Reyes v. State

306 A.3d 515

222 Conn.App. 538

Angelo L. REYES

v.STATE of Connecticut

(AC 45634)

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued September 13, 2023

Officially Released November 28, 2023

Alexander T. Taubes, New Haven, for the appellant (petitioner).

Nancy L. Chupak, senior assistant state’s attorney, with whom, on the brief, were John P. Doyle, Jr., state’s attorney, and Lisa Maria Proscino, former supervisory assistant state’s attorney, for the appellee (respondent).

Alvord, Prescott and Bishop, Js.

BISHOP, J.

₅₄₁The petitioner, Angelo L. Reyes, appeals, following the granting of his petition for certification to appeal, from the judgment of the trial court dismissing his petition for a new trial for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because it was time barred by the three year limitation period of General Statutes § 52-582.¹ On appeal, the petitioner claims that the trial court improperly (1) concluded, as a matter of law, that the three year limitation period of § 52-582 cannot be tolled by application of the fraudulent concealment statute, General Statutes § 52-595,² and (2) determined that the exception to the three year limitation period for newly discovered forensic scientific evidence pursuant to ₅₄₂§ 52-582 (a) was not applicable to the present case. We agree with the petitioner’s first claim but disagree with his second claim. Accordingly, we affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the trial court, and we remand the case to the trial court for a new evidentiary hearing before a different judge to determine whether the three year limitation period of § 52-582 was tolled by § 52-595.

Our Supreme Court’s decision in the petitioner’s direct appeal sets forth the following relevant facts, which the jury in his criminal trial reasonably could have found.

"At the time of the events in question, the [petitioner] owned a Laundromat and several investment properties in the Fair Haven section of the city of New Haven. In October, 2008, the [petitioner] paid two employees, Osvaldo Segui, Sr., and Osvaldo Segui, Jr., to set fire to 95 Downing Street in New Haven, a single-family residence that the [petitioner] had sold to Robert Lopez [Lopez] and his mother, Carmen Lopez, in 2002. The [petitioner] was angry that [Lopez] would not sell the property back to him and informed Segui, Sr., that, after the fire, he intended to purchase the lot of land on which the residence had stood before the fire. Segui, Sr., and Segui, Jr., both of whom lived rent free in one of the [petitioner’s] properties, agreed to set the fire, and, in the early morning hours of October 9, 2008, they did so.

"In May, 2009, the [petitioner] enlisted Segui, Sr., and Segui, Jr., to set another fire, this time to a vehicle belonging to Madeline Vargas, a local businesswoman and employee of a nonprofit substance abuse services agency operating in Fair Haven. Although the [petitioner] did not tell Segui, Sr., why he had had him set fire to Vargas’ car, the evidence adduced at trial indicated that the [petitioner] was motivated by spite— ₅₄₃the result of an ongoing dispute between him and Vargas over Vargas’ attempts, in 2008, to run an outreach program for local drug addicts in an empty parking lot near the [petitioner’s] Laundromat.

"The [petitioner], Segui, Sr., and Segui, Jr., were subsequently charged with various offenses related to the 2008 and 2009 arsons. Prior to being tried in state court, the [petitioner] was tried in federal court on unrelated arson charges. Segui, Sr., and Segui, Jr., also were charged in that federal case but agreed to testify against the [petitioner] in exchange for reduced sentences. In the present case, Segui, Sr., and Segui, Jr., entered into plea agreements pursuant to which, in exchange for their testimony, they received … sentence[s] that did not require them to serve any more time than they were required to serve in connection with the federal case." State v. Reyes, 325 Conn. 815, 818-19, 160 A.3d 323 (2017).

Following a jury trial, the petitioner was convicted of two counts of arson in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-112 (a) (2), two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal mischief in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48 (a) and 53a-115 (a) (1), and one count of conspiracy to commit burglary in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48 (a) and 53a-101 (a) (1). On January 8, 2015, the court sentenced the petitioner to a total effective sentence of twenty-five years of incarceration, execution suspended after fifteen years, followed by five years of probation. On June 6, 2017, our Supreme Court affirmed the petitioner’s judgments of conviction on direct appeal. Id., at 833, 160 A.3d 323.

