Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 17

mi THE HARTFORD COURANT: Way, jun II, 1991 B7j Veterans protest removal of hospital chaplain Project's debris piling up in city The small mountain that motorists and pedestrians may have noticed growing at Broad Street and Farmington Avenue in Hartford is soil and construction debris excavated as part of the I-84I-91 inter- change project, a state De-partment of Transportation of icial said. The dirt and other materials are being stored there until a permanent site is found, said Carl Bard, project coordinator for the work. Bard said the site, just north of 1-84 west, has been used. before to store fill temporar-' ily, since there is little room for storage at the construction site. After the material is removed, the plot will be re- turned to "design grade," Bard said.

By DAVE DRURY Courant Staff Writer ROCKY HILL When veterans start calling for the chaplain, the business usually is serious. And so it has become, say leaders of two state veterans' groups who are urging Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. to reinstate the position of Protestant chaplain at the state Veterans Home and Hospital.

Last month, while trimming their budget, administrators from the Department of Veterans Affairs eliminated the chaplain's position held by the Rev. John W. Hosmer, who had been Protestant chaplain since Feb. 1, 1980. Hosmer's departure he chose early retirement May 31 leaves the home and hospital with only one full-time chaplain, the Rev.

Thomas E. Berberich, a Roman Catholic priest who has been at the hospital for 21 years. About two-thirds of the hospital's 643 veterans are Roman Catholic. Protestants make up 30 percent of the population, and there are five Jewish veterans. Hugh C.

Graham, adjutant of the state department of the American Legion, said a similar resolution backing Hosmer's reinstatement will be presented at the legion's state convention in Cromwell July 11-13. "It seems to me there are other ways the state can cut the budget than by cutting chaplains at the Veterans Home and Hospital," Graham said. "The veterans are getting very little as it is." 1 In addition to his 11 years at the home and hospital, Hosmer has been state VFW chaplain for many years. He has been the organization's national chaplain and has served as state chaplain for the American Legion. Hosmer's was one of 10 full-time Harper said Berberich, who lives on the grounds, has agreed to provide pastoral counseling to all veterans.

Letters and telephone calls also are going out to area Protestant clergy to see if there is any interest in volunteering a few hours at the facility each week. Besides his pastoral counseling duties, Hosmer conducted a weekly Sunday service and presided at the dozen or so funerals of Protestant veterans held each year. "There is definely the need to provide the resource. We're going to come up with some approach that will meet the needs of our patients for pastoral services," Commandant David B. McQuillan said.

Hanson said the need for Hosmer's services should be obvious to all. "Spiritual recovery is just as important as physical. If a person is in a hospital and being treated, their spiritual being is important to their recovery," he said. jobs at the home and hospital eliminated in the 1991-92 budget. Officials estimate he cuts will save about $450,000 ih salary and benefits.

Besides eliminating his position, administrators also cut out part-time hours for Rabbi Henry Okolica. Okolica, who earlier retired from full-time service, will continue to provide counseling on a voluntary basis. The hospital retains a contract with LaSalette Missionaries of Hartford, which provides pastoral service two days per week when Berberich is not working. "Any layoffs were predicated on which would have the least impact on patient care," personnel administrator Theodore J. Sulla Jr.

said. In addition to the chaplaincy, layoff notices went out to a plant boiler engineer, the agency police sergeant a switchboard operator, a barber, an aid investigator and four urology technicians in the hospital. Gangster's testimony reveals details of plot, burial, coverup in killings Trash haulers discussed overcharging customers "A lot of people really don't know this is happening. Those who do know are irate," VFW spokesman Chester D. Hanson said.

Hanson termed the action by Weicker and Veterans Affairs Commissioner Hamilton D. Harper Jr. to eliminate Hosmer's job "a clear-cut act of hostility, discriminating against the spiritual well-being of Protestant Connecticut veterans." Veterans' officials deny the elimination of Hosmer's job was in any way prejudicial. They said eliminating the job would save about $42,000. At the VFW's annual state convention in Trumbull that concluded earlier this month, members backed a resolution calling for Hosmer's reinstatement.

