James E. Galante, the former Danbury waste hauler with reputed organized crime ties, must pay $600,000 to Connecticut victims to settle civil charges related to his 2008 fraud and racketeering conviction for price-fixing garbage contracts.
Attorney General George Jepsen announced the settlement Thursday.
Connecticut in 2009 sued Galante, 57, and his two companies, Automated Waste Disposal Inc. and Thomas Refuse Services Inc., for allegedly violating the state’s unfair labor practices and antitrust statutes.
The antitrust suit alleged that in 2002 and 2004 Galante ordered his employees both companies to raise prices by 10 percent for certain commercial customers under the false representation that they were mandatory increases for disposal-site costs.
The lawsuit also alleged two incidents of bid-rigging by American Disposal Services of Connecticut, another Galante-owned company, in attempts to secure waste-hauling contracts.
The settlement, to be shared by some 500 commercial customers, was timed to the federal government’s sale of Galante’s $100 miillion trash business, forfeited as part of his 2008 guilty plea.
He is serving a 7-year federal prison sentence.
