Connecticut, Stamford | featured news

STAMFORD-Beware. Santas are coming to town. Tomorrow.

SantaCon the annual convention of hard-drinking Santa costume owners is getting started at noon Saturday Dec. 2 in Stamford at just about any Bedford Street bar you can think of.

The yearly drink fest and pub crawl, which for some hard drinking Santas will last until closing at 2 a.m. Sunday, will migrate over to Tiernan’s Bar for closing festivities.

STAMFORD-Police say the armed robbery of an employee of a popular West Side pizza parlor late Thursday night was foiled when the victim saw that the robber was pointing a fake gun at him.

Sgt. Brian Butler said an employee from Westover Pizza had taken the proceeds from pizza sales shortly after closing at 10 p.m. The man, who took his girlfriend with him for some reason decided to pull his car over on nearby Burr Street to count the money.

STAMFORD — A West Side man was charged with stabbing his girlfriend in the arm with a knife late Wednesday night.

Police responded to a Fairfield Avenue apartment about 11 p.m. Wednesday for the report of a stabbing and found Wilmer Cardona-Sandoval, 28, sitting on the porch.

Cardona-Sandoval’s girlfriend told police he came home drunk, threw her on the bed, got on top of her and demanded his half of the rent back, the report said.

The woman said he then pulled out a knife and tossed it from hand to hand, police said.

STAMFORD — A man who took more than a week to report his gun stolen out of his unlocked car has been charged with reckless endangerment and failure to inform police within the three days that the law requires.

Capt. Richard Conklin said the arrest of 38-year-old Alexis Veloz came less than 10 days after he voluntarily went to police headquarters to report his fully loaded Ruger .380 caliber semiautomatic pistol had been stolen from his car.

Conklin said Veloz was “cooperative and forthcoming” while filing the report, but missed the three-day deadline set by the law.

STAMFORD — A therapist and school social worker accused of sexually assaulting a patient in his West Side office has a federal conviction on his record for importing heroin in 1992.

Alexander Pino, 47, of Stamford, did not enter a plea at his arraignment and was released Thursday after a judge reduced his bond to $100,000. Judge John Blawie also signed a protective order, prohibiting Pino from having contact with the victim.

Pino, a social worker for Hamilton Avenue and New Lebanon schools in Greenwich, was charged Wednesday with second-degree sexual assault.

STAMFORD-Three juvenile girls were charged by police in a mace attack of at least three men in downtown Stamford Tuesday afternoon.

Police were first called at 12:50 p.m. to Two Brothers Beauty Supply at 111 Atlantic Street on the report of the manager of the store being sprayed in the face with mace.

Patrol Lt. Diedrich Hohn said two girls walked into the store and one was immediately recognized by the manager as someone he suspected of shoplifting in the store in the past week.

STAMFORD-Allegations that the state and police department are engaged in a political prosecution of a former animal shelter manager was met with a stiff rebuke by a state prosecutor as the criminal case against Laurie Hollywood inches closer to trial.

In a reply to the former animal shelter manager’s request for a hearing to re-examine evidence that led to an arrest warrant being sworn out on her in June 2014, Deputy Assistant State’s Attorney Dan Cummings charged that Stamford defense attorney Mark Sherman is leading the court down a “rabbit hole.

STAMFORD-Police are searching downtown looking for as many as five young females believed to have pepper sprayed at least three people.

The first report of someone being pepper sprayed came at 12:50 p.m. when a cosmetics store employee on Atlantic Street complained ed of being maced by five girls.

The girls were reported to have fled down Bank Street.

Then at about 1:20 p.m. two more people reported being maced on Atlantic Street near the Palace Theater.

STAMFORD-A city juvenile who remained out of jail after pleading guilty to shooting another teen in the chest during a drug deal gone wrong last year began serving his prison sentence early after a Stamford judge was told the youth was doing drugs and blowing off his curfew. Savior Dominguez, 17, made a brief appearance before Judge Gary White on Tuesday morning and was quickly put into handcuffs after the judge raised his court appearance bond by $200,000.

STAMFORD-City traffic officers ended a seven-day Click-it-or-ticket campaign on Monday not with a whimper but with a flurry of tickets for basic traffic infractions.

The effort began on Nov. 20 with the financial help of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the state Department of Transportation’s Highway Safety grant. Officers were deployed to different parts of the city to enforce seat belt violations and other on-sight traffic violations.

Five officers working from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.