Preview
NO: (X06) UWY CV 21 5028294S SUPERIOR COURT
NANCY BURTON : COMPLEX LITIGATION DOCKET
v. : AT WATERBURY
DAVID PHILIP MASON, ET AL : JANUARY 21, 2022
REQUEST TO REVISE THIRD AMENDED COMPLAINT
Pursuant to §10-35 of the Connecticut Practice Book, the defendants, Elinore
Carmody and Dennis Gibbons, respectfully request that the plaintiff revise her Third
Amended Complaint, filed January 18, 2022 (#286.00), as follows:
I. FIRST REQUESTED REVISION
A. Portion of the Complaint Sought to Be Revised
The Third Amended Complaint in its entirety.
THIRD AMENDED COMPLAINT
1. Plaintiff Nancy Burton has resided for 35 years at 147 Cross
Highway in Redding, Connecticut.
2. Plaintiff is a former reporter for The Associated Press, an
author and a book editor; and for some 20 years, she maintained a
successful practice of primarily pro bono public-interest law in Connecticut
in the area of environmental law.
3. During her residency in the Town of Redding, plaintiff has
contributed in many ways to the preservation and betterment of the town in
a host of ways, all on a pro bono publico basis, including playing a key role
in the permanent preservation of three large parcels of pastureland of
outstanding scenic value along Cross Highway (which had been actively
proposed for subdivision and housing development); initiating the
successful campaign to designate Cross Highway a “scenic road”; leading
a petition drive to the Board of Selectmen to create a “Mark Twain Historic
District” to include the “Stormfield Estate” to which the celebrated author
retired and where he died in 1910 and other nearby properties of unique
scenic and historic value which had been occupied by Mark Twain’s
biographer Albert Bigelow Paine and Mark Twain’s friend Dan Beard
(author, illustrator and co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America), and
others, which properties, or most of them including Stormfield, were under
actual threat of subdivision development (the Redding First Selectman at
the time, Mary Anne Guitar, rejected the petition, but a Superior Court judge,
Hon. William Sullivan, later to become Chief Justice of the Connecticut
Supreme Court, upheld the petition in a lawsuit brought by plaintiff, Nancy
Burton v. Mary Anne Guitar.
4. Among other successful legal endeavors involving Redding,
plaintiff achieved an unprecedented victory for a Redding property owner
after the Redding Health Department sought to hold her in contempt after
the Connecticut Department of Transportation (“DOT”) deliberately
excavated too close to her septic system in order to bring about
condemnation of her property to benefit an adjoining corporate
development scheme; in the course of the proceedings, DOT abandoned
its effort to obtain her property by eminent domain
5. In 1999, plaintiff obtained a temporary restraining order as
attorney on behalf of environmental organizations which kept Millstone Unit
2 shut down for a period of 10 days during the peak period of indigenous
Niantic River winter flounder larvae migration to Niantic Bay as a step to
protect the subspecies of fish from collapse and extirpation due to the
powerful suction effect of the plant’s seawater intakes; this victory was also
unprecedented.
6. Plaintiff was nominated by the Connecticut Green Party to be
its candidate for the Office of Attorney General after she had run for the
office of state representative; during the latter campaign members of the
Redding Zoning Commission, including its chairman, illegally took down
plaintiff’s campaign signs with the slogan “Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean
Government”; Hon. Douglas Mintz of the Connecticut Superior Court ruled
in plaintiff’s favor in a suit she brought to restore the campaign signs.
7. Beginning on or about 2008, plaintiff with others initiated the
Mothers Milk Project ( ) to collect samples of goat and human milk for
independent laboratory analysis for the presence of radioisotopes routinely
released into the environment by the Millstone and Indian Point nuclear
power plants; the project was initiated after plaintiff became of aware of
state government records that revealed that Katie the Goat, who resided
five miles downwind of Millstone in Waterford, Connecticut, produced milk
with excessively high levels of inter alia strontium-90 and strontium-89, both
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deadly carcinogens particularly harmful to women, children and human
embryos and fetuses.
8. Plaintiff adopted Katie the Goat and brought her to live at her
Redding home, where plaintiff continued to test Katie’s milk, and that of her
progeny, for the presence of radioisotopes; various samples revealed the
presence of strontium- 90 and strontium-89 in the milk produced by Katie
the Goat while she grazed in Redding, as reported in detail in an article titled
“The nuclear safety debate hits home” published in the Connecticut Post.
Stamford Advocate and Danbury News-Times newspapers on July 19,
2011, including concentrations of deadly strontium-89 of 2.1 picocuries per
liter and .4 picocuries per liter.
9. Other sampling by the Mothers Milk Project revealed a
concentration of 3.3 picocuries per liter of strontium-89 in human breast milk
collected in 2009 on Orange County, New York, in the Hudson River Valley
downwind of Indian Point and 5 picocuries per liter of strontium-89 in milk
collected from a goat grazing in Dutchess County, New York, downwind of
Indian Point.
10. Plaintiff reported this information to health and environmental
authorities in Connecticut, who took no action although required to
undertake such environmental sampling of goat milk for the presence of
radioisotopes dispersed by nuclear power plants pursuant to Conn. Gen.
Stat. §22a-135(a)(4).
11. The State of Connecticut per its Department of Energy and
Environmental Protection (“DEEP”) and Department of Agriculture
(“DOAG”) has continuously and repeatedly refused to do so in violation of
the law.
12. The failure of the State of Connecticut to monitor milk taken
from goats grazing downwind of Millstone and Indian Point robs the public
- particularly mothers and their embryos, fetuses and young children - of
governmental protection from a known health hazard of consequence and
shields the nuclear industry from government surveillance of the true public
health dangers and consequences of routine, let alone emergency,
operations of Millstone and Indian Point.
13. Earlier sampling of milk collected by DEEP from goats grazing
within two miles of Millstone have revealed dangerous concentrations of
radioisotopes, including strontium-90 and strontium-89.
14. Strontium-90 has a half-life of about 30 years, meaning that it
takes a period of 30 years before half the radioactivity in the sample has
decayed.
