Court upholds conviction in Fitbit murder case despite missteps by prosecutor

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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Despite finding “improprieties” were committed by a prosecutor, the Connecticut Supreme Court on Monday upheld the murder conviction of a man found guilty of killing his wife in a case that drew wide attention because the victim’s Fitbit exercise tracker contradicted his statements to police.

The justices ruled in a 6-0 decision that Richard Dabate was not deprived of a fair trial because of four missteps by the prosecutor they called “troubling,” including referring to one of Connecticut’s most notorious crimes while cross-examining the man.

Dabate, 48, was convicted of murder and other charges in the fatal shooting of Connie Dabate, 39, at the couple’s home in Ellington two days before Christmas in 2015 while their two young sons were in school. He’s serving a 65-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors said Dabate wanted his wife dead, in part, because he had a yearslong affair with another woman who was pregnant at the time of the killing and later gave birth to their child.

Dabate staged a phony crime scene, including tying himself up loosely with zip ties and stabbing himself with a box cutter, and told police an unknown intruder in camouflage broke into their home, killed his wife and assaulted him, authorities said.

State police said Dabate gave them a timeline of events that conflicted with data on his wife’s Fitbit, which showed she was moving around for about an hour after the time Dabate said she was shot.

Dabate testified in his defense and maintained his innocence, saying a large masked man with a voice like actor Vin Diesel was the killer.

Part of Dabate’s appeal questioned the reliability of the Fitbit evidence and whether the trial judge was wrong to have allowed it, but the Supreme Court upheld the data and its use.

Dabate also accused Tolland State’s Attorney Matthew Gedansky of multiple instances of impropriety, including Gedansky mentioning a notorious home invasion in Cheshire in 2007 while cross-examining Dabate. The home invaders killed a woman and her two daughters, ages 11 and 17, after terrorizing them for hours, while the woman’s husband survived a vicious beating.

Gedansky asked Dabate if he was trying to create a “little mini-Cheshire scene” in his own home. The trial judge upheld an objection by Dabate’s lawyer and asked Gedansky to rephrase the question, but Gedansky asked nearly the same exact question. The Supreme Court found Gedansky violated the judge’s order to rephrase.

“In referring to a ‘mini Cheshire,’ the prosecutor’s question was unnecessarily inflammatory because it compared the defendant to other notorious offenders or infamous figures,” Justice Joan Alexander wrote in the decision.

Gedansky did not immediately return an email message seeking comment Monday.

Dabate’s lawyer, Trent LaLima, said he and his client were disappointed with the court’s ruling.

“We believe we put forward strong issues supporting a new trial for Rick Dabate,” LaLima wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “We are evaluating the best next steps for Rick, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence for nearly a decade.”

The Supreme Court also found that Gedansky committed three other improprieties, including suggesting that the jury would have to be unintelligent or lazy to agree with the defense theory of the case.

“We disapprove of the improprieties committed by the prosecutor during the trial of this case in strong and unqualified terms and expect our message to be taken with the utmost seriousness by prosecutors,” the decision said.

The court said it agreed with Dabate that “the prosecutor engaged in multiple acts of impropriety at trial that we consider troubling.”

Justices, however, said the state’s case was very strong and Gedansky’s missteps did not overshadow testimony by 130 witnesses and the 600 exhibits presented during the five-week trial.