Andy Thibault

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Cool Justice 
My Bosses Were Drug Dealers, Killers
By ANDY THIBAULT, Columnist
Law Tribune Newspapers
February 21, 2005

Vito Colucci Jr. liked his job a lot, but there was this little problem: His bosses were drug dealers and killers. Colucci wrestled with this problem for several years, trying to stay alive and out of trouble.

His problem was exacerbated by the fact he was a patrolman for the city of Stamford, working for an elite drug squad. Colucci's notorious bosses were Lt. Larry Hogan and Sgt. Duke Morris.

For much of the 1970s, organized crime had a hand in running the Stamford police.

Colucci remembers it this way: "We were trying to make inroads against the big dealers. We were working our butts off on surveillances. Every time we'd go in with a search warrant, nothing would be there - even when we knew the guy went to a pick-up in New York the day before."

Cops were taking junkets to Las Vegas with gangsters. Certain murder investigations were shut down for no legitimate reasons. Good cops wondered what was going on.

"Then," Colucci said, "a fellow came to us." He was a street level junkie with pending charges. "Your boss, Hogan, is dirty," the drug addict told Colucci. "I sit down with him in the apartment when he is cutting drugs."

The good cops couldn't trust anyone. They waited patiently until a hands-off chief retired and a reformer from California took over. Colucci was persuaded to go undercover. An anonymous caller told him: "Do yourself a favor and get off this case or something could happen."

Something happened. Colucci arrested Hogan, who died of cancer before he could go to trial. Hogan was suspected of, among other things, killing another cop. Morris died in a shootout with other drug dealers. He was a suspect in at least five murders.

After about 10 years on the job, Colucci had enough. He's been a private investigator since 1987.

Colucci's background and experience give him a certain credibility. This is very important, especially in the face of one his recent finds. Colucci interviewed two young black men from New York who placed themselves in Greenwich at the scene of the Martha Moxley murder on Halloween Eve 1975.

"People are saying, I can't believe this, this is ridiculous," Colucci told Rita Cosby on Fox News, where he appears regularly as a commentator. His client, of course, is Michael Skakel, convicted in 2002 of clubbing Moxley to death.

A third man who ultimately led the defense team to the pair was a classmate of Skakel's at the Brunswick School in 1975. He is Tony Bryant, a cousin of Kobe Bryant. In a statement to Colucci, Bryant fingers his two friends as the likely killers of Moxley. This information surfaced before Skakel's appeal, presented in January to the state Supreme Court.

"Bryant cites specific activities that night, he cites specific brands of beer that were taken from an outside refrigerator," Colucci told me. Cops found the empty cans.

Meanwhile, Colucci also brought forward a juror who has second thoughts about his vote to convict Skakel. The juror, retired Darien police officer Brian Wood, now says he is not sure Skakel got a fair trial.

With Colucci on the case, who knows what might pop up next. He's a guy with a truckload of stories that are stranger than fiction - and true.

A decision by the Supreme Court on Skakel's appeal is not expected until late this year.

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