15. Strontium-89, in contrast, is a reliable indicator of the
presence of nuclear power plant releases of radioactivity into the
environment during routine operations; it has a half-life of approximately 50
days, meaning that if strontium-89 is detected in a goat milk sample, the
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strontium-89 was released from a nuclear fission event recently and not far
away because otherwise it would evade detection and measurement.
16. The Mothers Milk Project is dedicated to inter alia
development of a scientific database to monitor and track dispersal of
radioactivity routinely released by Millstone and Indian Point and to
correlate such information with a database of incidences of cancer,
diseases of the immune system, premature deaths, birth defects, genetic
mutations, miscarriages and other serious and often fatal outcomes of
human and animal exposure to radioactivity routinely released by Millstone
and Indian Point in order to motivate the State of Connecticut to take
appropriate action to eliminate such routine releases of radioactivity to the
air.
17. At the same time, Millstone routinely releases radioactive
waste materials into the Long Island Sound and the public beach zones
surrounding Millstone in East Lyme (including Niantic) and Waterford.
Including Hole-in-the-Wall Beach and Pleasure Beach; itis well known in
such communities that clusters of brain cancer incidences, birth defects,
breast cancer, lung cancer, miscarriages and many other fatal diseases
occur in populations residing in the vicinity of Millstone and such popular
recreation areas.
18. The State of Connecticut actively impedes and frustrates
public awareness of Millstone’s routine releases of radioactive and toxic
chemical materials into the Long Island Sound at such location.
19. Indeed, in a recent decision of the Connecticut Supreme
Court, officially released on January 21, 2021, the state’s highest court
misled the public about such radioactive releases by characterizing them as
“alleged” releases when, e.g., the record in the case is replete with data of
Millstone’s actual and admitted releases of radioactive materials to the Long
Island Sound via its “quarry cut,” including a report in evidence submitted to
the federal government by Millstone’s owners and operators that during a
recent five-year period Millstone releases 1.74 million gallons (145
millocuries) of fission and activation products (“radwaste”) to the Long
Island Sound, a figure shortly to be increased by 9.1% in a power “uprate."
Other reports submitted by Millstone’s owners and operators admitting
catching a fish in Niantic Bay (an estuary of the Long Island Sound)
contaminated with cesium-137, a carcinogen the Millstone personnel
admitted was released during routine Millstone operations. Medical experts
have linked the radioactive contamination of Niantic Bay by Millstone routine
operations to the near-fatal medical condition of a boy born to a mother who
routinely swam in Niantic Bay during her pregnancy, unaware of its
radioactive contamination. See plaintiffs Motion for Reconsideration En
Banc dated February 8, 2021, as filed in Nancy Burton v. Regina McCarthy,
SC 20466, pages 6-7.
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20. Katie the Goat was diagnosed with terminal thoracic cancer in
2012; plaintiff took Katie, who had become a goat celebrity championing an
anti-nuclear platform at rallies across the state and on a farewell tour to the
White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, on March 11,
2012, the one-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.
21. Prior to such tour, plaintiff had communicated an invitation to
the then-First Family to adopt Katie’s daughter, Dana Blue-Eyes, as a
White House pet as well as the First Family’s personal radiation monitor.
22. Then-First Lady Michelle Obama responded to the invitation
through her press office as follows on March 9, 2012 at 1:31 PM: “Thank
you for your interest in the First Family. Your offer is extremely generous
and seems like a fantastic opportunity, it is truly appreciated. Unfortunately,
we are unable to satisfy your request. We apologize that we could not be
more helpful. Again thank you so much for such a kind gesture. We wish
you well in the future.”
23. Katie died in 2012, but plaintiff continues to test the milk
produced by her progeny residing at her Redding address; some samples
have tested positively for strontium-90 and strontium-89.
24. In September 2017, the Redding Zoning Commission issued
a cease and desist order directing plaintiff to reduce the number of goats on
her property to no more than nine within ten days of said order; there was
no manner available within which plaintiff could so reduce the herd other
than by subjecting them to the brutality and cruelty of slaughter.
25. Plaintiff is opposed to the slaughter of innocent animals on
grounds of her moral and religious convictions.
26. Therefore, since issuance of said order on, and before
issuance of said order, plaintiff has endeavored conscientiously and in good
faith to reduce the goat herd by locating individuals and rescue sanctuaries
interested in adopting such goats and providing them with good care,
nutrition and shelter for the duration of their natural lives.
27. In addition, as is expressly allowed by law, plaintiff filed a land
management plan with the Redding Zoning Commission by which she
proposed to reduce the herd by relocating most of the goats to good homes
with the help of an animal rescue organization, Animal Nation, Inc., which
agreed in a binding contract to find good homes for all of plaintiff’s goats
except nine which she intended to keep without protest by the Zoning
Commission.
28. Animal Nation, Inc. breached the contract before fulfilling its
obligations; the plaintiff has brought suit to enforce compliance with the
contract, which suit is pending. Nancy Burton v. Animal Nation. Inc., DBD-
CV-19-5015207-S.
29. Responding to an anonymous complaint, the Connecticut
Department of Agriculture (“DOAG) assigned one of its animal control
officers to investigate
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plaintiff’s goats and their care and living conditions in 2017.
30. At the conclusion of the investigation, which included two
visits personally supervised by Mary Lis, DVM, then-state veterinarian, said
DOAG animal control officers concluded in a written report dated June 15,
2018: “At the time of this investigation, all goats on the property appear to
be in good condition with food and water available.”
31. In the meantime, Animal Nation, Inc. and its staff and
volunteers were successful in relocating between 30 and 40 goats to what
it represented were “good
homes.”
32. However, in March 2018, Animal Nation, Inc. breached the
contract with plaintiff and refused to complete the performance of activities
it committed itself to completing in the contract, including locating and
moving more goats to good homes, assisting in securing fencing, repairing
and upgrading shelters and providing veterinarian care as appropriate and
it remains obligated to do so.
33. Further, since on and before September 2017, plaintiff has by
other means endeavored conscientiously to reduce the goat herd,
frequently by inviting potential adopters to visit the property to observe the
goats.
