Lamont called the firm's highly-anticipated report "very independent" and "a leave-no-stone-unturned, thorough analysis."
But days later, experts and local advocates say the 16-page report — which took six months and cost taxpayers more than half a million dollars — has glaring holes, and some question its independence.
"It wasn't a complete report," said Gary Rose, a political science professor at Sacred Heart University.
One gap highlighted repeatedly by critics: The report said the firm was "limited" in its ability to examine retired troopers — a key group because data shows they dominated the top of the list of officers with the most discrepancies. Critics worry retired troopers escaped full scrutiny in the report and some may now be working police jobs elsewhere; at least one is.
Some critics also questioned the firm's reliance on the state police to handle the forensic portion of the investigation, which cleared many current and former troopers. The report said the firm vetted the department's approach and found it to be "objective" and done in "good faith."
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, a professor of sociology at Brown University who studies policing, said at the heart of the ticket scandal are questions about whether troopers faked records to either appear more productive to their bosses or to skew racial profiling data.
"The great irony, now, is that they want the public to trust (the state police) in the analysis of this data," Van Cleve said.
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Gov. Ned Lamont speaks next to Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Interim Commissioner Ronnell A. Higgins, and State Police Interim Colonel Daniel Loughman during a press conference at the State Capitol in Hartford, Thursday, February 1, 2024. State leaders released details of an independent investigation into claims that thousands of traffic tickets were falsified by state police.
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A file photo of a state police stetson hat, front, worn by all sworn troopers in Connecticut.
In response to questions, a spokeswoman for Lamont said the administration was not concerned about the law firm's limited ability to assess retired troopers or its reliance on state police to conduct the forensic review.
The firm's investigation "was conducted independently" and the firm "didn't take (state police) at its word," Lamont spokeswoman Julia Bergman said in an email.
The report by Finn Dixon & Herling based in Stamford was co-authored by two of the firm's partners: former U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly and David R. Allen.
Neither attorney, nor anyone else at the firm, has spoken publicly since the release of the report, which called on state police "to prioritize transparency."
In response to detailed questions about the report, Matthew Danzer, an associate at the firm, declined to comment on the firm's behalf.
"The report speaks for itself," Danzer said in an email.
Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut NAACP, said he aired a number of concerns about the report in a meeting Monday with Lamont and Commissioner Ronnell Higgins, who heads the state public safety department that oversees state police.
"I told them what people are telling me," he said. "They don't trust this report."
Experts noted, beyond this report, troopers face additional scrutiny from an ongoing federal criminal grand jury investigation.
State police investigate themselves — again
An audit released in June by the state-funded Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project found a "high likelihood" that between 130 and 311 current and former troopers may have entered between 25,966 and 58,553 false or inaccurate traffic tickets into a state police database. As a result, state racial profiling data was skewed, making it appear that troopers ticketed more white drivers and fewer minority motorists than they really did.
Officials have stressed no drivers were actually issued fake tickets; officers only entered phony ticket information into databases.
However, that audit did not seek to establish whether the faulty information was entered intentionally and, if so, why.
Lamont originally tapped the Office of the Chief State's Attorney to launch an investigation into the audit's findings. That decision came under criticism, as the chief state's attorney works closely with the state police and often relies on state police investigators.
In late July, Lamont announced he had appointed Daly to do a "a comprehensive and independent investigation."
Her appointment also drew criticism because of her ties to Lamont's wife, Annie Lamont. Daly had represented his wife's businesses and worked at a firm that still did. At the time, a spokesman for Lamont, said choosing Daly "does not create any conflict, appearance of conflict or reason to question Ms. Daly's ability to be independent." And the state ethic's office signed off on the appointment, saying that it did not create any financial conflict of interests.
In their report released last week, Daly's team found that "serious failures" by the state police — particularly placing the blame on leadership who retired in 2018 and 2019 — allowed the department to significantly misreport racial profiling data for years. Agency leaders knew of problems but failed to act, the report said, and they did not refer potential criminal conduct to state prosecutors. Higher-ups also never addressed signs of broader ticket-writing problems they uncovered, according to the report.
Those findings largely echoed previous reporting by CT Insider in the fall of 2022.
Much of the rest of the report focused on the 130 current and former troopers flagged by the audit as having the most glaring inconsistencies. The group includes individuals who retired as troopers and now work as state police constables. These officers were flagged for hitting a defined threshold: more than eight potentially falsified ticket records in a single year and more than 20 percent of those records they logged potentially falsified in that same year.
Between 12 and 15 troopers and constables were referred for further review by the state police's Internal Affairs Unit. But for most of the remaining officers, the report said the false or inaccurate records were "likely" a result of sloppiness, training gaps, technical issues or other unintentional errors.
The report made clear that Daly's team did not do their own full, independent analysis of traffic ticket data for each trooper flagged by the audit. Rather, the report said, they relied on an internal review by state police investigators, which after reviewing ticket records for each trooper, "reconciled" 89 of the 130 officers. The reconciliation process involved going through each of the 130 trooper's data infraction by infraction to see whether there were other matching records that could provide a reasonable explanation to reduce the number of unexplained discrepancies below the defined threshold, the report said. State police could not reconcile the records for 29 other officers, according to the report, and 12 retired troopers are still undergoing review.
In the report, Daly and her team said they vetted the state police's process for reconciling troopers' data, including by interviewing ten troopers whose ticket-writing discrepancies the state police said they believe were unintentional.
"We found that the CSP Reconciliation was diligently conducted in good faith and was an appropriate process," the report said. "There is little reason to believe that the reconciled Flagged Troopers and Constables created fictitious traffic stops or otherwise engaged in intentional misconduct."
