The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-22

- motor vehicles were introduced through the witness. He was unable to produce any records for 193l- 1932-l933, stating that they had been destroyed"
 One-Ton Truck
 For 1884, however, he had record of one commercial car registered in the name of Santalucia, a Ford of one-ton capacity. The 1895 record showed one vehicle and the l936 record showed Ford truck, later transferred to 5,000-pound truck
 The 1897 records showed 12 vehi- cles, and because of changes, 10 reg istrations. They included two three- ton Fords, Studebaker, Studebaker air compressor, Mack crane, and several others.
 When Alcorn attempted to pro- duce records for the Connecticut Supply company, for 1884, defense objections were sustained by Judge Inglis. Similar objections to tax lists of similar nature were upheld yes- terday.
 The H. w. Conner company had II vehicles registered in 1885, accord ing to Savers, who said that appli- cations for registrations were made by James P. Healey, a defendant.
 In 1886 there were no transac- tions alleged by the state, thus no records could be admitted.
 For 1887, however, the witness stated that the company had 13 ve- hicles registered.
 Five Trucks Listed
 Next on the list came Philip Cop peto and the Abrigador Digger Savers said that he had no lstings whatsoever for the Abrigador Dig ger, but that in 1884 there were five vehicles listed for Philip Coppeto Five were also listed in 1885, six in 1886 and six in 1887. All were trucks the majority of the dump variety.
 Savers said that he had no regis trations for Donate A. Pietraroria, or Dan Peters, for any year.
 At this time a bit of humor was added to the at-that-time dull pro- ceedings by Attorney John H. Cas- sidy, who corrected Special Prescott tor Alcorn in the pronunciation oi "Abrigador." The states attorney was placing the accent on the second syl- lable, while Cassidy indicated il should have been on the third.
 Cassidy stated that Abrigadol was taken from Spanish derivation
 Attorney Alcorn replied that he had been calling it as he called il since the start, and gave no in- dication on that he intended tc change.
 Attorney James D. c. Murray, a native of Waterbury and Washing ton Hill, which is adjacent to the Abrigador, corrected Attorney Cas- sidy, that the derivation of Abriga- dor is Indian.
 Savers was excused without cross examination.
 Commissioner Tripp
 Harley w. Tripp, member of the board of finance the first of the group, was called to the stand shortly after Il o'clock.
 The grand jury said concerning the board of finance. Apparently equally impotent and subservient was the Board of Finance. Of its duties, detailed in sections 65-10O of the charter, it was either un- ware or inconsiderate, so rarely were they performed conscientiously From the evidence which has been presented it is obvious that the meetings of the board of finance were a formality, gone through periodically by the mayor and the Controller for the purpose of securing what amounted to auto- matic approval of their acts and thereby permitting the board to maintain the semblance of control over them.
 A constant attendant at these meetings was Thomas P. Kelly, the Mayors secretary who should have been permitted no part in the ad- ministration of the boards affairs With assistance, however it ap- pears that the mayor and the con- troller dominated the meetings of the board, which remained through the eight years, figurehead. The Grand Jury has found no evidence of any genune effort by the board to exercise any restraint whatever upon the mayor and the controller in their administration of the city s financial affairs. The manner III which hundreds of thousands of dollars of the city's money was ex- pended illegally, without the ap- proval of the board of finance and without subsequent discovery by it is striking evidence of this situa- tion."
 Other members of the board than MT. Tripp were and are, John H. Goss, John A. Hayden, Major Judge, Charles B. Jackson-past members were, Peter Griffin, John D. Thoms.
 Why Records Are Presented
 Alcorn's principal reason for pre- senting the bankruptcy record, he said yesterday, was to show Pie traoria's sworn statement that he owned no trucks in 1883, the same year he received $28, ,912OO from the city for truck hire, ti,e state con- tends.
 The state contends that the ac- cused received total of $72,O0s from the city for truck hire, in- cluding $18,291 in 1892; $18,656 in 1884; and ,$6,l50 in 1885. Alcorn pointed out yesterday that the checks were addressed to Eagle street, Waterbury, while Pietraoria or Peters was a resident of Bristol
 Peters Got Barge Sums | During the year 1883, when Peters