Former New Britain mayor Erin Stewart is facing fresh allegations of stealing from taxpayers, with a new report accusing her of fraud, larceny and embezzlement, News 12 Connecticut reported. The findings have added to the legal pressure on a politician who, only weeks ago, had been seen as the Republican frontrunner in the race for governor of Connecticut, making the accusations a striking turn in her career.
At the centre of the new report is a large payout Stewart sought as she left office. According to the report, she requested a 205,000 dollar separation payout when she departed City Hall. She was approved for 150,000 dollars of that sum, but only, it is alleged, after she pressured city leaders, even though the report states she was actually entitled to just 14,000 dollars.
Stewart has defended the money as something she had earned. She claimed she had worked around the clock for 12 years, asking whether she was not due the payment. The report, by contrast, frames the gap between what she was owed and the far larger sum she pursued as part of a wider pattern of drawing on public money to which she had no clear entitlement.
The separation payout was not the only one flagged in the report. Documents show that Stewart also obtained 60,000 dollars in payouts for her political allies, according to the findings. The report further states that taxpayers paid for Stewart's master's degree, adding to a growing list of expenses now being questioned by investigators and by officials at City Hall.
The report lands on top of investigations that are already under way. State police and the FBI are looking into 200,000 dollars of personal charges said to have been made on the mayor's city-issued credit card. The latest revelations come one day after the attorney general launched an investigation, and weeks after state police opened a separate probe of their own.
Current New Britain Mayor Bobby Sanchez said the case now raises questions that reach beyond Stewart herself. He said the focus extends beyond what happened to who knew about it, who approved it, and who helped make it possible, pointing to the part that others at City Hall may have played in signing off on the payments now under scrutiny.
Stewart, for her part, has rejected the accusations. While campaigning, she dismissed the scrutiny as a witch hunt, saying her critics wanted headlines before facts, political damage and personal vengeance. The report marks a sharp reversal for a figure once tipped for higher office, with the case now set to move toward the courts to determine where it should be heard.