HARTFORD — The widow of a New Haven detective came forward Friday to back up allegations that her husband repeatedly threatened and pressured witnesses, leading to multiple wrongful convictions. She testified about that misconduct in support of Alder Troy Streater’s pursuit of wrongful-convi ction compensation from the state. Lisa DiLullo, who was married to the late Detective Anthony DiLullo, appeared before the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee on Friday. The committee was reviewing a decision by Claims Commissioner Robert Shea recommending that the state award Streater $5.75 million as compensation for a wrongful conviction. Streater — who is currently the alder of Dixwell, Newhallville, and Prospect Hill’s Ward 21 — spent 23 years incarcerated for the 1990 murder of Terrance Gamble, a crime he’s always maintained he did not commit. By the end of the hearing, the Judiciary Committee did not make a decision about whether or not to approve, although several members suggested that they may recommend sending the matter back to Commissioner Shea for an additional fact-finding hearing. Claims Commissioner Robert Shea. Much of the back-and-forth at the hearing revolved around the question of whether the pardon that Streater received constitutes a substantiation of innocence. Streater received a pardon for that crime in 2022 from the Board of Pardons and Paroles. At his hearing before that board, he stated that he was innocent of the crime. Commissioner Shea interpreted the lack of any communication from the board contesting Streater’s innocence claim as evidence that the pardon they granted rested on “grounds consistent with innocence.” The board’s chair at the time, Carleton Giles, wrote in an affidavit submitted by Streater’s lawyer, Alex Taubes, that “I believe that his claim of innocence was a ground for the Board’s decision to grant the pardon.” Current board chair Jennifer Zaccagnini, however, testified on Friday the exact opposite: that “to my knowledge, the board has not granted pardons based on actual innocence.” Amid this debate about the rationale behind Streater’s pardon, Lisa DiLullo’s testimony offered new context casting doubt on Streater’s conviction. Her testimony corroborated the recantations of all of the witnesses who originally testified against Streater, including claims that her husband and other detectives coerced their initial statements. “If you take away the perjured testimony, there is nothing tying me to this case,” Streater told the committee. According to Lisa, the DiLullos were married from 1995 until Anthony’s death in 2000. They previously worked together on a joint task force of both federal and New Haven law enforcement officials starting in 1991. “After reading about Mr. Streater’s case and other wrongful convictions connected to Detective DiLullo and others,” she said, “I recognized that things I had personally witnessed, without context at the time, during my time with Detective DiLullo, seemed to be part of a larger pattern of misconduct. The same misconduct that put Mr. Streater in prison for 23 years for a crime he did not commit.” She continued, “The misconduct that led to Mr. Streater’s wrongful conviction was not an isolated incident. I was not surprised when I learned the details of what they allegedly did to the witnesses in Mr. Streater’s case — threatening them, pressuring them, following them — because it was consistent with what I personally observed during my time working alongside and married to Det. DiLullo.” According to Lisa DiLullo, “Based on my experience, he developed tunnel vision in his investigations. He withheld information that did not support the result he wanted, and he would say whatever suited him.” Lisa DiLullo’s testimony also raises questions about the integrity of other convictions which her husband had helped secure. He was also implicated in the convictions of Stefon Morant and Adam Carmon, both of whom have received compensation through the same state claims process. And he was involved in convicting Daryl Valentine, who has always maintained he was wrongfully convicted and whose case has been mired with allegations that police bribed, harassed, and threatened witnesses. The detectives most involved in Valentine’s case were the same detectives most involved in Streater’s: DiLullo and Det. Joseph Greene. Greene was involved in the wrongful arrest of Eric Ham, whom a 1996 jury awarded $1.4 million as compensation. As the Ham case came to light, an undated memo from then-prosecutor David Gold to his colleague Michael Dearington raised questions about Greene’s trustworthiness as a detective. Lisa DiLullo told the committee Friday that she appeared before them “voluntarily” and that she has detailed potential evidence of misconduct by her late husband in a deposition for Morant’s lawsuit against the city. Years Lost, Wounds Reopened Terrance Gamble II was born after the murder of his uncle, whose name he bears. Testimony over the course of the hearing revealed the irreparable pain that rippled from Gamble’s murder and from Streater’s conviction for that murder. Three of Terrance Gamble’s relatives — his nephew, his sister, and his mother — testified virtually against Streater’s claim. They expressed faith in the legal process that led to Streater’s conviction, and each argued that a pardon should not be taken as an official finding of innocence. Terrance’s mother, Joyce Gamble, had testified at Streater’s pardon hearing, stating that she had forgiven him. “I forgave Troy Streater because I didn’t want no hatred in my heart,” she said on Friday. She did not want her forgiveness to be misinterpreted as a belief in Streater’s innocence. “We just want closure in the matter. With all this going on, we had to read about it on social media, and it opened up a wound,” said Nicole Gamble, Terrance’s sister. “I was only in the third grade when my brother was took away from me.” “It is painful that my grandmother must relive this tragedy nearly four decades later,” said Terrance Gamble II, Terrance’s nephew. “Who failed my brother?” asked Nicole. After Joyce Gamble’s testimony, New Haven State Sen. and Judiciary Committee Co-Chair Gary Winfield, a Democrat, told her that the committee members “take very seriously” her family’s perspective, as well as Streater’s. “We do know that there are folks who have been in our system who are actually innocent, who are accused of very heinous things,” Winfield said. That meant that numerous “family members who survived thought they had gotten justice,” Winfield said. But due to police corruption that led to false convictions, “they didn’t actually have justice.” Wallingford State Rep. Craig Fishbein, a Republican, followed Winfield’s remarks by addressing Joyce Gamble. “You’re speaking for your son who can’t speak, because he’s gone,” Fishbein said. Meanwhile, from Streater’s perspective, “no amount of money will give me back the 23 years,” as he told the committee. “But this award is the State of Connecticut saying we got this wrong… That means something.” The post Late Detective’s Wife Boosts Alder’s Compensation Quest appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less