When the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development was alerted in 2023 that Sen. Douglas McCrory allegedly had a conflict of interest with a woman whose businesses received state grant funding, the agency’s staff privately discussed how to handle the potentially damaging information.
But they never shared the allegations about the Democratic senator with anyone outside their agency.
Gov. Ned Lamont and his staff said they were not informed until recently about the 2023 email in which the director of a Hartford nonprofit complained about a “potential conflict of interest concerning the relationship” between McCrory and Sonserae Cicero, the owner of a company called SHEBA.
DECD officials also said they never alerted the Office of State Ethics, which could have investigated the matter further.
And the agency said it didn’t ask McCrory or Cicero about the nature of their relationship because they didn’t have reason or authority to do so.
Jim Watson, a spokesman for DECD, said the alleged relationship between the state senator and Cicero was considered an “unfounded rumor” in 2023.
The FBI and a federal grand jury are now investigating whether the allegations are true, however.
In August, federal investigators subpoenaed DECD for any records that mentioned a “personal or non-professional relationship” between McCrory and Cicero.
And the 2023 email from Sabrina Tucker Barrett, the nonprofit director, was turned over to federal authorities as part of that process.
The Connecticut Mirror reported earlier this month that Tucker-Barrett, the founder of Girls For Technology, told DECD officials that she was persuaded to split a $5 million grant with Cicero “based on false representation.”
“We have recently discovered a potential conflict of interest concerning the relationship between Sonsorae [sic] Cicero of SHEBA and Sen. McCrory. The nature and timing of this discovery have raised concerns, and I must admit I feel a degree of political coercion in proceeding with matters I do not fully agree with,” Tucker-Barrett wrote.
Watson confirmed that DECD officials never forwarded Tucker-Barrett’s email to anyone, but he said agency staff held “internal discussions” about the matter. He declined to identify the people who were involved in those conversations.
Alexandra Daum, who served as Lamont’s DECD commissioner from late 2022 to 2024, declined to discuss how the agency handled the complaint about McCrory.
DECD also would not say whether any current or former employees at the agency have been questioned by the FBI or testified in front of the federal grand jury.
Watson said the agency had no reason to ask McCrory or Cicero whether the two were in a relationship, even though the agency oversaw funding that McCrory helped direct to Cicero through his position as a member of the Minority Business Initiative Advisory Council, a board within DECD.
Agency leaders also confirmed they never shared the information about McCrory’s alleged “conflict of interest” with the Office of State Ethics, despite a law requiring such disclosure if there’s “reasonable cause” to believe there was an ethics violation.
Watson said the state ethics law doesn’t cover conflicts of interest for public officials outside their spouses, children or associated businesses and, as a result, the agency didn’t have cause to question McCrory or forward the email to state ethics officials.
“We will note that the State Code of Ethics does not address alleged personal relationships between public officials and unrelated persons and thus, absent other evidence indicating impropriety, which was not apparent at the time, it would not be appropriate for DECD to probe into the claimed romantic relationships of a legislator nor does DECD have any authority to do so,” Watson said.
“That said, the fact of the investigation indicates that there may have been an issue, that while not necessarily an ethics violation, is concerning and thus we are reviewing our response so that we can best carry out our obligations to diligently manage the public funds that pass through DECD going forward,” Watson added.
Peter Lewandowski, the director of the Office of State Ethics, agreed that the sections of the state ethics law dealing with conflicts of interest covers specific relationships like spouses, children and fiancées.
But he noted that other portions of the law broadly prohibit state officials from using their “public office or position” to “obtain financial gain” for themselves.
There is no evidence in records reviewed by the CT Mirror that McCrory profited personally from the grants awarded to Cicero’s companies. The federal investigation is ongoing.
After receiving the 2023 email, Watson said DECD staff spoke with Cicero and Tucker-Barrett and encouraged the two nonprofit leaders to “engage in constructive dialogue to resolve their differences.”
Watson said DECD could not provide any additional details about how the agency responded to the allegations directed at McCrory because of the ongoing criminal investigation.
“DECD will refrain from speculating now as to the degree which individuals interpreted the email at the time to be aggressive leveraging by one partner towards another, whether there was any factual basis for the allegation, or how the two partnered organizations who had submitted the RFP together resolved their issues and moved forward,” Watson said. “Obviously, these issues are under investigation, and it would not be responsible to speculate about the outcome of the ongoing investigation or make premature conclusions.”
Federal investigators asked DECD this year to turn over records related to McCrory and a number of nonprofits serving Hartford’s north end, and they issued several grand jury subpoenas to other local nonprofits with which McCrory interacted.
Records obtained by CT Mirror and other news outlets in recent months show McCrory helped set up meetings for Cicero, including a face-to-face with U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, and he advocated on her behalf for funding, including grants that flowed through the state Department of Education.
Lamont, who announced his campaign for a third term last week, declined through his spokesman to answer questions about whether he believes anyone at DECD should be fired or disciplined for failing to report the allegations involving McCrory.
Meanwhile, the governor’s staff argued it is too early to determine if DECD officials should have shared the email about McCrory with the state ethics office.
“The governor won’t speculate as to how individuals at DECD interpreted these allegations at the time, the factual basis for them or how the parties resolved them factually and moved forward,” Rob Blanchard, the governor’s spokesperson, said. “It would not be prudent to predetermine the outcome of the ongoing investigation or make premature conclusions.”
Lewandowski, the state ethics director, confirmed that commissioners and deputy commissioners in Connecticut are considered “mandatory reporters” under the state’s ethics laws and said his staff reminds state employees of those reporting requirements during every training they hold.
Lewandowski wouldn’t comment on the specific allegations against McCrory or DECD’s decision not to share the email with his office. But he said his staff reviews every complaint it receives so it can determine if further investigation is necessary.
“Information received by this office, in whatever format, is reviewed in order to determine whether it is suggestive of a potential ethics violation and whether more information should be gathered,” Lewandowski said.
Sen. Stephen Harding, the Republican minority leader, argued that DECD’s failure to disclose the allegations against McCrory was a misstep on the part of the Lamont administration. And he said the legislature needs to determine why that information was not shared with the proper authorities.
“I think it is incumbent upon us to provide some oversight on the legislative side,” Harding said.
The Democratic Party holds a supermajority in both chambers of the Connecticut General Assembly, but Harding argued that lawmakers should serve as a check on state agencies and officials that are responsible for distributing millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
“There needs to be repercussions and regulations surrounding that,” Harding said this week.
Watson, DECD’s spokesman, said attorneys who are representing the state instructed agency officials not to talk about how they responded to the allegations directed at McCrory.
“We do not know what the federal investigators would consider relevant, and in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation, we should not identify potential witnesses until such time as the government has had a chance to review the voluminous documents produced and identify whom it considers relevant witnesses,” Watson said.
Records obtained by the CT Mirror show McCrory continued to push for funding for Cicero and her businesses after 2023.
Lamont’s office said that DECD and other agencies were put in a tough position in recent years of managing millions of dollars in grant funding, while dealing with state lawmakers who were pushing for state and federal money to go to specific causes and organizations that they supported.
Blanchard said DECD officials had to decide how to handle questions from McCrory, who was “passionately” advocating for a particular recipient in his district.
“The bottom line is that DECD was put in a difficult spot managing legislators,” Blanchard said.
Dave Altimari and Andrew Brown are reporters for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).