Prison Politics Probed At 97th District Debate

by Dereen Shirnekhi

Wooster Square Alder Mandy Martinelli (second from right) and City Health Director Maritza Bond (second from left) in the crowd at Wednesday’s forum.

Rafael Ramos (right) and Sammy Chamino (left) in the front row.

At a debate between candidates running for an east-side state rep seat, attorney Leland Moore made the case that just because you represent someone, doesn’t mean you agree with them — even, or especially, if your client is the state’s prison system.

His opponent, Wildaliz Bermúdez, countered: “But the work that we do becomes who we are.”

The candidates are both running to represent the 97th State House District in the Connecticut General Assembly. They grappled with the question of criminal justice and their differing relationships with the state Department of Correction (DOC), as well as other subjects, at a candidate forum held on Wednesday at the Friends Center for Children’s Flint Street Theater — formerly home to Cine 1234.

The 97th District covers the Bishop Woods/Quinnipiac Meadows neighborhood down through Fair Haven Heights and the Annex to Morris Cove, with a sliver of Fair Haven near Front Street.

Moore is a first-term Morris Cove alder and an assistant state attorney general. Bermúdez is the executive director of New Haven’s Fair Rent Commission and a former Hartford City Council member. The Democratic primary, for which early voting has already begun, is Aug. 11.

Wednesday’s forum was moderated by the New Haven Independent’s Paul Bass and La Voz Hispana’s Norma Rodriguez-Reyes. It organized and put on with the help of the Fair Haven, East Shore, and Quinnipiac East Community Management Teams, whose members submitted questions.

One of those questions — submitted by someone who preferred to remain anonymous — emphasized the differences in the two candidates’ relationships with the state’s prison system.

“You have diametrically opposed relationships with the Connecticut Department of Correction,” the question began, as read by Bass.

Bermúdez is married to a civil rights attorney — Ken Krayeske — who regularly sues the DOC in wrongful-death and medical-neglect cases on behalf of people who are locked up, the inquirer continued. Moore, who works in the attorney general’s office, has defended the Department of Correction or its commissioner in lawsuits over prison conditions, medical care access, and use of force incidents.

(Moore has confirmed that he would have to give up his job as an assistant state attorney general if elected state representative.)

“‘How do you imagine your work in this area would impact your representation of our communities in Hartford?’” Bass read aloud. “‘Especially from the 97th District, where neighborhoods like the Annex have incarceration rates that are two times the state average.”

“I think that question has an unfair assumption,” Moore replied. “I don’t know that we are diametrically opposed to how we see criminal justice.”

“I can speak for myself,” Bermúdez interjected.

Moore continued, explaining that part of his work in the attorney general’s office is to defend the state. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have compassion or empathy, or that I don’t look at my cases and try to make sure that I am doing work to help everybody,” he said.

“When it comes to corrections, we’ve made some progress with DOC, but we still have a lot of room to grow and we have a lot of work to do,” Moore said. He praised the fact that the state recently appointed an independent ombuds for the DOC, and said that he believes that more accountability and safer environments for correction officers are good things.

Moore also pointed to his own criminal justice reform work, including advocating for the abolition of the death penalty and working for the state Sentencing Commission to reform juvenile life-without-parole sentencing. He said that he went on to fight for bail reform, because he believes that cash bail is inherently inequitable.

Then, Moore worked for the Connecticut Board of Pardons & Paroles as a legislative advisor, of which he said he is proud. “We issued more pardons than ever before in the history of the Board of Pardons & Paroles,” he said.

“So I’m really proud of my record on criminal justice, and I also just think we shouldn’t make assumptions about where we are based on the work that we do,” Moore concluded.

That’s when Bermúdez said that we become the work that we do, “and so that’s where we’re different.”

Bermúdez recalled her experience in a “failing” public school system in Hartford. When she was in high school, on the first day, she and 400 of her peers were gathered in their school auditorium. They were told to look to their left and to their right. “‘The person on your left is not going to graduate with you,’” she recalled hearing, oftentimes because that person might go to jail.

“The fact is that when we’re looking at our incarceration rates, we have among the highest within the Black and Brown community, and that’s a fact,” Bermúdez said. Moore has defended the DOC while she is married to a civil rights attorney, “who has gone against my opponent when his clients are trying to just have simple access to medical care and medical treatment and the state has denied it. So we are two very different, diametrically opposed people.”

Regarding Moore’s work with the Sentencing Commission, Bermúdez agreed that it is “important work” to ensure that people who are incarcerated when they’re children should be able to eventually request parole.

“But at the same time, even the mere fact of it that they were children when they were incarcerated — that’s a failure on all of us,” she said.

In his response, Moore said that his office tries to help the best they can, and pointed to the attorney general office’s work fighting back against the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and social media giant Meta.

“So the work is very diverse, and then again, our work doesn’t always reflect our opinions,” he said. “Our clients don’t always reflect our opinions.”

Moore pointed to New Haven’s former chief public defender, Tom Ullmann, who died in 2018. Moore said he considered Ullman a mentor. While Ullmann sometimes represented people accused of heinous crimes, he was a man of integrity and respect, Moore said.

“I don’t think we distill our jobs down to good or bad or black and white, and I think that we can have complex and varied opinions, and I think that we can have compassion when we do our job,” he said.

“But as a state rep, we go into this role thinking about our community, and the reality is that in our community, the need is very vast, and we do have among the biggest rates of people who are in prison who are Black and Brown,” Bermúdez countered. “And so, when we look at that, we have to ask ourselves, ‘What do we want to see for our future, so that we don’t keep repeating the same mistakes?’”

The criminal justice discussion came as 13 people have died in DOC custody so far in 2026. The state prison system has long been under fire for inadequate medical care; in a semi-annual report spanning Dec. 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026, Correction Ombuds DeVaughn Ward disclosed that of the nearly 2,000 complaints received regarding the DOC during that time, more than 600 were related to healthcare. The state legislature has oversight of and the ability to shape the DOC. During the latest legislative session, the General Assembly passed House Bill 5567, which aims to improve healthcare in DOC facilities.

During Wednesday’s debate, candidates discussed an array of other subjects. Both said they support free buses; are opposed to the current Memorandum of Understanding that indicates New Haven and East Haven are willing to work with Tweed New Haven Airport on its expansion; and agreed that they would pressure the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority to separate and repair combined sewer/rainwater pipes. They also discussed unions, cannabis, and their respective endorsements. Watch the full debate below.