Appeals Court Sides With Prosecutors, Upending Ex-Senator Bradley’s Corruption Case Defense

Two years later a federal appeals court has ruled in favor of prosecutors seeking introduction of a nearly 30-minute video the government alleges proves that former State Senator Dennis Bradley violated state campaign finance laws when he funded a candidacy event with personal and law firm dollars.

Bradley is accused of falsifying campaign finance forms following a March 2018 candidacy announcement for the legislature at Dolphin’s Cove in the East End.

The district judge had ruled the 30 minute video inadmissible because it was presented to the defendant too close to trial. On the day of jury selection Judge Victor Bolden ruled aginst the government which appealed the ruling.

The ruling is a blow to Bradley’s defense because the extended video provides damaging evidence of Bradley skirting finance laws couching it as a law firm announcement while attendees filled out campaign forms while making contributions.

The federal charges led to Bradley’s defeat two years ago when he lost a tight primary to city minister Herron Gaston who faces an August primary of his own by City Councilman Ernie Newton.

From Ken Dixon, CT Post:

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled in favor of federal prosecutors, ending a two-year hiatus in the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Dennis A. Bradley Jr., a former state senator from Bridgeport accused of campaign finance abuses.

The Manhattan-based court overturned a June 2022 ruling in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, and sent the case back to the trial-court level where Bradley and his co-defendant, Jessica Martinez, his former campaign treasurer, face mail fraud and conspiracy changes in connection with an alleged fundraising effort at a March 2018 party in the Dolphin’s Cove restaurant sponsored by Bradley’s law firm before formally announcing his candidacy.

Martinez, a former member of the Bridgeport school board, was also charged with making false statement to a federal grand jury.

The ruling makes way for the introduction of nearly a half-hour-long video of the $7,000 party that had been made by videographers contracted by Bradley for the occasion, but which federal prosecutors said had only recently emerged in its entirety, unedited, just before the 2022 trial. A shorter, 13-minute version of the video had been in the list of exhibits for the trial, for which a jury had been picked and ready to go in June, 2022.