34. Further, plaintiff attempted to enlist the support and
assistance of the Town of Redding in a variety of ways, including but not
limited to the following:
a. By requesting that the Board of Selectmen convene a
public meeting at which plaintiff would make a presentation about the goats,
familiarize the community with the Mothers Milk Project and encourage town
residents to consider adopting goats; First Selectman Julia Pemberton did
not respond to the request; and
b. By requesting that the Board of Selectmen permit
plaintiff to tack an attractive flyer to the Town Hall community bulletin board
by way of informing the community and requesting its support for plaintiffs
“Good Homes for Goats” appeal; First Selectman Pemberton did not
respond to the request; and
c. By presenting a sample of freshly-collected milk from
one of her goats to First Selectman Pemberton with a request that she
forward the sample to the DEEP to analyze it for the presence of
radioisotopes; without notice to plaintiff, First Selectman Pemberton allowed
the sample of goat milk to be discarded rather than analyzed without
notifying plaintiff; and
d. By directing correspondence to science teachers at the
Redding high school and middle school requesting that they consider
adopting some of plaintiffs goats and incorporate them into the science
curriculum; the teachers did not respond.
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35. Defendant David Philip Mason (“Mason”) resides at 146 Cross
Highway, Redding, Connecticut, across the street from the plaintiff. Once a
practicing attorney in New York City, he was ordered suspended from the
practice of law by order of the Appellate Division of the State of New York,
November 20, 2013; upon information and belief, said order remains in
effect.
36. Defendant Elinore Carmody (“Carmody”) and her husband,
Dennis Gibbon (“Gibbon”), reside at 135 Cross Highway adjacent to plaintiff.
37. Defendant Susan Winters (“Winters”) resides at 50 Seventy
Acres Road in Redding, Connecticut; with no apparent education, training
or professional credentials in professional journalism, she operates a
scurrilous online gossip sheet called “hellonewsct.com” focusing on
Redding; since the closure of the Redding Pilot, a weekly newspaper with
a large readership in Redding, the Redding community has been deprived
of a responsible source for news focusing on Redding.
38. Defendant Julia Pemberton has served and continues to
serve as First Selectman of the Town of Redding during the period of time
pertinent to this Amended Complaint; she has actively fed a frenzy of
manufactured goat hysteria in the community through social media and
other means without ever having discussed any issues of concern with
plaintiff about her goats and without meeting the goats or making any effort
to become informed and aware of the goats’ natural behavior or contribution
to the Mothers Milk Project.
39. Defendant Police Department of the Town of Redding and
certain of its personnel have given the Town of Redding negative notoriety
in the recent past when inter alia the then-chief of police directed Redding
police officers not to rescue a Redding resident in the act of hanging himself
in suicidal despair (a misdeed by the Redding police for which the Town of
Redding paid the deceased man’s surviving infant son, through
representatives, a large monetary settlement); and the Redding Police
Department pronounced a Black lawyer the victim of a suicide without an
investigation when he was found with a bullet wound to the back of his head
and footprints on his attire covering his back (the man’s family cried foul and
the Black Lives Matter movement has taken up the cause of demanding a
complete investigation).
40. Defendant Mark O’Donnell at all times pertinent to this
Amended Complaint has served as Chief of the Redding Police
Department.
41. Defendant Bryan Hurlburt is Commissioner of the Connecticut
Department of AgriculturefDOAG”) and responsible for the agency’s lawful
discharge of its statutory duties and the lawful conduct of the DOAG’s staff
and its agents and representatives
42. Defendant Charles DellaRocco, at all times pertinent to the
Amended Complaint, has served as a DOAG animal control officer.
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43. Defendant Building Department of the Town of Redding is the
municipal agency charged with aspects of enforcement of the state building
code.
44. Defendant Health Department of the Town of Redding is the
municipal agency charged with aspects of enforcement of the state Public
Health Code.
45. Defendants Carmody and Winters have widely and publicly
circulated and published false and defamatory screeds targeting plaintiff,
accusing her falsely inter alia of “using the law to break the law”; although
plaintiff timely demanded retraction of the false and offensive publications,
neither Carmody nor Winters complied.
46. Prior to the Zoning Commission’s issuance of the cease and
desist order, said Mason, Carmody, Gibbons and others took to harassing
plaintiff and interfering with her ability to carry out her objective to rehome
most of her goats in the following ways, among others:
a. Screaming at plaintiffs visitors as they stood on her
property to discourage them from carrying out conversations regarding
potential goat adoptions;
b. Kicking small goats that wandered beyond the fence to
a stone wall where they fed on leaves and poison ivy;
c. Directing hired laborers to dump paint debris onto the
shared stone wall separating their properties;
d. Enlisting neighbors, including defendant Mason and
others in the Town of Redding, to participate in a hate campaign using social
media to spread false and malicious information about plaintiff and the
goats;
e. Instigating publication of defamatory falsehoods about
plaintiff and the goats as published on online social media channels
operated by defendant Susan Winters to incite negativity and malice and
discourage goat adoptions;
f. Clamoring by Carmody to encourage others to gather
information for “her case” against plaintiff and the goats;
g. Encouraging others to file false police complaints
alleging one or more of the goats was in the road when they were not “in
the road” but rather were grazing on leaves and poison ivy on the stone wall
near the road.
h. On April 26, 2021, Carmody and Gibbon pursued
several of plaintiff’s goats grazing along the stone wall separating their
property from plaintiffs property by blowing an air-horn loudly in their
direction, causing the goats to panic and flee from the stone wall; thereupon,
Carmody and Gibbon extended the middle fingers of their hands upright at
plaintiff who was standing nearby with a camera and they screamed
repeatedly at her: “Fuck you! We’ll have you arrested!”
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i. On September 30, 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint with
the defendant Redding Police Chief Mark O’Donnell requesting the arrest
and prosecution of Carmody and Gibbon for willful harassment and
disorderly conduct for the incident set forth hereinabove.
j. The Redding Police Department, per order of Chief
Mark O’Donnell, informed plaintiff it would take “no action” on her complaint.
k. On August 19, 2020, Carmody anonymously texted the
following message to plaintiff at 8:13 PM: “Are you actually aware of how
much you are abusing these goats? They are screaming and desperate.