The resolution noted that other, smaller state hospitals Connecticut Valley Hospital, Fairfield Hills Hospital and Norwich Hospital continue to maintain full-time Protestant and Catholic chaplains. I figured we were going to kill somebody. He didn't explain it to me, but he gave me some gloves." Jack Johns Prosecution witness Milano has pleaded innocent to involvement in the killing and is among those on trial At another point in his testimony, Johns described being ordered by Grasso to help bury a body in a Hamden garage late in the summer of 1986. "He told me to meet with him," Johns testified. "I met with him.

He told me he had a little piece of work that I had to do with him." Johns said he met with Grasso and others involved in doing the work Salvatore "Butch" D'Aquila Jr. of Middletown and mob drug importer Salvatore M. Caruana, originally of Peabody, on a Sunday in late August to discuss the job. Johns said Grasso never told him exactly what the work was, but he had an idea, especially as they drove to the garage. "I figured we were going to kill somebody," Johns said.

"He didn't explain it to me, but he gave me some gloves. So I figured somebody was in trouble." At the garage, owned by Richard Beedle, Johns said, Grasso ordered D'Aquila to block the door with his car and stand lookout. The body, believed to be that of Theodore Berns, a hotel executive from Boston, was in the trunk of Caruana's white Cadillac. Caruana had pulled the car into the garage. Grasso led the way into the garage.

Johns said he learned a hole had already been dug because Grasso fell into it Beedle had not yet turned on the garage lights. "I pulled him out," Johns testified, laughing. "He hurt his chin, ribs." When the lights went on, Johns said, he saw a 6-foot-deep hole dug through a poured concrete floor. Associated Press Taped conversations between officials of several Hartford-area trash-hauling companies indicate they discussed overcharging customers despite knowing that doing so would be illegal. Prosecutors played tapes Monday in the federal antitrust trial in Hartford of eight garbage companies to support charges the haulers agreed not to pursue each other's clients so that they could raise prices without fear of losing customers.

"If I take your accounts, you take my accounts. The only people who make out on the deal is the customer," Fred DeFeo, the owner of Sanitary Waste Disposal in South Windsor, told Lester Bresnahan, of Trucking and Sanitation, in August 1986. "Go out and get new customers," Guy Antonacci, president of Somers Sanitation Service and Superior Sanitation told Bresnahan. "But you can't take any work that belongs to me, or Bridgeport council defies state, sets lower tax rate Continued from Connecticut Page ruptcy court to dismiss the city's petition. In filing the petition under Chapter 9 of the U.S.

bankruptcy code, Moran said the city had no other alternative. Even if the city adopted an 18 percent increase in the tax rate, it would only be a quick fix; the city is projecting a much larger budget gap next year. Moran said she decided to file after negotiations with city unions broke down May 31. The city had been seeking $12 million in concessions. At the beginning of Monday's meeting, City Attorney Barbara Massaro advised against setting a tax rate until the council could discuss the legal implications of the move wjjh bankruptcy experts.

But council member Thomas J. White said, "We could not of our own volition and of our own conscience STATE BRIEFS Millstone plants all out of service The generating powerhouse of Northeast Utilities was closed this week as refueling and unplanned problems combined to put all three Millstone nuclear power plants out of service. NU, the region's largest electric utility and principal owner and operator of the plants, said the shutdowns are not expected to affect power supplies to customers of its Connecticut Light Power Co. and Western Massachusetts Electric Co. subsidiaries.

Millstone 3 was forced out of service early Sunday. Failure of a high-voltage transmission line in Middletown is suspected of causing the main generator-protection circuits to shut down the plant while it was operating at full power, said Stephen L. Jackson, a utility spokesman. The plant is expected to be back in service by the end of the week, he said. The unexpected shutdown cut deeper into the utility's generating supplies, wlucii had been weakened by the closings of Millstone 1 and Millstone 2.

