Retired East Haven Police Detective Avoids Jail Time

Retired East Haven Police Det. Robert Ranfone avoided jail time this week by pleading guilty under the Alford Doctrine to two separate charges this week, the New Haven Register reports.

He was ordered to pay $1,250 in fines for the two separate cases. He was originally slapped with felony charges but pleaded down to misdemeanors.

Ranfone pleaded guilty to interfering with an officer involving the sale of a car, the Register reports. Ranfone sold the car to two different people.

Ranfone also pleaded guilty to second-degree breach of peace involving a traffic stop in New Haven.

His attorney said he pled guilty under the Alford Doctrine, which means he doesn’t admit guilt but he admits there is enough evidence to likely convict him, because of the East Haven Police Department’s past negative publicity, reports the Register.

Read New Haven Register’s Esteban Hernandez’s full story on Officer Ranfone here.

The town and eight East Haven police officers are being sued for allegedly violating the civil rights of a then eight month pregnant woman who claims she was pulled over by police and removed from a car at gunpoint, the New Haven Register reported earlier this month.

Dominique Cash, of New Haven, recently filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court. Ranfone was apart of that incident.

In the suit, she claims she was removed from the car at gunpoint and questioned by police for 40 minutes. She also claims in the suit that cops crashed their cruisers into her vehicle and that was tantamount to excessive force.

East Haven police ventured into New Haven in the 2013 incident because Cash, who was not a suspect, was driving a vehicle owned by the suspect in a purse snatching complaint involving an East Haven police officer’s mother, the Register has reported.

An internal investigation by the Police Department concluded that the officers’ unconstitutionally detained Cash, the Register reports.