First, also, I'd like to begin my presentation to you by saying that I have reviewed your web page and, in particular, one of the beginning passages where it says that you entered the public arena as a "housewife standing up for her family and neighbors" and where it goes on to acknowledge that although you have achieved "high public office," you have not forgotten your "roots."

In a similar fashion, I, too, at one time, was a working husband and father who also entered a different "public arena," that of a responsible, critically acclaimed, credible and reputable civic activist, first gaining a credible and respected reputation at the local, state and federal level in my work addressing many of the issues regarding the Laurel Park Landfill, yet also never forgetting my roots.

Members of the Andrew Avenue Homeowners Association and I, as the president of that ad hoc organization, were successful in preventing Harold Murtha, the State DEP and, initially, the federal EPA in connecting a leachate collection system from that Superfund Site into our 45+ year old sanitary sewer that ran through not only a rural neighborhood with already high incidents of cancers and miscarriages, but also a sewer system that ran right near Andrew Avenue School.

Our association also received critical acclaim for taking a studied and methodical approach to the issues at that landfill and that leachate collection system, in particular, for we successfully fought to have the sewer line tested, which the state DEP and the EPA did not want to do, and the entire length of over 1,850ft. was found to be cracked and leaking throughout it's length with tree roots breaking through at places and at others, large portions of the sewer pipe that had simply collapsed within it with only the earth surrounding the gaps keeping the effluent within it.

Needless to say, the entire length of that sewer was completely replaced but also NOT hooked into this leachate collection system.

We also received critical acclaim for sponsoring several "informational seminars" for state and town officials at my home, at the Naugatuck High School and at Town Hall, once sponsoring a nationally recognized sanitary engineer who voluntarily conducted a professional study of our existing sanitary sewer system that neither the state nor the town of Naugatuck bothered to undertake, the results of which were such that the original leachate collection system was torn out and a modified system that correctly addressed the issue of the toxic runoff from the landfill was installed to replace it and even that one was never hooked up directly to our neighborhood's sanitary sewer, but to an additional seamless, rupture-proof line now running alongside the also-replaced sanitary sewer throughout the extent of our neighborhood to the main trunkline on Rubber Avenue, thus protecting the health of my friends, neighbors and the Andrew Avenue School children.

Now, to the issue at hand ...

I mentioned all of the above, with much, much more I could have added, in order to extend to you my solid, credible standing within my home town of Naugatuck and many, many other communities in order to address the titled issue of this correspondence, the pending CT state budget deficit and how it can be reduced by in excess of $300+ Million Dollars.

For purposes of "background," I was employed within the tobacco industry for 17+ years in a field sales representative capacity with my territory running from Stamford upwards to Northville, north of New Milford.

During my tenure with the tobacco industry, I was witness to an array of tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes, all of which, at one time or another, I attempted to "expose" and "correct" from within the tobacco industry, assuming that my senior headquarters management was unaware of what was going on in the field operations.

Those attempts to bring these criminal activities to the attention of the corporate management of the particular tobacco company I was employed with, and despite even being among the top-rated 1% in the country of that company's field representatives, my efforts in bringing attention to these crimes directly resulted in my removal from the industry for, in actuality, these tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes are incorporated into the field policies, practices and procedures of ALL of the tobacco companies doing business not only in Connecticut but in other states all across the country.

Approximately three years ago, I approached Rep. Kevin DelGobbo and Rep. Ron San Angelo, who I had considered to be friends of mine, after they had held a meeting with town residents at the Naugatuck Library.

I gave them a detailed and specific presentation as to how the ongoing tobacco industry CT state income tax fraud and evasion and how the ongoing tobacco industry CT state sales tax fraud had, up to that point in time, by conservative estimates, defrauded in excess of $290+ Million Dollars in just those two CT state tax revenue streams.

If you go to this page within The Shuster Project web site I describe in one of our Press Releases, in simple terms, one of the two largest tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes that still continues, unabated, that accounts for the largest share of the now combined  $300+ Million Dollars in defrauded CT State Tax revenues fraud: http://www.rxshuster.org/press_release_9.htm 

As I had known Kevin's Mom for a number of years, and as I'd seen Ron on a number of occasions around Naugatuck and had many friendly exchanges with him, also, I felt that I could trust the two of them to help me bring tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes not only to the attention of the CT legislature, but to be instrumental in having these crimes investigated and a committee established in order to both recover these huge sums of defrauded CT state tax revenues and to take whatever legislative action(s) as would be required in order to prevent these tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes from ever occurring again.

Both Kevin and Ron promised to bring these issues of tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes to your attention, acknowledging my solid reputation in the state and also acknowledging my presentation to them as important enough to bring to your attention as this was during the time just before you actually had become Speaker of the House.

Both of them said that you were the person that could successfully address these many issues of tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes and that they would set up a meeting between you and I, along with them, so that we could move forward towards recovering these huge sums of defrauded CT state tax revenues, yet it seems for whatever reason, that they lied to me and, in turn, they lied to you, for nothing was ever done by them to get us all together.

And, it seems, that they never brought these tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes to you.

Shortly after I had spoken to Kevin and Ron, I called Kevin at his apartment and told him The Shuster Project was getting a Bill crafted by myself and a prominent law firm in Bridgeport that is often credited for writing successfully passed Bills for a state trial lawyers association, that joined with us because of our work in this matter, before the CT Judiciary Committee.

That Bill was HB5602.