Millstone 2 has been out of service since May 25 in an unplanned shutdown and is expected back on line June 30 after its steam-generator tubes, which had problems with pitting and wear, are tested. Millstone 1 has been shut down for refueling since April 7 and is expected to return to service June 30. Metro-North wants new commuter run Officials of Metro-North Commuter Railroad have told Connecticut officials that they want to operate a new commuter line the state might build in a few years to connect New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury. Metro-North President Donald Nelson said Connecticut Department of Transportation rail officials have talked to Metro-North about the possible new line. "ConnDOT, with all their expertise, is not set up to run a railroad," Nelson said.

He said Metro-North, Amtrak and Guilford Transportation Industries, which owns the Waterbury-to-Hartford track, would be the three operators Connecticut could logically turn to. However, James Byrnes, the DOT'S deputy commissioner for public transportation, said a state-run commuter line also is a possibility. "I would not rule that out as a matter of course right now" Byrnes said. HARTFORD Illness of juror slows Webb trial A juror's illness postponed Monday in the trial of Daniel Webb, who is accused of kidnapping and killing a bank vice president two years ago. The trial had been scheduled to reconvene Monday at 10 a.m.

in Hartford Superior Court. By 11:30 a.m., court authorities had determined that a juror was too ill to attend but not so sick that an alternate juror would have to be tapped to sit in on the rest of the case. Webb, 29, is accused of abducting Diane Gellenbeck, a 37-year-old bank vice president, from a downtown Hartford parking garage at midday Aug. 24, 1989. Prosecutors say Webb then drove her to Keney Park, where he planned to rape her.

When Gellenbeck tried to run away, he shot her at least twice, authorities say, then pulled alonpide in his car and shot her three more times at close range. Testimony is expected to resume today at 10 a.m. somebody else." Bresnahan sparked the investigation when he complained to federal authorities in May 1986. During more than 10 meetings, with rival haulers in 1986, Bresnahan wore a microphone that transmitted the conversations to nearby FBI agents. Several haulers encouraged Bresnahan to drastically inflate his prices.

"You said before you're looking to make a buck," Carmine Espo-sito, an officer of Tobacco Valley Transportation Services, told Bresnahan. "In order to do that you gotta like raise your accounts, and raise 'em good." "If you're doing 8, 9, 10 thou-' sand a month, you immediately double it," Antonacci said. "When the contracts are due next year' nobody will take your "What we're doing is illegal," Esposito once admitted to Bresnahan. "Another thing is, we don't talk over the phone," he added. "There's a lot of investigations going on." adopt a 10.9-mill increase." In a related matter Monday, Gov.

Lowell P. Weicker Jr. signed legislation that transfers the chairmanship of the review board from state Treasurer Francisco L. Borges to William J. Cibes the state budget director.

1 Borges has been chairman of the panel since it was created in 1988. "This change comes at the recommendation of the treasurer," Weicker said in a written statement "Given the importance of the challenges we face in Bridgeport and potentially in other communities he believes that the activities of the board should be coordinated out of the governor's office." Borges, meanwhile, announced a press conference for 11:30 a.m. today to reassure bondholders that Bridgeport's bankrupcty "will have no effect whatsoever on repayment of the state of Connecticut's bonded indebtedness." 14, of Norwich Avenue, also a passenger in Eurto's car, was released from the Middlesex Medical Center in Marlborough after being treated for minor injuries. Witnesses said Eurto apparently was deliberately weaving into the opposite lane when the car and a van driven by Dorothy Holcomb, 49, of West Suff ield, collided at about 11:30 a.m Sunday. State trooper Jeffrey Megin, who is investigating the accident said the teenagers had not been drinking.

