East Haven, Former Town Attorney Drop Lawsuits Against One Another

East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr. announced Monday via a prepared statement that the Town has stipulated to the dismissal of a State lawsuit against former Town Attorney Patricia Cofrancesco and that, at the same time, Cofrancesco’s federal lawsuit accusing Maturo of gender-based discrimination and defamation has also been dismissed by stipulation.

In both cases, the dismissals are with prejudice, according to a release from the mayor’s office.

Maturo explained in a prepared statement, “I’m pleased to announce that the Town of East Haven and Attorney Cofrancesco have resolved their differences and the ongoing litigation against each other has been dismissed by stipulation and has been mutually withdrawn.”

Cofrancesco was the former town attorney under Democratic mayor April Capone. She filed a seven count discrimination, libel and defamation suit against East Haven and Maturo in 2013.

At the time she claimed comments made by Maturo hurt her both financially and professionally, reported Evan Lips of the New Haven Register. She had claimed Maturo targeted her because Capone worked with federal officials probing the Police Department, and whether they had violated the civil rights of minorities, the Register reported at the time.

The official court docket in the federal action indicates that Cofrancesco filed the stipulation of dismissal with prejudice on January 22. Records indicate that on the same day, the Town filed a withdrawal of a state court action that it had filed against Cofrancesco.

Maturo continued in a prepared statement, “There was ongoing litigation among myself, the Town, and Attorney Cofrancesco, and we decided that it was in the best interests of all parties involved to resolve those disputes by simply ending all of the litigation. As a result, we entered into a confidential settlement agreement and I am happy to report that all litigation has been terminated without any admissions of wrongdoing and without the payment of any money by the Town.”

Town Attorney Joseph Zullo explained in a prepared statement, “As with all lawsuits in which the Town and its officials are named as defendants, the Town incurs legal expenses to defend the claims. In many cases, those expenses can become significant, especially if the litigation proceeds all the way to trial. In this case, we were able to end the litigation at a fraction of the cost of proceeding to trial and, more importantly, without any disbursement of taxpayers’ dollars in settlement of the same.”

Court records indicate that in the Cofrancesco matter, the Town was defended by Attorney John Conway of the law firm of “Loughlin Fitzgerald” and that Maturo was represented by Attorney Lawrence Sgrignari of “Gesmonde, Pietrosimone, and Sgrignari, LLC.”

Zullo continued, “Although my job entails supervising all of the pending claims against the Town, both Conway and Sgrignari deserve the lion’s share of the credit for negotiating a resolution that resolved all of the pending disputes between Cofrancesco and the Town without any admissions of wrongdoing or the payment of damages. Both firms vigorously defended the Town’s and the taxpayers’ interests and their hard work is much appreciated.”

Zullo concluded in a prepared statement, “Given the confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement, no further information will be disclosed by the office of the Town Attorney regarding the resolution of these claims.”