Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 181

I3r 4th IP. Eastern Edition CONNECTICUT SECTION WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 10, 1988 D8 OBITUARIES D3 EDITORIALS D10 WEATHER Reason for killing of crime figure eludes lawmen By LYNNE TUOHY and THERESA SULLIVAN BARGER Courant Staff Writers Thomas DeBrizzi of Stratford will be burled today, but questions about who emptied a handgun into the reputed organized crime boss and why are far from being resolved. The obituary a funeral home prepared for DeBrizzi lists no organizations or affiliations. The one that law enforcement officers could write would be far more comprehensive. It would say he had been the leader of the Carlo Gambino crime family in Connecticut for the past 6ft years and a soldier in that New York family for more than two decades.

It would detail his arrests and convic tions on illegal gambling, loan-sharking, racketeering and weapons charges, and it would include his most recent release from prison, six months ago. What investigators cannot say is whether the "hit" on DeBrizzi, 64, was sanctioned by the heads of the Gambino organization or whether it came from outside the "family" as part of a power and turf struggle in the Fairfield County area. If it was not sanctioned, "there will be problems; there will be more bodies," according to one source close to the investigation. Although law enforcement officials surmise the hit was sanctioned, they certainly are not closing their ears to reports from some Informants to the contrary. They admit to having been surprised by the slaying acquaintance's car, which had been left in the Trumbull Shopping Park sometime after his disappearance Jan.

SO. He had been shot twice in the head and four times in the back and chest. He had left his wife's Stratford dress shop Jan. 30, a Saturday, in the company of his closest ally and associate, Harry Riccio. Police believe DeBrizzi was going to do some shopping for a Super Bowl dinner he planned to prepare and may have made one stop.

A case of soda had to be removed from the car's trunk and placed in the back seat to make room for DeBrizzi's body. Since his release from prison last August after serving 18 months of a two-year term on a weapons charge DeBrizzi had tut an additional 70 pounds on his 5-foot-9 rame, police said. Cooking became his prin cipal hobby, police said. His appearance, once natty, was no longer so, he often used a cane, and he kept a much lower profile. Some police sources say DeBrizzi had been slipping quietly into retirement at the time of his death.

"He didn't bother with anyone after he got out of jail," one official said. Despite the uncertainty over who wanted DeBrizzi dead and why, investigators are certain that DeBrizzi's body was left in a public place to leave "a clear message: This is what's going to happen if you move in," in the words of one officer. It also dispels any notion that DeBrizzi merely went into hiding. See Officials, next page There was no indication there was trouble brewing within the family or within a rival family. A law enforcement official and say they knew of no dissension within the Gambino crime family.

"It came as a complete surprise," one law enforcement source said. "There -was no indication there was trouble brewing within the family or within a rival family." DeBrizzi's frozen, 270-pound body was found Friday, stuffed in the trunk of an City hospitals face big financial losses ifrom caring for poor Complaint saysdata suppressed Group wants state retardation official held in contempt By KATHLEEN MEGAN Courant Social Services Writer By WARREN FROELICH Courant Medical Writer i Several inner-city hospitals in Connecticut face large financial losses next year from the cost of caring for poor patients, according to hospital and state officials. And at least one hospital fears its own health is threatened by the loss. Officials at Yale-New Haven Hospital are predicting that the care of poor patients will cost $8.9 million more in the 1988-89 fiscal year than the hospital will receive for delivering that care. The problem has reached a critical stage at that hospital.

Officials at Yale-New Haven called a news conference Tuesday to draw the public's attention to the problem. "The financial viability of this hospital is at risk," said Rob Schwartz, administrative director of public affairs with Yale-New Haven. Schwartz said his hospital is expected to have operating losses next year as a result of the shortfall, although investments and other private funds are expected to keep the hospital's total revenues from dipping into the red. "It is an issue that can only be characterized as urgent," Schwartz salH Is wiwiBiriwwMrtwwfajwaeiin. mimtummJ 4' i- i It A I mmm" -milium million.

"We would consider that number disastrous," Bruner said. "We would have to seriously consider curtailing a lot of services that create the inequity in rates that we have." Park City Hospital officials said they could not respond to questions over expected losses. The problem of financing care for the poor can be traced to hospital payments from Medicaid, these officials said. Medicaid is the publicly financed program to pay for treatment of poor patients. State and federal revenues pay for the program, which is administered by the state Department of Income Maintenance.

Under present formulas, the cost of treating poor patients is not adequately covered by Medicaid reimbursements, hospital officials said. As a result, reimbursements have failed to keen Dace with inflation. For example, Medicaid reim-. bursement for outpatient services at Connecticut hospitals is about $21 per visit "When have you gone to a physician's office and charged $21?" asked Maryanne Nelligan, a financial officer with Hartford Hospital. Nelligan said Hartford Hospital expected a loss of about $2.5 million in outpatient visits to the clinic.