You should be ashamed. But you will pay. With their lives. You are a fucking
nightmare.” (Emphasis added.)
l. Defendant Gibbon had previously informed plaintiff he
would take pleasure in having plaintiffs goats slaughtered for human
consumption.
m. On August 26, 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint with the
Redding Police Department, requesting that it conduct an investigation to
determine the source of the text and to arrest such person for harassment;
the Redding Police Department, per defendant Chief O’Donnell, contacted
plaintiff to inform her that (a) It had been determined that Carmody was the
source of the harassing text; and (b) She uttered an apology to the inquiring
Redding police officer; and (c) The Redding Police Department would “take
no action” on plaintiffs complaint after confirming defendant Carmody had
texted the offensive message to plaintiff.
47. On or about April 2020, the State of Connecticut, per Gov.
Ned Lamont, declared a state of emergency in Connecticut due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, which declaration remained in effect for more than a
year; in consequence, public activities in the Town of Redding came to a
virtual pause; traffic diminished significantly, and individuals were directed
to wear masks and avoid social contact with others within a range of less
than six feet; these directives significantly hindered plaintiffs ability to
interact with potential goat adopters.
48. On April 30, 2020, some of plaintiffs goats crossed the road
onto the Mason property. In coordination with Carmody, Gibbon and the
Redding Police Department, Mason utilized an air-horn to create a loud and
annoying noise by which means he deliberately panicked the goats into
uncontrolled stampede as he chased them in a wild frenzy galloping onto
the road as if to escape a wild predator and back onto plaintiffs property.
49. Mason’s intent - and the intent of Carmody, Gibbon and the
Redding Police Department and Chief O’Donnell - was to cause the goats
to be killed or injured in a collision with oncoming vehicles; it was
understood by Mason, Carmody, Gibbons, the Redding Police Department
and Chief O’Donnell that should the scheme go as planned and goats be
killed or injured as a consequence of being chased in a stampede across
the road, plaintiff would be wrongfully charged with animal cruelty, a
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misdemeanor, and Mason, Carmody, Gibbon and the Redding Police
Department would be held blameless.
50. In fact, the Redding police did arrest plaintiff on a warrant
signed by the Hon. Robert A. D’Andrea, whose current assignments
included Burton v. Animal Nation. Inc.; days prior to the arrest, Redding
Animal Control Officer Michael DeLuca ordered plaintiff to not leave her
residence until he returned at a date and time he did not disclose; DeLuca
later participated in the arrest of the plaintiff on a bogus and false assertion
that she impeded his search for a “severely injured” goat when none of
plaintiffs goats was injured during the incident, having based the arrest on
such charge entirely on false statements made by Carmody and/or Gibbon
and/or Mason.
51. The Redding Police Department, per Chief O’Donnell, made
haste to issue a press release announcing plaintiffs arrest and disperse it
widely to the Connecticut news media announcing plaintiffs arrest and
accusing her of being responsible for the “severe harm” to a goat that
assertedly collided with a vehicle in the incident; such statement was false
and recklessly asserted to defame plaintiff and interfere with her tireless
efforts to relocate her goats to other safe and secure homes; the Redding
Police Department never recovered or identified a goat in plaintiffs herd
injured in such incident but allowed the reckless falsehood to be asserted
by Defendant DellaRocco, who was not present during the incident, in an
affidavit to support a subsequent application for a search and seizure
warrant and illegal seizure of plaintiffs goats and invasion of her home.
52. By the conduct as described hereinabove, and acting with a
reckless intent to kill, injure and/or maim plaintiffs goats, said defendants
engaged in deliberate, impermissible and unlawful animal cruelty and
abuse.
53. Responding to a Freedom of Information request submitted
by plaintiff, DOAG staff attorney Carole Briggs later acknowledged that
DOAG has no records of any prior prosecution of an individual who
witnessed a person causing goats to stampede in a frenzy onto a public
road by panicking them by blowing repeatedly on an air horn, nor in which
the air-horn blower was not prosecuted.
54. On November 30, 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint with
defendant Redding Police Chief O’Donnell requesting the arrest and
prosecution of defendants Carmody, Gibbon and Mason, with regard to the
April 30, 2021 incident, as set forth hereinabove, for wanton animal cruelty,
harassment and related offenses; plaintiff offered to provide photographs
and other materials which document the allegations and which were never
requested; to date, upon information and belief, no action has been taken
on such complaint other than a reported referral to the state’s attorney’s
office for unknown disposition.
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55. On December 2, 2020, plaintiff delivered an identical
complaint to defendant Bryan Hurlburt, Commissioner, Department of
Agriculture, in which she demanded an investigation of the alleged acts of
deliberate and wanton animal cruelty as set forth in the complaint identified
hereinabove and offered to provide photographs and other documents
material to the complaint, which were never requested.
56. Later on December 2, 2020, DOAG staff attorney Carole
Briggs emailed plaintiff as follows: “Dear Ms. Burton: this will confirm receipt
of your communication. The department takes seriously all allegations of
animal cruelty.” (Emphasis added.)
57. DOAG assigned investigation of the complaint to defendant
DellaRocco.
58. Defendant DellaRocco had been exposed by an article
published in the Hartford Courant and elsewhere as an individual who had
been forced to resign as coach of the Old Saybrook High School girls’
soccer team because of publicity surrounding his practice of viewing
depictions of child pornography on the Internet during work hours; in
proceedings in the Superior Court on March 30, 2021 in the case of State
of Connecticut ex rel. Jeremiah Dunn v. 65 Goats et HHD-CV-21-6139702-
S (“Dunn v. 65 Goats”), defendant DellaRocco disputed the charge but
could not explain why the Hartford Courant reported as it did regarding his
conduct.
59. Plaintiff related the facts of the April 30, 2020 incident to
defendant DellaRocco when he later made an unannounced visit to her
property in the company of two Redding Police Department officers in
December 2020, claiming he had driven nearly two hours from his home in
Chester, Connecticut, that morning to meet with plaintiff to investigate her
complaint to defendant Hurlburt; defendant DellaRocco’s explanation for his
unannounced visit to plaintiffs property in the company of two Redding
police officers to investigate her complaint, which raised issues as to
Redding Police Department officers’ dereliction of duty not credible.
