By Len Suzio
Mr. Suzio was State
Senator for the district in which the vicious murder below occurred. Connecticut Commentary has followed the story through all its permutations.
Many of you may remember the cold blooded murder of Ibrahim
Ghazal, an innocent 70 year-old store owner in Meriden at the end of June 2012.
That story became a sensation because the murder was videotaped by the store
security and because the man accused of the murder was a hardened criminal who
had been released early from his prison sentence courtesy of Connecticut's
"Early Release" law. The video showed Mr. Ghazal handing over the
money without resistance and then a person later identified as Frankie Resto shooting
him at point blank range.
As the prosecutor prepared the case for trial a plea bargain
deal was floated in front of Mr. Resto. The "deal" would have
potentially reduced the sentence Mr. Resto would incur from a maximum of 80
years to only 40 years in exchange for a guilty plea. Mr. Resto eventually declined
the deal. That's where the "trail of the trial" takes a strange
twist.