The four girls were all in the back seat of the Escort, Megin said. Megin said he would issue a final report on his investigation today after checking to see if the Escort might have malfunctioned. inmate flees job that after leaving the van at Custer's home and taking the family car, Perez released the boy near the Windsor-Hartford border about 2:15 p.m. State police described Perez as 5 feet 6 inches tall, 175 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. Police also said he has several tattoos, one that says "Mom and Pop" and another saying "Susie." Perez was sentenced to Willard April 3 and was not considered violent or prone to escape, Wheeler said.

Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Perez or the stolen car has been asked to call state police at 566-5990. When Devlin asked what Johns saw when Caruana opened his trunk, he answered: "What I see? The dead guy. Wrapped up in plastic. Clear plastic." "He had," Johns continued, like, he had been choked. He had a twine or something around his neck." Johns said he and Grasso unwrapped and stripped the body and pushed it into the hole.

Then, Johns 'said, he covered it with two, 50-pound bags of lime. Johns said he, Grasso and Beedle refilled the hole with dirt "There was leftovers," Johns testified. "Beedle said, 'Everytime I do this, there is extra We laughed." On the way home from the burial, Johns said, Grasso noticed that Caruana's Cadillac was missing a tail light. "Billy said, 'Look at this expletive guy. Driving down the street with a body in the trunk with a broken Johns testified.

The FBI believes Caruana killed Berns because he suspected him of having an affair with his wife. Caruana also lived in Connecticut in the late 1980s as a federal fugitive. The FBI believes Grasso and the Connecticut mob set him up with a residence and a phony identification, then killed him when they suspected he was about to be captured. Johns said he bumped into Caruana at a Middletown nightspot after the burial and reported it to Grasso. "Billy told me," Johns testified, "you won't see that guy anymore." Johns also described how he and Louis Failla, a reputed Patriarca soldier from East Hartford, talked about murdering Luis "Tito" Morales, a cocaine dealer who was upsetting mob gambling activities on Franklin Avenue in Hartford.

Devlin introduced as evidence a secret FBI recording of Johns and Failla plotting Morales' killing. The recording was made from a secret microphone planted in Failla's car. "I'm getting ready to make a move," Failla said on the recording. "You positively got my word on this kid." Morales is the father of Failla's grandson. said.

"I thought they were killing each other." Word quickly made it around the restaurant, and the 50 customers were all given free drinks. For Andersen, a Swedish immigrant who worked as a chef in New York City and Bristol for 33 years, winning the Lotto means fewer veal and chicken sautes. He said he'll work only on weekends now. He also plans to buy a new car, he said. The prize will serve as an incentive to stay in good health, he added.

"I have got 20 more years to live, I want to get every check," he said. "I will hire doctors and nurses around the clock to check on me." Cruz plans to return to his family in Mexico City. He said that he came to the United States to make some money, and now that he has done so, it is time to go home. Dino Kouvatsos, who will share the winnings with his wife, Eva, the restaurant manager, said little will change. The two are going -to continue at the restaurant "We will take a vacation, that is about it" Eva Kouvatsos said.

The first installment of the winnings was actually $61,226 for each of the three winners. But $12,246 was withheld from each for taxes. The winning ticket number 5-16-32-34-36-42, was bought from Lane's Bristol News-rack at the Mall at Bristol Centre. I Continued from Connecticut Page 'Well I'm thinking of So I threw him out of my cell." After several days of persuasion by his father, Johns said, he agreed to join him. Had he been released on bail earlier, Johns said, he might have reached a different decision.

"If it had been a difference of a day or two, I don't think I'd be sitting here right now." But Johns won bail after agreeing to work for the government and shortly after his release, was fitted by the FBI with a secret body microphone. At the FBI's direction, he said, he arranged a meeting with Pugliano at the Ramada Inn in Windsor Locks. Pugliano is one of four of the defendants in the trial charged with conspiring to murder Patriarca family underboss William "The Wild Guy" Grasso on June 13, 1989. Johns and Castagna admitted participating in the plot, but murder conspiracy charges were dropped against them in return for their cooperation. Monday, Devlin introduced into, evidence the recording made from Johns' meeting with Pugliano.