60. While at plaintiffs property, defendant DellaRocco stated that
if plaintiffs recital of the facts of the April 30, 2020 incident was true and
accurate, the Redding Police Department lacked probable cause to arrest
plaintiff; defendant DellaRocco confirmed his statement in an email to
plaintiff and plaintiff requested that he update her as to his progress in his
investigation of her complaint.
61. Defendant DellaRocco did not update plaintiff on the status of
his investigation of her complaint.
62. However, appearing in the Superior Court as a DOAG witness
in Dun
Preview
NO: (X06) UWY CV 21 5028294S SUPERIOR COURT NANCY BURTON : COMPLEX LITIGATION DOCKET v. : AT WATERBURY DAVID PHILIP MASON, ET AL : JANUARY 21, 2022 REQUEST TO REVISE THIRD AMENDED COMPLAINT Pursuant to §10-35 of the Connecticut Practice Book, the defendants, Elinore Carmody and Dennis Gibbons, respectfully request that the plaintiff revise her Third Amended Complaint, filed January 18, 2022 (#286.00), as follows: I. FIRST REQUESTED REVISION A. Portion of the Complaint Sought to Be Revised The Third Amended Complaint in its entirety. THIRD AMENDED COMPLAINT 1. Plaintiff Nancy Burton has resided for 35 years at 147 Cross Highway in Redding, Connecticut. 2. Plaintiff is a former reporter for The Associated Press, an author and a book editor; and for some 20 years, she maintained a successful practice of primarily pro bono public-interest law in Connecticut in the area of environmental law. 3. During her residency in the Town of Redding, plaintiff has contributed in many ways to the preservation and betterment of the town in a host of ways, all on a pro bono publico basis, including playing a key role in the permanent preservation of three large parcels of pastureland of outstanding scenic value along Cross Highway (which had been actively proposed for subdivision and housing development); initiating the successful campaign to designate Cross Highway a “scenic road”; leading a petition drive to the Board of Selectmen to create a “Mark Twain Historic District” to include the “Stormfield Estate” to which the celebrated author retired and where he died in 1910 and other nearby properties of unique scenic and historic value which had been occupied by Mark Twain’s biographer Albert Bigelow Paine and Mark Twain’s friend Dan Beard (author, illustrator and co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America), and others, which properties, or most of them including Stormfield, were under actual threat of subdivision development (the Redding First Selectman at the time, Mary Anne Guitar, rejected the petition, but a Superior Court judge, Hon. William Sullivan, later to become Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, upheld the petition in a lawsuit brought by plaintiff, Nancy Burton v. Mary Anne Guitar. 4. Among other successful legal endeavors involving Redding, plaintiff achieved an unprecedented victory for a Redding property owner after the Redding Health Department sought to hold her in contempt after the Connecticut Department of Transportation (“DOT”) deliberately excavated too close to her septic system in order to bring about condemnation of her property to benefit an adjoining corporate development scheme; in the course of the proceedings, DOT abandoned its effort to obtain her property by eminent domain 5. In 1999, plaintiff obtained a temporary restraining order as attorney on behalf of environmental organizations which kept Millstone Unit 2 shut down for a period of 10 days during the peak period of indigenous Niantic River winter flounder larvae migration to Niantic Bay as a step to protect the subspecies of fish from collapse and extirpation due to the powerful suction effect of the plant’s seawater intakes; this victory was also unprecedented. 6. Plaintiff was nominated by the Connecticut Green Party to be its candidate for the Office of Attorney General after she had run for the office of state representative; during the latter campaign members of the Redding Zoning Commission, including its chairman, illegally took down plaintiff’s campaign signs with the slogan “Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Government”; Hon. Douglas Mintz of the Connecticut Superior Court ruled in plaintiff’s favor in a suit she brought to restore the campaign signs. 7. Beginning on or about 2008, plaintiff with others initiated the Mothers Milk Project ( ) to collect samples of goat and human milk for independent laboratory analysis for the presence of radioisotopes routinely released into the environment by the Millstone and Indian Point nuclear power plants; the project was initiated after plaintiff became of aware of state government records that revealed that Katie the Goat, who resided five miles downwind of Millstone in Waterford, Connecticut, produced milk with excessively high levels of inter alia strontium-90 and strontium-89, both 2 deadly carcinogens particularly harmful to women, children and human embryos and fetuses. 8. Plaintiff adopted Katie the Goat and brought her to live at her Redding home, where plaintiff continued to test Katie’s milk, and that of her progeny, for the presence of radioisotopes; various samples revealed the presence of strontium- 90 and strontium-89 in the milk produced by Katie the Goat while she grazed in Redding, as reported in detail in an article titled “The nuclear safety debate hits home” published in the Connecticut Post. Stamford Advocate and Danbury News-Times newspapers on July 19, 2011, including concentrations of deadly strontium-89 of 2.1 picocuries per liter and .4 picocuries per liter. 9. Other sampling by the Mothers Milk Project revealed a concentration of 3.3 picocuries per liter of strontium-89 in human breast milk collected in 2009 on Orange County, New York, in the Hudson River Valley downwind of Indian Point and 5 picocuries per liter of strontium-89 in milk collected from a goat grazing in Dutchess County, New York, downwind of Indian Point. 10. Plaintiff reported this information to health and environmental authorities in Connecticut, who took no action although required to undertake such environmental sampling of goat milk for the presence of radioisotopes dispersed by nuclear power plants pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. §22a-135(a)(4). 11. The State of Connecticut per its Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (“DEEP”) and Department of Agriculture (“DOAG”) has continuously and repeatedly refused to do so in violation of the law. 12. The failure of the State of Connecticut to monitor milk taken from goats grazing downwind of Millstone and Indian Point robs the public - particularly mothers and their embryos, fetuses and young children - of governmental protection from a known health hazard of consequence and shields the nuclear industry from government surveillance of the true public health dangers and consequences of routine, let alone emergency, operations of Millstone and Indian Point. 13. Earlier sampling of milk collected by DEEP from goats grazing within two miles of Millstone have revealed dangerous concentrations of radioisotopes, including strontium-90 and strontium-89. 14. Strontium-90 has a half-life of about 30 years, meaning that it takes a period of 30 years before half the radioactivity in the sample has decayed. 