Newtown Oil Case Continued To February

By Andrew Gorosko

DANBURY — The two defendants and their attorneys in the Newtown Oil Company racketeering case were not in Danbury Superior Court for scheduled appearances on December 19.

Defendants William A. Trudeau, Jr, 44, and his wife Heather Bliss, 32, of Westport were scheduled to  appear in court for a supervised pretrial conference.

In Courtroom 6, State’s Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky, III, who is prosecuting the case against Mr Trudeau and Ms Bliss, requested a continuance in the case until February 6.

Judge Frank A. Iannotti agreed to the request.

The Newtown Oil case is proceeding on a “supervised pretrial” basis, meaning that the prosecutor, the defense attorneys, and the presiding judge conduct confidential conferences in seeking to reach a disposition of the criminal charges as the case moves through the court system.

Each of the two defendants is facing 12 felony charges. Those charges stem from the oil company’s failure to provide fuel to customers who had signed prepaid fuel purchase contracts for #2 heating fuel for the 2002-03 heating season.

On October 11, at the defendants’ last court appearance in the case, attorney Andrew Bowman of Westport, representing Ms Bliss, noted that the state has presented voluminous evidence in the case that must be reviewed by the defense. Mr Bowman then said there are 13 boxes of documents that need to be reviewed.

Attorney Ross Garber of Hartford represents Mr Trudeau.

In September, both defendants pleaded Not Guilty to each of the 12 felony charges pending against each of them. Both have elected to have jury trials of their cases. Each person is free on $100,000 bail.

In August, police arrested Mr Trudeau and Ms Bliss in connection with an alleged scheme that police charge effectively bilked oil company customers out of more than $400,000 for home heating fuel that the customers never received after signing prepaid fuel purchase contracts for the 2002-03 heating season.

The charges against each defendant are racketeering, three counts of first-degree larceny, one count of second-degree larceny, four counts of second-degree larceny of a victim over 60 years old, plus three counts of criminal conspiracy involving: racketeering, first-degree larceny, and second-degree larceny. The racketeering charges fall under the state’s Corrupt Organization Racketeering Activity (CORA) law.

Police allege that the crimes occurred between April 1, 2002, and December 2, 2002.