Dur- ing the 18 minute conversation, Johns and Pugliano talk about the. possibility of two of Grasso's alleged killers agreeing to cooperate with the government At the time, Johns', cooperation was a secret. Much of the recording is difficult to understand, and defense lawyers disagree in several areas with the government's interpretation of the conversation. U.S. District Court Judge Alan Nevas permitted the jury to read separate transcriptions made by the government and defense.

One portion of the recording not in dispute concerns a rumor circulating in the summer of 1990 that Gae-tano Milano of East Longmeadow, the accused triggerman in the Grasso killing, was looking to make a deal with the FBI. "You think," Johns said on the recording, "he told them that he shot Billy, and he's looking to make a deal?" "No," Pugliano answers emphatically. "Course not You gotta be expletive wacky to do a thing like that" State judges to review cases on weekends Continued from Connecticut Page The new policy calls for the administrative judges in each of the 12 districts to assign judges a rotation shift, which requires them to be available from 10 a.m. to noon on Sundays. districts to assign judges a rotation shift, which requires them to be available from 10 a.m.

to noon on Sundays. It was tested this past weekend, and Ment said Superior Court Judge Mary R. Hennessey, assigned to the Hartford district reviewed several arrests from the suburban communities and a dozen Hartford arrests. Chief State's Attorney John J. Kelly said he expects the 48-hour rule to require more work from prosecutors on weekends, but not substantially more.

"The court never previously defined 'prompt' (arraignment to be 48 hours," Kelly said. "Now they have, and we'll live with it" Ment said the state Judicial Department will avoid using courthouses as much as possible. 'To use those facilities would be to incur costs, and we're trying to avoid incurring costs," Ment said. One teen in critical condition after fatal car-van collision i. 'Chefs surprise' means less work over a stove By ERIC LIPTON Courant Staff Writer BRISTOL The Golden Key restaurant lived up to its name for its chef, a dishwasher and a cook.

Hermann Andersen, 54, the chef, Padro Cruz, 18, a dishwasher, and Dino Kouvatsos, 30, a cook and the son of the owner, each received $48,980.55 checks Monday, the first of 20 annual installments of a jackpot. The Golden Key at 182 N. Main St. is a family-run restaurant in the middle of downtown owned by Bill Kouvatsos, who explained how the purchase of the winning ticket came about He said he has been buying lottery tickets every week for our years, and Friday night, before a friend went out to buy him 20 tickets, he asked if anyone else wanted to take a bet The three put up $10 each for 30 quick-pick tickets. When his friend came back, Bill Kouvatsos counted out his 20 tickets, giving the remaining 30 to the three.

"What can you do?" he said Monday of giving away the winning ticket. "I am happy for them." It was about 8:15 p.m., Friday, a busy time for the restaurant when the winning number was announced on a kitchen radio. "I thought there was a fight back there in the kitchen" because of the noise, Bill Kouvatsos COLCHESTER A teenager was in critical but stable condition Monday night after a car accident that killed two other teenagers Sunday morning on Norwich Avenue. Kelly Cochrane, 13, of O'Connell Road, underwent surgery Sunday at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford for extensive internal injuries and a fractured pelvis, hospital officials said.

The driver of the Ford Escort, Shane Eurto 16, of Lebanon, and a passenger, Sarah Raymond, 15, of Sprague, were killed. Another passenger, Elizabeth Corey, 14, of Sprague, was in fair condition Monday at Backus Hospital in Norwich. Karianne Kendall, Boy kidnapped as Continued from Connecticut Page signed to the work detail, Wheeler said. With time off for good behavior, Perez would have been eligible for release in December 1994, Wheeler said. The work crew was supervised by transportation department officials, Wheeler said.

He said it is common to send inmates from low-security facilities to accompany work crews. After stealing the van, Perez drove north on Route 219 known as Barkhamsted Road through Enders State Forest to the Custers' house, Granby police said. State jDolice Sgt. Dan Stebbins said.