Connecticut Considering Early Prison Release For Some Violent Criminals

By Associate Regional Editor Eileen McNamara

There's a bill wending its way through Connecticut's legislature right now that would see dozens of violent criminals come up much earlier for parole than intended under their original sentences. 

If approved by the General Assembly and signed into law by the governor, House Bill 6581 could see convicted Middletown murderers Akov Ortiz and Fermin Adorno each released from prison nearly two decades early.

Ortiz is serving a 47-year prison term for murdering a witness in a larceny case against him. He also was convicted in 2001 of shooting two Middletown police officers in an unrelated case,according to a story in the Hartford Courant. 

Adorno is serving a 60-year sentence for murdering Portland teenager Delmar Johnson to death in August of 1992, the Courant reported in 1994. 

Both inmates were 17 when they committed their crimes and under the bill approved last week by the Connecticut House those sentenced to long prison terms as teenagers would be eligible for parole after they had served 60 percent of their time.

That means Adorno, who was sentenced in 1994 to 60 years in prison, could see 24 years shaved off his prison term.

Ortiz, who in 2004 was sentenced to 47 years for murdering a witness against him, would see his sentence reduced to about 28 years. 

The House voted 137-4 last week to pass the bill. Rep. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, voted in favor of the measure, which now goes to the Senate. The move follows two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent years that rejected long prison terms for violent criminals convicted as teenagers. 

The legislative proposal would mean that some inmates convicted of crimes such as rape, kidnapping and murder could get out of prison while they are still relatively young. People like Robin Ledbetter, who was 14 years old when she was charged with robbing and stabbing to death a Hartford taxi driver. 

Ledbetter, now 31, is serving a 50-year prison term for felony murder. Under her current sentence, she will be released when she is 64. She is one of more than two dozen people in Connecticut serving long prison terms for crimes committed when they were 14 or 15.