15. Strontium-89, in contrast, is a reliable indicator of the presence of nuclear power plant releases of radioactivity into the environment during routine operations; it has a half-life of approximately 50 days, meaning that if strontium-89 is detected in a goat milk sample, the 3 strontium-89 was released from a nuclear fission event recently and not far away because otherwise it would evade detection and measurement. 16. The Mothers Milk Project is dedicated to inter alia development of a scientific database to monitor and track dispersal of radioactivity routinely released by Millstone and Indian Point and to correlate such information with a database of incidences of cancer, diseases of the immune system, premature deaths, birth defects, genetic mutations, miscarriages and other serious and often fatal outcomes of human and animal exposure to radioactivity routinely released by Millstone and Indian Point in order to motivate the State of Connecticut to take appropriate action to eliminate such routine releases of radioactivity to the air. 17. At the same time, Millstone routinely releases radioactive waste materials into the Long Island Sound and the public beach zones surrounding Millstone in East Lyme (including Niantic) and Waterford. Including Hole-in-the-Wall Beach and Pleasure Beach; itis well known in such communities that clusters of brain cancer incidences, birth defects, breast cancer, lung cancer, miscarriages and many other fatal diseases occur in populations residing in the vicinity of Millstone and such popular recreation areas. 18. The State of Connecticut actively impedes and frustrates public awareness of Millstone’s routine releases of radioactive and toxic chemical materials into the Long Island Sound at such location. 19. Indeed, in a recent decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court, officially released on January 21, 2021, the state’s highest court misled the public about such radioactive releases by characterizing them as “alleged” releases when, e.g., the record in the case is replete with data of Millstone’s actual and admitted releases of radioactive materials to the Long Island Sound via its “quarry cut,” including a report in evidence submitted to the federal government by Millstone’s owners and operators that during a recent five-year period Millstone releases 1.74 million gallons (145 millocuries) of fission and activation products (“radwaste”) to the Long Island Sound, a figure shortly to be increased by 9.1% in a power “uprate." Other reports submitted by Millstone’s owners and operators admitting catching a fish in Niantic Bay (an estuary of the Long Island Sound) contaminated with cesium-137, a carcinogen the Millstone personnel admitted was released during routine Millstone operations. Medical experts have linked the radioactive contamination of Niantic Bay by Millstone routine operations to the near-fatal medical condition of a boy born to a mother who routinely swam in Niantic Bay during her pregnancy, unaware of its radioactive contamination. See plaintiffs Motion for Reconsideration En Banc dated February 8, 2021, as filed in Nancy Burton v. Regina McCarthy, SC 20466, pages 6-7. 4 20. Katie the Goat was diagnosed with terminal thoracic cancer in 2012; plaintiff took Katie, who had become a goat celebrity championing an anti-nuclear platform at rallies across the state and on a farewell tour to the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, on March 11, 2012, the one-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. 21. Prior to such tour, plaintiff had communicated an invitation to the then-First Family to adopt Katie’s daughter, Dana Blue-Eyes, as a White House pet as well as the First Family’s personal radiation monitor. 22. Then-First Lady Michelle Obama responded to the invitation through her press office as follows on March 9, 2012 at 1:31 PM: “Thank you for your interest in the First Family. Your offer is extremely generous and seems like a fantastic opportunity, it is truly appreciated. Unfortunately, we are unable to satisfy your request. We apologize that we could not be more helpful. Again thank you so much for such a kind gesture. We wish you well in the future.” 23. Katie died in 2012, but plaintiff continues to test the milk produced by her progeny residing at her Redding address; some samples have tested positively for strontium-90 and strontium-89. 24. In September 2017, the Redding Zoning Commission issued a cease and desist order directing plaintiff to reduce the number of goats on her property to no more than nine within ten days of said order; there was no manner available within which plaintiff could so reduce the herd other than by subjecting them to the brutality and cruelty of slaughter. 25. Plaintiff is opposed to the slaughter of innocent animals on grounds of her moral and religious convictions. 26. Therefore, since issuance of said order on, and before issuance of said order, plaintiff has endeavored conscientiously and in good faith to reduce the goat herd by locating individuals and rescue sanctuaries interested in adopting such goats and providing them with good care, nutrition and shelter for the duration of their natural lives. 27. In addition, as is expressly allowed by law, plaintiff filed a land management plan with the Redding Zoning Commission by which she proposed to reduce the herd by relocating most of the goats to good homes with the help of an animal rescue organization, Animal Nation, Inc., which agreed in a binding contract to find good homes for all of plaintiff’s goats except nine which she intended to keep without protest by the Zoning Commission. 28. Animal Nation, Inc. breached the contract before fulfilling its obligations; the plaintiff has brought suit to enforce compliance with the contract, which suit is pending. Nancy Burton v. Animal Nation. Inc., DBD- CV-19-5015207-S. 29. Responding to an anonymous complaint, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture (“DOAG) assigned one of its animal control officers to investigate 5 plaintiff’s goats and their care and living conditions in 2017. 30. At the conclusion of the investigation, which included two visits personally supervised by Mary Lis, DVM, then-state veterinarian, said DOAG animal control officers concluded in a written report dated June 15, 2018: “At the time of this investigation, all goats on the property appear to be in good condition with food and water available.” 31. In the meantime, Animal Nation, Inc. and its staff and volunteers were successful in relocating between 30 and 40 goats to what it represented were “good homes.” 32. However, in March 2018, Animal Nation, Inc. breached the contract with plaintiff and refused to complete the performance of activities it committed itself to completing in the contract, including locating and moving more goats to good homes, assisting in securing fencing, repairing and upgrading shelters and providing veterinarian care as appropriate and it remains obligated to do so. 33. Further, since on and before September 2017, plaintiff has by other means endeavored conscientiously to reduce the goat herd, frequently by inviting potential adopters to visit the property to observe the goats. 