About 85 percent of patients seen in the clinic are Medicaid patients, she said. Nelligan said the losses from Medicaid patients, low compared with the hospital's overall revenues, currently are not as serious at Hartford Hospital as some other inner-See Hospitals, next page Sherry Peters Special to The Courant office Tuesday after Loverde was named auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of Norwich, right, embraces the Rev. Paul S.

Loverde in the chancery Similar difficulties may be facing Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford and Park City Hospital in Bridgeport, state and hospital officials said. Both institutions, which had operating deficits last year, treat large numbers of poor patients. Robert Bruner, president of Mount Sinai, said the expected loss in 1988 for the treatment of poor patients at that hospital is about 2 Pope names auxiliary bishop Priest liaison in Norwich to serve Hartford archdiocese An advocacy group for mentally retarded people has accused Brian R. Lensink, commissioner of mental retardation, of suppressing information that shows some mentally retarded people are not receiving services they need in the community. Court papers filed by the advocacy group and plaintiffs in a 1979 class action suit ask that Lensink be held in contempt of court for failing to ensure a good quality of life for mentally retarded people moving into Connecticut communities.

Papers filed in U.S. District Court in Hartford this week also ask that a "special master" be named to ensure that quality assurance programs are implemented. Under a 1984 agreement resulting from the 1979 Class action suit the state Department of Mental Retardation was required to create a "quality assurance system" to collect and analyze data about clients being moved from institutions into the community. But, "Here we are three years and eight months after a consent decree was signed in this case and we still have no measurements and no data," said David C. Shaw, a Hartford lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

A good quality assurance system would protect clients from harm by identifying and responding to problems, Shaw said. The plaintiffs accuse Lensink in the court motion and an accompanying memorandum of failing to hire staff to carry out his quality assurance plan and of failing to distribute data to the court, legislators and the public. The memorandum states that Lensink and his subordinates have acted to "suppress, derail, dilute and otherwise render useless" the data collected in two studies of the lives of mentally retarded people in the state. James Welch, assistant attorney general for the state Department of Mental Retardation, said he received the papers filed by the plaintiffs and the Connecticut Association for Retarded Citizens Tuesday and that "It would be premature for me to comment" Through a spokeswoman, Lensink relayed the same message. Shaw said the plaintiffs and the Connecticut Association for Retarded Citizens were "driven to this because there was just no progress made in implementing this section of the consent decree." Shaw said, "We are not necessarily saying that services are bad in one area or another.

We are saying that our insurance policy against problems developing is the quality assurance system, and that insurance policy has never been taken out" The association and the plaintiffs filed the class action suit in 1979, seeking better care and deinstitutionalization of Mansfield Training School residents and others. The agreement in the case has led See Advocacy, next page Justice system inquiry pivots on Speers case i i 1 J- A 1 1 Rosazza, who called Loverde a "priest's priest" and a "people's Sriest," said the archbishop, "be-lg a biblical scholar, now recognizes the fact that he has two active auxiliary bishops named Paul and Peter." His comment drew laughter at the crowded news conference in the chancery basement Reilly, who said Loverde "will be sorely missed in Norwich," praised him highly as an experienced teacher, pastoral priest, church lawyer, well-organized ad-ministrator and persuasive preacher. Loverde expressed gratitude to his fellow bishops and asked for prayers that he will be a bishop "who truly assists in the building up of the church." In response to a question, he said, "The major challenge for the church is to proclaim firmly and faithfully the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to do so kindly and with compassion." The bishop-designate was born Sept 3, 1940 not in Connecticut, as he indicated he would like to have been, but in a hospital in Massachusetts "by a quirk." Loverde's roots, however, are in the Pawcatuck section of Stoning-ton, where he grew up an only child. His father, Paul, is deceased. His mother, Anne Marie Conti Loverde, still lives in Pawcatuck.

He attended St Michael Elementary School in Pawcatuck, Immaculate Conception Junior High School in Westerly, R.L, and La-See Auxiliary, next page By GERALD RENNER Courant Religion Writer The Rev. Paul S. Loverde, 47, a teacher, canon lawyer and "priest's priest," has been named auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Hartford by Pope John PaulIL He replaces Bishop John F. Hackett, who retired at the end of 1986, and joins Bishop Peter A. Rosazza as assistant to Archbishop John F.

Whealon. Loverde has been serving as liaison to priests counseling, arbitrating grievances and preaching clergy retreats for Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of the Diocese of Norwich, which covers eastern Connecticut He will be ordained bishop April 12 in St Joseph Cathedral in Haft-ford and take up residence in Waterbury, Whealon said during a Tuesday news conference in the chancery office, where Loverde was introduced. Rosazza, who has been based in Waterbury, will move to New Haven, Whealon said. The archbishop said he would like his two auxiliary bishops to become his "vicars" in making decisions in some of the 223 parishes outside the Hartford area.