More than five years after the imposition of his sentence, on July 31, 2020, the petitioner filed the present ₅₄₄petition for a new trial.³ The petitioner alleged that he had obtained evidence of four material facts that were not discoverable or available at the time of his criminal trial that would likely produce a different result in a new trial: (1) one day before the 95 Downing Street fire, Lopez met with an "unlicensed broker," Hector Cortes, who was facing legal and financial trouble; (2) several days before the 95 Downing Street fire, Lopez was involved in a physical al- tercation at a café with Charles Ruggierrio, who later was admitted to the hospital for severe injuries; (3) the existence of a December 29, 2005 invoice from East Haven Building Supply that was signed by Lopez but paid by the petitioner that purportedly evinced that the petitioner had extended a line of credit to Lopez for improvements to the property at 95 Downing Street; and (4) evidence collected from 95 Downing Street was tampered with while en route from 95 Downing Street to the state forensic science laboratory (state laboratory). The petitioner alleged that the first three facts were especially material because they contradicted Lopez’ testimony at the petitioner’s criminal trial that he did not meet with Cortes, that he was not in an altercation with Ruggierrio, and that the petitioner had not extended a line of credit to him.

On August 25, 2020, the respondent, the state of Connecticut, filed a motion to dismiss the petition for lack ₅₄₅of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that the petition was time barred by § 52-582 because it was filed more than three years after the date the petitioner had been sentenced. In its memorandum of law in support, the respondent explained that the petitioner was sentenced on January 8, 2015, and he filed his petition for a new trial on July 31, 2020, which was well beyond the three year limitation period of § 52-582.

On November 1, 2020, the petitioner filed an objection to the respondent's motion to dismiss in which the petitioner conceded that his petition was filed outside the three year limitation period in § 52-582 but asserted that it was not time barred. He contended that the court had subject matter jurisdiction over his petition for two principal reasons. First, he argued that the exception to the three year limitation period applicable to newly discovered forensic scientific evidence pursuant to § 52-582 (a) saved his petition because his petition was partially contingent on "gasoline evidence." Second, he argued that the three year limitation period was tolled by the fraudulent concealment statute, § 52-595, because the state intentionally withheld all of the newly discovered evidence supporting his petition.

On July 1, 2021, the court ordered an evidentiary hearing to resolve the factual issues raised by the respondent’s motion to dismiss, and, on October 5 and November 23, 2021, the court held the hearing. The respondent called multiple witnesses to testify, including Executive Assistant State’s Attorney John P. Doyle, Jr., who had prosecuted the petitioner; a former Connecticut state police detective, Kenneth Christensen; a state laboratory evidence intake coordinator, Jessica Best; and a former New Haven police officer, Michael Mastropetre. The petitioner testified and called former Connecticut State Trooper Michael F. Pendleton to testify. The petitioner introduced six exhibits into evidence, and the respondent introduced twenty-seven₅₄₆ exhibits into evidence, all of which the court considered in its decision.

In his posthearing memorandum, the petitioner claimed that there were three aspects of "newly discovered forensic scientific evidence" relating to the state’s handling of cans used to store accelerant samples collected from the scene of the 95 Downing Street fire. First, the petitioner contended that there was a discrepancy as to the size of the cans that the police used to collect samples of potential accelerant from the scene of the fire at 95 Downing Street. The petitioner relied on the testimony of Christiansen that he was a K-9 handler assisting with the investigation of the cause and origin of the fire at 95 Downing Street when his police dog, Presley, alerted to the presence of accelerant on wood debris. Christiansen testified that the lead investigator collected three samples of wood debris with the potential accelerant and placed them into three different cans. Exhibit 1, the police report authored by Christiansen, stated that there were three, one gallon cans, whereas exhibit 4, the evidence receipt from the state laboratory, stated that there were two, one gallon cans and one, one quart can. When asked about this inconsistency, Christiansen testified that he was not aware of any discrepancies with respect to the size of the cans at the petitioner’s criminal trial but that it was his mistake that the police report identified three, one gallon cans and that, in actuality, the samples were contained in two, one gallon cans and one, one quart can.

Second, the petitioner contended that the samples contained in the three cans were not collected from the scene of the fire at 95 Downing Street. The petitioner...