For some experts who spoke to CT Insider, the fact that Daly's investigation and the state police's internal review were so closely intertwined undercuts the perception of independence.
Rose, from Sacred Heart University, said he's surprised the state didn't tap a third party to do the forensic review.
"I like to think that our state police are honest people, first and foremost," he said. "But at the same time, when you have something this serious, the conclusions would be more legitimate if they had a third party."
"That was an in-house investigation," Rose added. "That's really what it was."
Active state troopers were compelled to talk with Daly and her team, or risk losing their jobs, officials said. However, troopers were promised so-called Garrity Rights so that whatever they disclosed could not be used against them in a criminal proceeding.
Some observers questioned why Daly's team relied heavily on interviews with troopers when trying to determine if they had intentionally falsified records.
Mike Lawlor, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven and former state undersecretary for criminal justice policy, said people naturally want to make themselves look good and not admit mistakes.
"I would just say based on my understanding of human nature, I think everybody is likely to do things to make themselves look good," Lawlor said.
Stanley A. Twardy Jr. — a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut who is now in private practice — said he was not concerned Daly's team didn't do the review themselves.
"As long as there is a firewall that's put between those who are doing the data analysis and those who are being looked at, that could be seen as independent," said Twardy, who has done dozens of independent reviews, including an investigation for Lamont in 2022 into one of the governor's top aides. "It's not as independent as a third party being involved — but there are cost benefits. The cost to the state to have a third party come in and do that data analysis would be exorbitant."
However, Bilal Sekou, a political science professor at the University of Hartford, said if cost was a concern, "There are a lot of people who could be tapped to do [the data review]."
"You need to have people outside of law enforcement [to help do the review]," said Sekou, the chairman of Common Cause Connecticut, a good government group that advocates for reforms to prevent government corruption.
According to Sekou, the only way to ensure the public accepts this report as truly independent — as promised by the governor — is for the administration to be transparent to outsiders in the public, media, good government groups and researchers.
"If the public (has) questions about the legitimacy of the investigation, then accepting the outcome of it will be difficult," he said.
The state has paid Daly's firm $500,000 for the investigation; another $50,000 bill is pending.
Invoices Daly's firm sent the state, which CT Insider obtained through Freedom of Information requests, show her team communicated regularly with Lamont's staff throughout the six-month probe — particularly his general counsel, Natalie Braswell.
For example, two-and-a-half months into the investigation, Daly billed the state $1,336.50 to prepare for a meeting with Braswell and to "update investigate strategy" and to email the correspondence on the same issue. Later that day, Daly and a member from her investigative team spent 30 minutes on the phone with Braswell.
There were also at least two times Lamont spoke with Daly, first two months into the investigation and then again one month later — the same day Lamont held a press conference to announce the head of the state police and the leader of the public safety agency that oversees the force were both stepping down amid the scandal.
It's possible there were more meetings, as the invoices from the last two months of the investigations have not yet been released.
Bergman, Lamont's spokeswoman, said: "No one from the governor's office provided editorial input into the final report. (Governor's office) legal staff were in touch with Finn Dixon for regular status updates throughout the process."
Several experts said they did not find the frequent communications to be problematic or surprising.
"The governor is their client," said Lawlor. "Whether it's timeframes or format or parameters, I would imagine that the governor's office would give them guidance on those things ... They weren't special prosecutors, and so they're not independent."
Some retired troopers escape scrutiny
Experts and police reform advocates also raised concerns that the report's lack of conclusions for some retired troopers could allow them to escape accountability.
Of the 130 state troopers examined, 49 are retired, according to the report.
But the law firm said in its report it was unable to determine whether 14 of the 49 retired troopers may have intentionally falsified records. That includes five retired troopers the state police reviewed but were unable to "reconcile" and nine others still undergoing state police review; officials have given no timeline for when those reviews will be finished.
In the new report, Daly's team was candid about being "limited" in their ability to investigate those who no longer work for the state police.
"As these troopers are no longer in law enforcement, they were not required to cooperate with our investigation," the report said.
Just three retired troopers spoke with Daly's team voluntarily.
Data shows some retired troopers had large numbers of discrepancies. A review by CT Insider shows that of the 40 troopers flagged with the most potentially falsified records in the June audit, at least 19 are retired, including six of the top 10 and the top four overall.
The top trooper on the list — flagged in the June audit with entering more tickets with potentially inaccurate or falsified data when he was a trooper than any other — retired from the state police several years ago and began collecting a pension. He later worked for a localpolice department until he retired recently, officials said.
David McGuire, executive director of the Connecticut ACLU, said that trooper's case raises concerns about other officers skirting scrutiny by retiring and then landing at another police department.
"What the retired troopers were doing was amongst the most problematic and potentially intentional — but we can't really get to that" with the new report, said McGuire, adding that he voiced this concern to Higgins during a meeting on Monday.
"The public surely deserves answers," McGuire added.
Esdaile, from the NAACP, described the new report as "narrow" and lacking in accountability, particularly for retired troopers.
"People got a chance to jump out the window ... with golden parachutes: great pensions, and they have the ability to move on to other police departments," Esdaile said.
Higgins, who became the state's public safety head in the fall, said there was nothing his agency could do to hold retired officers accountable.
"Retired troopers do not fall under my authority right now. Retired troopers are no longer with the agency," he said at a press conference shortly after the report's release.
Lawlor, from the University of New Haven, said he was surprised the investigation didn't dive further into retired troopers, calling it a "partial assessment."
But Lawlor said retired troopers could still face scrutiny by an ongoing federal criminal investigation.
"There's clearly other assessments taking place, so this isn't the last word," he said.
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