I informed Kevin of the day that the Bill was being brought to the floor for a public hearing and public comment and I asked Kevin if he would come and speak in favor of the Bill's passage and call Ron to ask him on my behalf to do the same and at first he said yes and that they would do all that they could to help me, yet that "help" was never to come about.

I even saw Kevin outside the Legislative Offices not even an hour before the hearing was to take place and I had assumed that he was there to speak on behalf of the bill and that Ron was somewhere about there, so I said I would see them inside and he said he'd be there, yet he nor Ron never showed.

Only I spoke, on behalf of The Shuster Project, as the lone speaker in favor of this Bill's passage when both Kevin and Ron should have also been there and spoken on it's behalf.

At least Attorney General Blumenthal wrote a letter in favor of the Bill's passage, at that time and several times since, as it was brought to his attention by the Bridgeport firm that actually composed the Bill, in part from my dictations and, in part, from our study of similar False Claims Bills in other states so as to give Connecticut a potent platform by which to recover the hundreds of millions of dollars in defrauded state tax revenues perpetrated by the tobacco industry.

And now the Governor is talking about laying off thousands of state employees, yet The Shuster Project has directly contacted him no less than 10 times since May 14th of 1999, giving him specific information about tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes the sums of which, in defrauded dollars, exceeds that of Enron and WorldCom, collectively, across the country.

In September of 2000, StudyWeb.com, an academia-based grammar school and high school curriculum studies guide web site bestowed upon The Shuster Project it's "Academic Excellence Award," thus certifying our web content applicable to school curriculum in Grades 12+ in the subjects of HISTORY and SOCIAL STUDIES in and for the topics of CRIMINAL JUSTICE and WHITE COLLAR CRIMES and each month thousands of classrooms across the country access The Shuster Project to learn more about tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes.

In May of 2002, The International Association of Webmasters and Designers bestowed upon The Shuster Project it's "Golden Web Award" "In recognition of creativity, Integrity and excellence on the Web" for credibly, responsibly and with authenticity and accuracy bringing the issues of tobacco industry fraud and false claims issues not only to school children and college students and the general public, but also for how we utilize a multimedia approach to educating the American people with respect to these issues yet also offering up solutions and initiating several grassroots programs and initiatives that are enabling and empowering ordinary citizens to successfully engage the tobacco companies in addressing these crimes by the use of Petitions, Surveys, Media Alert Programs and other grassroots efforts.

I only offer that as "background" towards the fact that it is in the best interests of the State of Connecticut, state workers facing layoffs and every one of the 169 cities, towns, boroughs and hamlets in Connecticut that you and I meet together to work towards investigating tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes in Connecticut and that the recovery of well over $300+ Million Dollars finally begins.

If put a different way, each of the 169 townships in CT, taken individually, could realize in excess of $1 Million Dollars each towards their individual budgets and/or budget deficits to almost $2 Million Dollars each if the entire sum of well over $300+ Million Dollars in defrauded CT State Tax Revenues from just those two tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes was divided up among all of them, upon recovery.

The "focus" of The Shuster Project has shifted, since May of 1999 to a little less than a year ago, to no longer contacting CT state and federal legislators, the U.S. and State Attorneys General, various other elected and appointed officials and the "leaders" of various national organizations such as NAACP, NOW, AARP and others as to the issues of tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes.

The reason our focus has shifted sooner than we had planned was a direct result of these legislators and others incredulously ignoring and actively avoiding any direct involvement, whatsoever, in either investigating the scope and impact of tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes upon the defrauded state tax revenues, despite the established legitimacy, relevance and importance of these crimes and their obvious negative impact upon the budget, and then for these people to even avoid and refuse any initiatives or actions to recover these huge defrauded sums.

The Shuster Project is now more successfully educating our young people sooner who are going to be the future legislators, prosecutors and the future leaders of national organizations and we are confident that, armed with the knowledge we are providing them, they will surely act to not only shut down these crimes, punish the guilty and take whatever legislative actions are required to prevent these crimes from ever happening again, but that they will also work diligently to recover the defrauded sums and return them to the people, where that money belongs.

However, from time to time The Shuster Project will continue to initiate "outreach" efforts with select legislators, elected and appointed officials and national organization leaders and others that we feel will, if adequately informed with respect to tobacco industry fraud and false claims crimes and also of the wide, critical acclaim The Shuster Project has amassed in terms of credible and responsible address to these issues, as well, that we will vigorously assist those officials and individuals in addressing these crimes.

The Shuster Project will also vigorously assist any dedicated and involved legislator or elected or appointed officials to recover these vast sums of defrauded state tax revenues.

This will be our only initiative to you, Moira ... I think we've made a strong case for a meeting, together, with an eye towards an investigation of these crimes and with some effort going towards discussing the recovery of the above-stated sums.

I look forward to hearing from you and I encourage you to take some time to visit the award-winning "The Shuster Project" web site, as it is a sizeable reference resource to even many more tobacco industry fraud and false claims issues I haven't mentioned here.

We'd have much to talk about, you and I.

But if you have no interest, I'd appreciate it if you are honest with me and not do what Kevin DelGobbo and Ron San Angelo did by promising to do all that they could, yet inexplicably did absolutely nothing at all.

I've placed a pretty large ball into your court, now ...

Sincerely,

RXShuster

Executive Director

The Shuster Project - Tobacco Industry Fraud & False Claims Issues

http://www.rxshuster.org/

C/o

177 Andrew Avenue

Naugatuck, CT   06770-4359

Telephone: 1-(203)-723-1690

Fax: 1-(801)-705-3078

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