34. Further, plaintiff attempted to enlist the support and assistance of the Town of Redding in a variety of ways, including but not limited to the following: a. By requesting that the Board of Selectmen convene a public meeting at which plaintiff would make a presentation about the goats, familiarize the community with the Mothers Milk Project and encourage town residents to consider adopting goats; First Selectman Julia Pemberton did not respond to the request; and b. By requesting that the Board of Selectmen permit plaintiff to tack an attractive flyer to the Town Hall community bulletin board by way of informing the community and requesting its support for plaintiffs “Good Homes for Goats” appeal; First Selectman Pemberton did not respond to the request; and c. By presenting a sample of freshly-collected milk from one of her goats to First Selectman Pemberton with a request that she forward the sample to the DEEP to analyze it for the presence of radioisotopes; without notice to plaintiff, First Selectman Pemberton allowed the sample of goat milk to be discarded rather than analyzed without notifying plaintiff; and d. By directing correspondence to science teachers at the Redding high school and middle school requesting that they consider adopting some of plaintiffs goats and incorporate them into the science curriculum; the teachers did not respond. 6 35. Defendant David Philip Mason (“Mason”) resides at 146 Cross Highway, Redding, Connecticut, across the street from the plaintiff. Once a practicing attorney in New York City, he was ordered suspended from the practice of law by order of the Appellate Division of the State of New York, November 20, 2013; upon information and belief, said order remains in effect. 36. Defendant Elinore Carmody (“Carmody”) and her husband, Dennis Gibbon (“Gibbon”), reside at 135 Cross Highway adjacent to plaintiff. 37. Defendant Susan Winters (“Winters”) resides at 50 Seventy Acres Road in Redding, Connecticut; with no apparent education, training or professional credentials in professional journalism, she operates a scurrilous online gossip sheet called “hellonewsct.com” focusing on Redding; since the closure of the Redding Pilot, a weekly newspaper with a large readership in Redding, the Redding community has been deprived of a responsible source for news focusing on Redding. 38. Defendant Julia Pemberton has served and continues to serve as First Selectman of the Town of Redding during the period of time pertinent to this Amended Complaint; she has actively fed a frenzy of manufactured goat hysteria in the community through social media and other means without ever having discussed any issues of concern with plaintiff about her goats and without meeting the goats or making any effort to become informed and aware of the goats’ natural behavior or contribution to the Mothers Milk Project. 39. Defendant Police Department of the Town of Redding and certain of its personnel have given the Town of Redding negative notoriety in the recent past when inter alia the then-chief of police directed Redding police officers not to rescue a Redding resident in the act of hanging himself in suicidal despair (a misdeed by the Redding police for which the Town of Redding paid the deceased man’s surviving infant son, through representatives, a large monetary settlement); and the Redding Police Department pronounced a Black lawyer the victim of a suicide without an investigation when he was found with a bullet wound to the back of his head and footprints on his attire covering his back (the man’s family cried foul and the Black Lives Matter movement has taken up the cause of demanding a complete investigation). 40. Defendant Mark O’Donnell at all times pertinent to this Amended Complaint has served as Chief of the Redding Police Department. 41. Defendant Bryan Hurlburt is Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of AgriculturefDOAG”) and responsible for the agency’s lawful discharge of its statutory duties and the lawful conduct of the DOAG’s staff and its agents and representatives 42. Defendant Charles DellaRocco, at all times pertinent to the Amended Complaint, has served as a DOAG animal control officer. 7 43. Defendant Building Department of the Town of Redding is the municipal agency charged with aspects of enforcement of the state building code. 44. Defendant Health Department of the Town of Redding is the municipal agency charged with aspects of enforcement of the state Public Health Code. 45. Defendants Carmody and Winters have widely and publicly circulated and published false and defamatory screeds targeting plaintiff, accusing her falsely inter alia of “using the law to break the law”; although plaintiff timely demanded retraction of the false and offensive publications, neither Carmody nor Winters complied. 46. Prior to the Zoning Commission’s issuance of the cease and desist order, said Mason, Carmody, Gibbons and others took to harassing plaintiff and interfering with her ability to carry out her objective to rehome most of her goats in the following ways, among others: a. Screaming at plaintiffs visitors as they stood on her property to discourage them from carrying out conversations regarding potential goat adoptions; b. Kicking small goats that wandered beyond the fence to a stone wall where they fed on leaves and poison ivy; c. Directing hired laborers to dump paint debris onto the shared stone wall separating their properties; d. Enlisting neighbors, including defendant Mason and others in the Town of Redding, to participate in a hate campaign using social media to spread false and malicious information about plaintiff and the goats; e. Instigating publication of defamatory falsehoods about plaintiff and the goats as published on online social media channels operated by defendant Susan Winters to incite negativity and malice and discourage goat adoptions; f. Clamoring by Carmody to encourage others to gather information for “her case” against plaintiff and the goats; g. Encouraging others to file false police complaints alleging one or more of the goats was in the road when they were not “in the road” but rather were grazing on leaves and poison ivy on the stone wall near the road. h. On April 26, 2021, Carmody and Gibbon pursued several of plaintiff’s goats grazing along the stone wall separating their property from plaintiffs property by blowing an air-horn loudly in their direction, causing the goats to panic and flee from the stone wall; thereupon, Carmody and Gibbon extended the middle fingers of their hands upright at plaintiff who was standing nearby with a camera and they screamed repeatedly at her: “Fuck you! We’ll have you arrested!” 8 i. On September 30, 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint with the defendant Redding Police Chief Mark O’Donnell requesting the arrest and prosecution of Carmody and Gibbon for willful harassment and disorderly conduct for the incident set forth hereinabove. j. The Redding Police Department, per order of Chief Mark O’Donnell, informed plaintiff it would take “no action” on her complaint. k. On August 19, 2020, Carmody anonymously texted the following message to plaintiff at 8:13 PM: “Are you actually aware of how much you are abusing these goats? They are screaming and desperate. You should be ashamed. But you will pay. With their lives. You are a fucking nightmare.” (Emphasis added.) l. Defendant Gibbon had previously informed plaintiff he would take pleasure in having plaintiffs goats slaughtered for human consumption. m. On August 26, 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint with the Redding Police Department, requesting that it conduct an investigation to determine the source of the text and to arrest such person for harassment; the Redding Police Department, per defendant Chief O’Donnell, contacted plaintiff to inform her that (a) It had been determined that Carmody was the source of the harassing text; and (b) She uttered an apology to the inquiring Redding police officer; and (c) The Redding Police Department would “take no action” on plaintiffs complaint after confirming defendant Carmody had texted the offensive message to plaintiff. 