The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-05-20

bS kAEtuuE OOOuttAe, GcEUCEb 1VIus pert I. Sanford and Robert Treat of Tint of Seymour; Clarence F. Bald of Wallingford; William H. Mordo, v of Waterbury.
 discover, this irregularity was, so far as is known, never mentioned by the auditors who annually ex- amined the accounts of the city during the Hayes-Leary admins tration.
 In practically every instance in which the Grand Jury has exam ined the items added to warrants payable registers after the Board of Finance had indorsed approval of apparently regular items, the added items represented large payments which were, if not actually corrupt and illegal, of highly questionable nature. In every instance. so far discovered, the large payments to attorneys hereinafter detailed were handled in this way, as were hun- dreds of thousands of dollars paid by the city for so-called truck hire.
 In order to effectually carry out this plan, it became necessary for Comptroller Leary to maintain separate set of checks It had been the practice and continued to be the practice during the Hayes-Leary ad- miniStration for all vouchers, after approval by the Board of Finance, to be taken to the office of the City Clerk where checks III payment thereof would be drawn by the City Clerk and returned to the Comp troller'S office for the Comptroller's signature. The City Clerks office maintained for this purpose a check writing machine which bore so- called pinpoint type and the checks from which were easily identifiable. All checks which passed through the City Clerks office in this regular course were also numbered by ma chine. The checks in payment of the many illegal items, however, ap- parently were not drawn in the City Clerks office since there would be no supporting voucher approved by the Board of Finance. In order to meet this situation, Comptroller Leary maintained in his own office a set of checks which appear to have been drawn at his direction on an ordinary typewriter, signed by him and delivered usually ip person to the payee and the checks left un- numbered. The supporting voucher would be made out and the voucher held aside with the cancelled pI, ocEc O ftoy # hoL o1ao roJ tIxo bo,,y- and both the unnuinbered check and unnumbered voucher would be kept in separate file by the Comptroller until such time as sufficient space was found on a warrants payable register sheet for them to be added. At that time the voucher and cor responding check would be num- bered in pencil, added to a war rants payable register already ap- proved, and thereupon appear on the warrants payable register as having been approved. In most cases the payments were made many months before their obviously illegal addition to the warrants pay able register. The Grand Jury has in its possession many checks of both kinds which were marked as exhibits and exemplify this pro- cedure clearly, and several warrants payable register sheets to which items have been added in this man. ner. z,
 Kept Off Sheets
 Early in his administration, Comptroller. Leary instituted this practice and issued specific orders to the personnel of the Comptroller's office that certain items although already paid were to be "kcp5 off the sheets until after the meeting of the Board of Finance. Several slips of paper bearing these orders and which were attached tu illegal checks and vouchers have been marked as exhibits and are in the possession of the Grand Jury. When the illegality of this and other prac- tices in the office were called to the Comptroller's attention by MT. Pur- cell. the latter was told by Comp troller Leary that he was not a politician and did not understand. | All ViiC td1l OA 1Sot WIleII CONp- troller Leary was defeated at the polls for reelection, he apparently realized the significance of these records of the Comptroller's office and the importance of their disap- pearance or destruction to him. He, therefore, undertook the systematic removal and destruction of all rec ords of the comptroller's office cov- ering the period from January 1. 1850 to January l, 1898 which might contain information of an incrimiIa- ating nature, and there is probable ground to believe that he undertook and effected this with the know ledge, consent and cooperation of the Mayor, the Mayors Secretary, the Superintendent of Police, the Corporation Counsel, Martin J. Dunn, Enoch Borgnaes, Simon J. Alderman and Timothy Horgan, among others. In the execution of this plan, practically all vouchers, invoices and cancelled checks for the years 1880. 1881, 1882. 1893, 1884 and 1885 were removed and are now missing. A few cancelled checks is- i sued during these years have been ] discovered in odd places in the