Regardless of whether a jury finds former governor John Rowland guilty of campaign corruption, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said his predecessor’s behavior has been a “massive disappointment” for Connecticut.
Malloy told reporters Wednesday that he has been following Rowland’s criminal trial, which is in its second week at a federal courthouse in New Haven.
“It’s, I think to everyone in the state, a massive disappointment that these behaviors were engaged in by the former governor. Whether he’s convicted of a crime or not, the discussions he had over a period of years with candidates—and quite frankly, at least in one of those cases, that candidate, Mr. [Mark] Greenberg’s failure to bring that to the attention of the authorities immediately—is pretty disappointing,” Malloy said.
Rowland resigned from office in 2004 before serving 10 months in federal prison on corruption charges. He is now facing new charges stemming from allegations he conspired to do campaign work for two congressional campaigns while keeping his involvement hidden from election regulators.
One of those candidates, Greenberg, ultimately declined Rowland’s proposal to work for his campaign in 2010. However, Greenberg acknowledged in court that he did not notify authorities of Rowland’s plan to be paid by an entity outside the campaign.
Greenberg is running for Congress again this year as the Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty.