47. On or about April 2020, the State of Connecticut, per Gov. Ned Lamont, declared a state of emergency in Connecticut due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which declaration remained in effect for more than a year; in consequence, public activities in the Town of Redding came to a virtual pause; traffic diminished significantly, and individuals were directed to wear masks and avoid social contact with others within a range of less than six feet; these directives significantly hindered plaintiffs ability to interact with potential goat adopters. 48. On April 30, 2020, some of plaintiffs goats crossed the road onto the Mason property. In coordination with Carmody, Gibbon and the Redding Police Department, Mason utilized an air-horn to create a loud and annoying noise by which means he deliberately panicked the goats into uncontrolled stampede as he chased them in a wild frenzy galloping onto the road as if to escape a wild predator and back onto plaintiffs property. 49. Mason’s intent - and the intent of Carmody, Gibbon and the Redding Police Department and Chief O’Donnell - was to cause the goats to be killed or injured in a collision with oncoming vehicles; it was understood by Mason, Carmody, Gibbons, the Redding Police Department and Chief O’Donnell that should the scheme go as planned and goats be killed or injured as a consequence of being chased in a stampede across the road, plaintiff would be wrongfully charged with animal cruelty, a 9 misdemeanor, and Mason, Carmody, Gibbon and the Redding Police Department would be held blameless. 50. In fact, the Redding police did arrest plaintiff on a warrant signed by the Hon. Robert A. D’Andrea, whose current assignments included Burton v. Animal Nation. Inc.; days prior to the arrest, Redding Animal Control Officer Michael DeLuca ordered plaintiff to not leave her residence until he returned at a date and time he did not disclose; DeLuca later participated in the arrest of the plaintiff on a bogus and false assertion that she impeded his search for a “severely injured” goat when none of plaintiffs goats was injured during the incident, having based the arrest on such charge entirely on false statements made by Carmody and/or Gibbon and/or Mason. 51. The Redding Police Department, per Chief O’Donnell, made haste to issue a press release announcing plaintiffs arrest and disperse it widely to the Connecticut news media announcing plaintiffs arrest and accusing her of being responsible for the “severe harm” to a goat that assertedly collided with a vehicle in the incident; such statement was false and recklessly asserted to defame plaintiff and interfere with her tireless efforts to relocate her goats to other safe and secure homes; the Redding Police Department never recovered or identified a goat in plaintiffs herd injured in such incident but allowed the reckless falsehood to be asserted by Defendant DellaRocco, who was not present during the incident, in an affidavit to support a subsequent application for a search and seizure warrant and illegal seizure of plaintiffs goats and invasion of her home. 52. By the conduct as described hereinabove, and acting with a reckless intent to kill, injure and/or maim plaintiffs goats, said defendants engaged in deliberate, impermissible and unlawful animal cruelty and abuse. 53. Responding to a Freedom of Information request submitted by plaintiff, DOAG staff attorney Carole Briggs later acknowledged that DOAG has no records of any prior prosecution of an individual who witnessed a person causing goats to stampede in a frenzy onto a public road by panicking them by blowing repeatedly on an air horn, nor in which the air-horn blower was not prosecuted. 54. On November 30, 2020, plaintiff filed a complaint with defendant Redding Police Chief O’Donnell requesting the arrest and prosecution of defendants Carmody, Gibbon and Mason, with regard to the April 30, 2021 incident, as set forth hereinabove, for wanton animal cruelty, harassment and related offenses; plaintiff offered to provide photographs and other materials which document the allegations and which were never requested; to date, upon information and belief, no action has been taken on such complaint other than a reported referral to the state’s attorney’s office for unknown disposition. 10 55. On December 2, 2020, plaintiff delivered an identical complaint to defendant Bryan Hurlburt, Commissioner, Department of Agriculture, in which she demanded an investigation of the alleged acts of deliberate and wanton animal cruelty as set forth in the complaint identified hereinabove and offered to provide photographs and other documents material to the complaint, which were never requested. 56. Later on December 2, 2020, DOAG staff attorney Carole Briggs emailed plaintiff as follows: “Dear Ms. Burton: this will confirm receipt of your communication. The department takes seriously all allegations of animal cruelty.” (Emphasis added.) 57. DOAG assigned investigation of the complaint to defendant DellaRocco. 58. Defendant DellaRocco had been exposed by an article published in the Hartford Courant and elsewhere as an individual who had been forced to resign as coach of the Old Saybrook High School girls’ soccer team because of publicity surrounding his practice of viewing depictions of child pornography on the Internet during work hours; in proceedings in the Superior Court on March 30, 2021 in the case of State of Connecticut ex rel. Jeremiah Dunn v. 65 Goats et HHD-CV-21-6139702- S (“Dunn v. 65 Goats”), defendant DellaRocco disputed the charge but could not explain why the Hartford Courant reported as it did regarding his conduct. 59. Plaintiff related the facts of the April 30, 2020 incident to defendant DellaRocco when he later made an unannounced visit to her property in the company of two Redding Police Department officers in December 2020, claiming he had driven nearly two hours from his home in Chester, Connecticut, that morning to meet with plaintiff to investigate her complaint to defendant Hurlburt; defendant DellaRocco’s explanation for his unannounced visit to plaintiffs property in the company of two Redding police officers to investigate her complaint, which raised issues as to Redding Police Department officers’ dereliction of duty not credible. 60. While at plaintiffs property, defendant DellaRocco stated that if plaintiffs recital of the facts of the April 30, 2020 incident was true and accurate, the Redding Police Department lacked probable cause to arrest plaintiff; defendant DellaRocco confirmed his statement in an email to plaintiff and plaintiff requested that he update her as to his progress in his investigation of her complaint. 61. Defendant DellaRocco did not update plaintiff on the status of his investigation of her complaint. 62. However, appearing in the Superior Court as a DOAG witness in Dun