Crime & Safety

Former Fire Chief Joseph Carilli, Awaiting Sex Assault Trial, Faces New Charges

Police have charged the former Coventry fire chief, already imprisoned on charges he impregnated a teenager, with trying to get her to change her testimony.

This article was posted by Elyssa M. Millspaugh. It was reported and written by Paul Petrone.

A former Coventry fire chief faces new charges related to witness tampering after he allegedly sent a letter to a minor telling her to lie about having sex with him.

Authorities allege that Joseph Carilli, 53, jailed at the Cheshire Correctional Institution, sent a jailhouse letter to a girl he is charged with sexually assaulting, asking her to change the evidence she gave police about the alleged sexual encounters. 

In his letter, Carilli says he didn't break any laws and tells the girl, who police say got pregnant by Carilli, that she should changer her testimony in court, according to a report today in the Hartford Courant

Police say Carilli wrote the letter in a way to make it appear that someone else wrote it and sent it without Carilli's knowledge, theCourant reports.

The letter violates a protective order the girl has against Carilli. He now faces additional charges of tampering with a witness, violating a protective order and second-degree harassment, the newspaper says.   

Carilli was originally arrested in February for allegedly having sex with the girl when she was a 15-year-old in the South Coventry Fire Department's junior firefighter program. He was charged with second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor.


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