, however, was never charged in the case, and prosecutors released an unusual letter at the end of the inquiry that there was "no credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing'' in the case.
The New York Times cited city records when it reported during the inquiry in 2004 that two city contractors - Gunzy Electric and Shapter Construction - had performed work on Malloy's house and had also received no-bid contracts from the city. But Malloy consistently said that he paid everyone who worked on the home, and he provided canceled checks as proof. The Gunzy and Shapter firms received nearly $100,000 for work at the home, and Malloy turned the canceled checks over to prosecutors.
The Times also reported that Malloy had said on a local cable television news station that none of the contractors on his had received no-bid contracts and instead had responded to a request for proposals or issued sealed bids in a competitive bidding process.
"Dan claims that his behavior as mayor is acceptable because he was not prosecuted for it,'' Abbey said in a statement Friday. "It's sad that politics in Connecticut have reached such a low that the standard by which politicians are judged is whether or not their abuses of the public trust land them in jail. The facts are the facts. Dan Malloy handed out no-bid contracts to companies that held fundraisers for his multiple campaigns or performed renovations on his home.''