Ernie Newton

Ernest E. Newton II (born February 21, 1956) is an American politician in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Newton served for seventeen years in the Connecticut General Assembly, serving in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1988 to 2003 and in the Connecticut State Senate from 2003 to 2005. He pleaded guilty to federal felony corruption charges in September 2005 and served several years in federal prison. Newton was released in February 2010 and in 2012 unsuccessfully attempted a political comeback, losing in the primary in a race for his old state Senate seat. He pleaded guilty to three campaign finance violations in 2019, relating to his 2012 legislative campaign.

Career Newton, a Democrat, specifically part of the Democratic Party of Connecticut, was a member of the Bridgeport City Council in the 1980s. He served in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1988 to 2003 and in the Connecticut State Senate from 2003 to 2005.

Newton represented an area of Bridgeport that was one of poorest districts in Connecticut, and was "a powerful figure from the city's East Side for more than two decades." The executive director of the Progressive Training Associates, Warren Keith Godbolt, who gave the bribe, was also convicted of bribery in 2005. Godbolt cooperated with investigators in their investigation of Newton and was sentenced to probation.

In February 2006, Newton was sentenced to five years in federal prison. In imposing the sentence, Senior U.S. District Court Judge Alan H. Nevas criticized Newton's "Moses" remark, saying, "I don't think there's any reference in the Bible ... that as God led his people for 40 years in the desert that he ever took money from them." In May 2012, Newton received an endorsement from the Democratic Town Committee under Chairman Mario Testa to run for Senate. In the three-way August 2012 Democratic primary in August 2012, however, Newton lost to state Representative Andres Ayala, Jr., who received the endorsement of Mayor Bill Finch. Ayala also defeated incumbent senator Edwin A. Gomes. Ayala received 2,129 votes, Newton 1,739 votes, and Gomes 1,138 votes.

In 2014, Newton again unsuccessfully sought to make a political comeback, running for the 124th state House district. In March 2014, Newton again won the Democratic town committee nomination. However, Newton's opponent Andre F. Baker, Jr.—an undertaker, former Bridgeport city councilman, and board of education member—forced a Democratic primary by petition, and in the August 2014 primary election defeated Newton. Baker received the key support of Mayor Bill Finch.

In 2024, Newton launched a primary bid against incumbent Democratic Senator of the 23rd district Herron Gaston, but lost the primary 71.61% to 28.39%.

Campaign finance conviction Newton was arrested in January 2013 on state campaign finance fraud charges.

On January 16, 2015, Newton was convicted of three charges of "illegal practices in campaign financing" and acquitted on a charge of witness tampering. The jury deadlocked on two other counts of illegal practices in campaign financing and two counts of first-degree larceny, and a mistrial was declared on those four charges.

On May 13, 2015, Newton was sentenced to three sentences of six months in jail, to run concurrently with each other, on the state charges. The state judge found that Newton received no personal financial benefit from the crime, and that the offense was a result of "his campaign's sloppiness and failure to keep track of how much it had raised"—a mitigating factor. The state judge freed Newton pending appeal and determined that if Newton was sent to prison for violating the terms of his federal probation (by committing the state campaign-finance offense), his six-month state sentence would run concurrently with his federal probation-violation sentence. In August 2019, Newton pleaded guilty to the same three felony campaign-finance charges of which he was convicted in 2015; he received a suspended sentence of 18 months.

Personal life Newton is married; he and his wife Pamela have children.