The archdiocese takes in Hartford, Litchfield and New Haven counties. "Questions will be brought to them before they are brought to me," Whealon said. Ordained after the Second Vatican Council, Loverde represents a By EDMUND MAHONY Courant Staff Writer If there is one thing legislators investigating the state's criminal justice system are aware of, it is that they are in the middle of what has proved in the past to be dangerous territory. In general terms, the legislature's Program Review and Investigations Committee is looking for abuses in the way the state police deal with informants and for a solution to the persistent fighting among some police officers, prosecutors and judges. But the committee is looking for its answers in actual criminal cases and, in practical terms, has fastened on one of the most bizarre examples in recent memory: the 1985 gambling arrest of Thomas W.

Speers in Waterbury. The case, on its surface, once seemed unremarkable; Speers is a self-described confidence man and gambler accused of being a smalltime bookie. He was arrested in 1985 on a half-dozen misdemeanor gambling counts. Late last summer he was sentenced to nine months in jaiL But none of the principals involved escaped undamaged as the case unfolded. It became an opportunity for police, prosecutors, lawyers and judges to hang out the others' dirty laundry.

The head of the state police organized crime squad admitted he secretly recorded two meetings with a prosecutor he distrusted. More troubling was an allegation by Superior Court Judge Anne C. Dranginis that Speers's lawyer, Timothy C. Moyna-han, tried to blackmail her. What made the Speers case different was that he was the longest-tenured informant in state police history.

When the department created its Statewide Organized Crime Investigative Task Force in 1973, Speers was a charter member. His informant number was 01. One of the questions the committee is trying to answer is whether some of the unusual twists that have characterized Speers's case developed because the state police were trying to help the man they have called their most productive informant ever. The committee also would like to learn whether Speers's case became enmeshed in a continuing feud between some state police officers, prosecutors and judges. At 10 a.m.

today, the committee plans to resume questioning Water-bury State's Attorney John A. Connelly, who prosecuted Speers. Con-See Legislative, next page THE REV. PAUL S. LOVERDE new generation of priests coming to positions of leadership in the Roman Catholic Church.

He will be the first among the seven Connecticut bishops to have been ordained a priest since the council, the watershed event of a century that updated Catholicism's teachings and practices. He studied theology in Rome during the exciting years when the bishops of the world gathered for the council between 1962 and 1965. He was ordained priest in St Peter's Basilica Dec 18, 1965, 10 days after the council ended. Hackett and Rosazza welcomed Loverde in his new asignment Hackett 76, said he has had "esteem and affection" for Loverde since his days as a student in Rome. Hackett like Whealon, was a participant in the council.

Proposed tire-burning plant causes more debate as new study, objections surface who is running for U.S. Senate. "The water supply board report indicates this plant would have a potential adverse effect on our drinking water," Licht said. "We can't really tolerate that" Licht said the state of California has taken legal action against Oxford, but Oxford officiate said California's suit has to do with tire storage not burning. "I am concerned about the purity By ROGER CATLIN Courant Staff Writer STERLING The dispute over construction of the world's largest tire-burning plant here continued Tuesday as Rhode Island officials presented more objections and a new study.

A $25,000 study commissioned by the Providence Water Supply Board said the tire-burning plant proposed residents most from Rhode Island from speaking on the issue. That did not stop them from cheering and clapping, though, as foes of the plant spoke. Testifying with the most fanfare were two of Rhode Island's top officials, who spoke before a bank of TV cameras and radio microphones. "The quality of our drinking water is as good as any in the nation," said Rhode Island Lt Gov. Richard Licht 4 filed its own technical emissions report based on its tire-burning plant in Modesto, Calif last week, saying its level of emissions would be well below existing standards.

Tuesday, Oxford officiate sternly objected to the board report, calling it "fatally flawed." The flap over the latest round of mostly technical reports on the proposed plant took up much of the hearing, preventing 60 or so nearby i just 2 miles from the Rhode Island border, would adversely affect the Scituate Reservoir. Located 6 miles from the proposed plant site, the reservoir, owned by the city of Providence, provides drinking water for 60 percent of the state's residents. But representatives of Oxford Energy which wants to build the $40 million, 24.5-megawatt plant in this small eastern Connecticut town, of America's best water supply system," said Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino. "We don't need to have the greatest resource of the state of Rhode Island sitting in the middle of that" After Licht and Paolino departed, it was left to Jeffry Bradstreet an air quality engineer for the E.C Jordan Co. in Maine, to explain the See Proposed, Page D4 1.