By Mark Zaretsky, Register Staff

NEW HAVEN — The case charging East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon and her secretary, Erica Berg, with interfering with a police officer in connection with a July 19 ticketing incident at the Town Beach was continued Friday for a second time. Little transpired in Superior Court.

The new date for a pre-trial hearing in the case is Nov. 18 - two weeks after election.

Both Capone Almon and Berg pleaded innocent on Sept. 16.

Berg was present in court Friday, accompanied by Capone Almon’s other secretary, Stacy Monico, and later by Berg’s lawyer, Frank Raio. Neither Capone Almon nor her lawyer, William F. Dow III, attended.

Raio said afterwards that Dow sent a letter earlier requesting a continuance and another lawyer from his firm came to court Friday to confirm that it would be granted.

Capone Almon, a Democrat, said when she pleaded innocent that she believed “that I acted within my authority,” in asking tow truck drivers to bring back several vehicles that had been towed after police officer Mike Sorbo ticketed about a half-dozen cars that were blocking the unpaved parking lot’s entrance and exit. Berg was with during the beach incident.

Sorbo, a former Republican candidate for Town Council who Capone Almon publicly clashed with, said in his incident report and in a sworn affidavit that was part of a subsequent arrest warrant application that he believed Capone Almon and Berg interfered with his ability to do his job as a police officer.

Capone Almon and Berg were charged on Sept. 4. They turned themselves in after arrest warrants were signed.

New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington has declined to comment on the case, but has said that to the best of his knowledge, it’s the first time that a police department in the New Haven Judicial District has obtained a warrant to arrest its own mayor.

Mark Zaretsky can be reached at mzaretsky@nhregister.com or 789-5722.

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