Danbury, Fairfield County | featured news

DANBURY — A former Bethel elementary school teacher charged with sexually assaulting three boys was more than an educator to those victims.

“This case is about the violation of trust that parents put on a teacher,” Assistant State’s Attorney Sharmese Hodge told a judge Friday during a sentencing hearing in state Superior Court in Danbury that will continue next week.

The speakers told Judge Dan Shaban that Stroh took the children to concerts, sports games, amusement parks, to play laser tag and sometimes to his own house to play video games.

Rebecca Goodrich, an attorney representi

According to a Newtown Action Alliance press release, the NSSF firearm trade show in Las Vegas from Jan. 19-22 is the nation’s largest.

The press release says that the NSSF has lobbied against gun safety laws and has filed lawsuits against gun safety legislation in Connecticut and other states since the 2012 Newtown shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

NEW MILFORD — Three grants will soon help one agency increase its staff to better combat the area’s growing heroin epidemic.

The Midwestern Connecticut Council on Alcoholism’s New Milford outpatient clinic recently received $22,500 in grants to improve the facility’s opiate treatment.

The New Milford facility comprises five staff members, including a program director, three clinicians and an administrative supervisor.

The third clinician was recently hired, and a recovery support specialist will soon join the staff to collaborate with local hospitals in getting clients who have ove

Police said a motion sensor Canary camera sent an alert to the homeowner’s cell phone with live footage of the burglary.

After a brief investigation, Isaacson was taken into custody and charged with third-degree burglary, fourth-degree larceny, criminal trespass and possession of burglary tools.

A Ridgefield man who crashed his car Tuesday in Westchester County was driving with a blood alcohol level more than four times the legal limit, New York State Police said.

When troopers arrived, they noticed the driver appeared intoxicated, authorities said.

DANBURY — A former Bethel elementary school teacher charged with sexually assaulting three children faces up to two years in jail when he’s sentenced this week.

Stroh, who was a first-grade teacher at Berry Elementary School in Bethel when the investigation began, had also faced three additional counts of sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor with sexual contact.

Astudillo had been charged with first-degree sexual assault, third-degree assault and risk of injury to a minor, but after a deal with the state, he pleaded guilty to risk of injury to a minor.

NEW FAIRFIELD — Nearly a year after a woman was killed in a two-car crash on Route 37, State Police said the driver who caused the accident was intoxicated. Robert Francis Martini, 42, of Pine Hill Road, New Fairfield, was charged Monday with second-degree manslaughter, driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, driving with a suspended license, driving with unsafe tires and failure to drive right.

BROOKFIELD — The town’s police department is asking the public to help them identify a man wanted for questioning in a shoplifting case.

The incident happened in an undisclosed business last Friday, according to a poster published on the department’s Facebook page.

NEWTOWN — A former civilian dispatcher will serve two years of probation for distributing steroids through an illegal business run by an ex-sergeant in the town’s police department.

Chickos has no criminal convictions, but was once charged with driving under the influence, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by his attorney, David Ring, who had requested a one-year probation sentence.

For at least four years, authorities said Santucci imported steroid ingredients from China, repackaged them in a clandestine home laboratory and distributed wholesale quantities of the drug through