October 30, 2006

FAMILY CLAIMS HARASSMENT OVER PHOTOS
By Marissa Yaremich - Register Staff

WEST HAVEN - The law firm representing Morgan Lane drowning victim Gladys E. Padula claims police threatened to arrest the family’s legal team when an investigator for the family took pictures of the officers’ accident reconstruction on the road.

"I find it quite disturbing that on its own, the police are conducting a secret investigation of an accident that occurred on a public road. But to threaten to arrest the family’s legal team? That is just adding insult to injury," family attorney Michael A. Stratton of New Haven-based Stratton Faxon Law Firm, said.

Padula, 47, was driving north on Morgan Lane on the night of Aug. 27 during a torrential downpour when her van flooded under a railroad bridge, and she died trying to resurface. Though West Shore firefighters were able to restart her heart, the mother of two young girls died two days later at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Her husband, Michael Padula, has since put the city on notice of his intentions to sue through city-based attorney Michael A. Healey. Healey is still an attorney for the family, which has also retained Stratton Faxon as the primary firm handing the case, according to firm officials.

According to the law firm, the Padula family requested a legal investigation of the drowning, which was unwillingly "terminated" Friday by local police.

Police allegedly ordered an unidentified investigator to leave the area when the investigator displayed a camera to capture images of the bridge.

Despite the investigator’s supposed claims to explain his legal stake in the case, the firm said police further denied the investigator access and "threatened him with arrest."

Police spokesman Officer Angelo Moscato said the shift commanders were not notified by the investigator or law firm of any troubles encountered earlier in the day.

"If they needed to take a picture, it wouldn’t be an issue," Moscato said. "If it is actually a complaint, they should have filed a (formal) complaint with the police department with the name of the officer so an investigation could be done."

Moscato said the officer may have had a viable reason for telling the investigator to leave a certain area, such as the investigator standing in the line of traffic or blocking traffic, which would pose a threat to the investigator’s safety.