Stamford Embezzler Granted Parole; Served Under Mayor Malloy

A convicted embezzler who served under then-Mayor Dannel P. Malloy in Stamford has been granted parole by a state board.

Fred Manfredonia, who pleaded guilty and agreed to be sentenced to five years in prison in connection with the theft of more than $300,000 from the city, will be released in February 2013, said his attorney, Philip Russell.

“He will serve one half of his five-year sentence,” Russell told Capitol Watch on Thursday from his Greenwich office. “The parole board ruled he was eligible for release.”

Manfredonia was one of three Stamford employees in different departments who were arrested in 2010 in alleged embezzlement cases that were uncovered by the new Republican administration that took office after Malloy left as mayor in December 2009.

Since Manfredonia’s crime was a non-violent offense, Russell said it was a “common occurrence” to be released before the full sentence is served.

“It’s fairly routine,” he said, adding that Manfredonia did not receive “any special treatment of any kind.”

Manfredonia’s arrest became an issue during the gubernatorial election campaign when Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele — a Stamford resident for 50 years — criticized Malloy in late July 2010 for a lack of management control after the three employees were charged with stealing more than $400,000 from the city.

Two of the three workers had been named “employee of the month” during the Malloy years, and one of them — Manfredonia — was photographed with Malloy as they smiled during the employee-of-the-month ceremony in June 2005. Manfredonia was nominated to be employee of the month by Ben Barnes, a longtime colleague of Manfredonia’s who is now Malloy’s state budget director.

Manfredonia, who was director of human resources, was fired amid the embezzlement controversy.

“It’s a stiff jail sentence for a first-time offender, and while the numbers in this case are prodigious, the defendant has expressed his willingness to pay as much as he can” in restitution, Russell said earlier this week. ”He hopes that will not be lost in the glare of public opinion.”

Russell says Manfredonia, now 61, should receive an early release because he had no criminal history prior to the theft, and he has served “without incident” in prison since Sept. 20, 2010.

But the current mayor, Michael Pavia, and others in the city government were opposed to an early release for Manfredonia.

Malloy emphasized during the gubernatorial campaign that he was no longer mayor at the time of the arrests and did not have additional details on the arrests beyond what he had read in the newspaper.

“Obviously, you do your best to set up systems” of financial controls, Malloy said at the time. “The city’s books are audited on a regular basis. Two of those individuals were caught very quickly, and one was not. It’s hard to protect people from dishonesty. … You have systems. No system is foolproof.”

“Let’s be fair. None of these people were direct reports to me,” Malloy said.

Russell said that Manfredonia’s city pension has been forfeited, and he is not trying to get it back. Until Manfredonia’s arrest, he had been deemed a good employee as the human resources director, Russell said.

In his job, Manfredonia handled employee benefits and had the authority to reimburse city workers for the tuition that they had paid after taking courses at various colleges.

Irregularities surfaced when Manfredonia was on vacation, and a city employee complained that she never got reimbursed for her tuition. Another employee starting looking into the tuition reimbursements, and an investigation began that led to his arrest.