Congressman Wants Former Mayor to Stop Using His Name Illegally

Congressman John Larson says that is using his name illegally on documents he shows to prospective investors in a planned Hungarian resort and casino – and the congressman is not happy about it.

Larson, a Democratic who represents Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District, which includes Manchester, released new information about his past involvement with DiRosa Wednesday, as well as a new cease and desist order drafted by his attorney that again asks for Larson’s name to be removed from any promotional documents associated with DiRosa’s planned development.

“It has come to Mr. Larson’s attention through a media report that, in a promotional document, you or others may have recently used his name and title as a congressman as an advisory board member in connection with the project named above and that in this document you stated that you ‘coordinated’ Mr. Larson’s ‘successful re-election campaign.’ If this is so, these representations are untrue and unauthorized and must stop immediately. Mr. Larson is not affiliated with this project and any use of his name in connection with it is completely unjustified,” Larson’s attorney, Thomas G. Moukawsher, writes in a June 22 letter addressed to DiRosa.

DiRosa and another Connecticut resident, Thomas Renison of Glastonbury, were arrested by the FBI for conspiracy to commit wire fraud on June 2 after a Maine man complained that the two convinced him to invest $600,000 of his retirement savings into a planned Hungarian resort and casino in 2008 and never returned the money or the promised profits. DiRosa and Renison were each released on $50,000 bond shortly after their arrests.

A Shelton businessman, , told Patch Monday that DiRosa approached him on June 15 with a similar investment opportunity in a Hungarian power plant and golf resort/casino. Fitzpatrick said that DiRosa wanted him to put together a group of investors that could invest $16 million in the project.

Documents provided to both the Maine man, Frank Jablonski, and Fitzpatrick list Larson as a member of the advisory board of both projects, as well as PGA golfer Nick Faldo, former Executive Director of the Hartford Civic Center Frank Russo, and several others.

The development DiRosa and Renison convinced Jablonski to invest in was known as the Castle at Polgárdi, and was planned near Polgárdi, a small town in mid-western Hungary about 50 miles from Budapest; the investment Fitzpatrick was approached about was known as “The Castle Spa, Casino, and Golf Resort at Hortogaby, Panon,” and appears to have been planned near the town of Hortobagy in eastern Hungary.

DiRosa is described in both documents as “the former mayor of Manchester” who “coordinated several political campaigns, including the successful re-election campaigns of Joe Lieberman and Congressman John Larson.”

In a statement released by the congressman Wednesday, Larson said he knew DiRosa from his time serving as Manchester’s mayor and for a dry cleaning business his family ran in East Hartford. Larson said that DiRosa first approached him about the project in 1995 or 1996, when he was working in the private sector selling commercial insurance for Johnson & Higgins. Larson said he talked to DiRosa about Johnson & Higgins insuring the project and “general ideas about how to get the project to work,” and that he traveled to Hungary on business to meet with DiRosa and others to discuss insurance possibilities associated with the project.

Larson said he kept “loosely in touch” with DiRosa until he ran for congress in 1998, and that DiRosa approached his congressional staff “some time ago” seeking a letter of support for the project.

“In keeping with House ethics rules, as we would with any request for a commercial endorsement, my office refused to provide one,” Larson said.

Larson said the next time he heard about the project was when an investigator from the Maine Department of Securities and Jablonski’s private lawyer informed his office that Larson was listed as a member of the project’s advisory board in 2010.

Larson said he then wrote letters to the Maine and Connecticut departments of insurance to inform them that his name was being used illegally by DiRosa to advertise the project.

All documents released by Congressman Larson's office are attached as PDFs to this article.