News Coverage

The state briefly took fugitive Robert Stackowitz into custody Tuesday as part of the process of extraditing him to Georgia to face charges related to his escape from a prison camp there in 1968.
A state police detective served an extradition warrant on Stackowitz, 71, at Superior Court in Danbury. Stackowitz's lawyers, Norm Pattis and Kevin Smith, immediately filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the legality of the arrest.
"We are not waiving extradition and are...

The state has served a fugitive from Georgia who has lived in Connecticut for 48 years with an extradition warrant. Robert Stackowitz, 71, escaped from a prison work camp in Carrolton, Georgia back in 1968. That was two years into a 17-year sentence for robbery by force.
His defense attorney Norm Pattis is doing all he can to extend the extradition process, so Stackowitz can live out the rest of his days in Connecticut.
“The appeal process could take a year to a year and a...

Attorney Norm Pattis, who is representing Sherman resident and Georgia prison escapee Robert Stackowitz, is asking Gov. Dannel P. Malloy not to sign paperwork that would send Stackowitz back to Georgia.
Pattis has argued in interviews, his blog and a newspaper column that Stackowitz, 71, is too sick to return to face charges for the escape from a prison work camp in 1968. He also argues that Stackowitz is rehabilitated and points to his crime-free life in Connecticut since...

Imagine escaping from prison and being on the run for nearly 50 years, only to be recaptured. That’s the story of Robert Stackowitz. He escaped from a Georgia prison in 1968, and was just recently found by authorities living in Connecticut. His attorney Norm Pattis says Stackowitz is fully rehabilitated and in poor health, and shouldn’t return to prison. We talk with Pattis about the case. Then, we take a closer look at Pattis’ argument that his client has been rehabilitated...

Robert Gordon Stackowitz, the man who escaped from a Georgia prison camp 48 years ago and was discovered this week living in Connecticut, said Saturday he has serious illnesses and worries that extradition to Georgia will kill him.
Stackowitz, who was released on bond from a correctional center in Connecticut about midnight Friday, also said he has avoided any sort of crime in the nearly five decades since he escaped from a lockup in Carroll County 1968 and disappeared.
“I...

A Connecticut man who was captured this week after spending nearly five decades as a fugitive will ask authorities in the state of Georgia to commute his 17-year prison sentence for armed robbery, his lawyer said on Friday.
Robert Stackowitz, 71, was arrested on Monday by the U.S. Marshals Service at his home in Sherman, Connecticut, attorney Norman Pattis said in an interview. Officials learned he had an arrest warrant when he was applying for Social Security benefits.
Stackowitz...

A high-powered attorney and author is now representing the Georgia inmate who escaped the law for nearly 50 years.
Robert Stackowitz was sentenced to 17 years in prison for robbery. He walked away from the Carroll County Correctional Institute in 1968. Last week, authorities found him living in Connecticut under a fake name.
He may have been a young man when he escaped, but he's now an old man back behind bars.
Now, his attorney is reaching out to Georgia's Board of Pardons...

Having been captured after 48 years on the run, escaped Georgia convict Robert Stackowitz on Friday asked to be set free.
Through his attorney, the 71-year-old who escaped from a Carroll County prison in 1968 asserted that he is in ill health and has demonstrated over the years that he is a rehabilitated, law-abiding citizen.
“I’m hopeful that the Georgia authorities will release their hold on him,” said attorney Norm Pattis. “He’s 71-year-old and in...

Prosecutors are scheduled to go before the state Supreme Court this week to ask it to reinstate the conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel in the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley.
Skakel was convicted in 2002 but was freed in 2013 after a judge granted him a new trial in the slaying of Moxley, a Greenwich neighbor. Skakel is a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel.
The court found, in part, that Skakel's trial lawyer failed to argue that Skakel's brother could've been...

The New Haven Board of Alders filed a lawsuit on Jan. 26 against the city’s Board of Education and BOE member Daisy Gonzalez — widely regarded as the voice of New Haven Public Schools parents — for Gonzalez’s allegedly illegal membership on the BOE.
The New Haven City Charter, which was revised and approved by voters in a November 2013 referendum, mandates a seven-member BOE. But after the November election of Darnell Goldson and Edward Joyner, the board currently...