Creative Commons License

Bridgeport City councilman Alfredo Castillo speaks to the media outside the Bridgeport Superior Court after his arraignment on March 6, 2025. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

Bridgeport City Councilman Alfredo Castillo has been arrested again and charged with mishandling absentee ballots during a city election.

This is the third time that Castillo, who is running for a city council seat this year, has been arrested and accused of harvesting voters’ ballots during the 2019 and 2023 Democratic primary elections in Bridgeport.

The Connecticut Chief State’s Attorney’s office posted a press release late Friday afternoon that accuses Castillo of illegally taking possession of four voters’ absentee ballots during the September 2023 primary, when he was on the ballot and was campaigning in support of Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim.

Frank Riccio, Castillo’s defense attorney, did not return a call on Friday.

The new charges will add to the felony counts that Castillo is already facing in Superior Court.

Catillo has become one of the most well-known defendants to be charged with abusing Bridgeport’s absentee voting system because of his position on the city council and because he has been accused of mishandling absentee ballots in back-to-back mayoral elections.

He is not alone, however. Castillo is just one of 11 people who have been charged with defrauding the absentee voting system in Bridgeport as part of a growing criminal investigation led by the Chief State’s Attorney’s office.

The city became the poster child for absentee ballot fraud after several political operatives, including the vice chairwoman of the city’s Democratic party, was captured on video allegedly depositing stacks of absentee ballots into drop boxes ahead of the 2023 election.

A Connecticut judge eventually overturned that 2023 election between Ganim and his Democratic challenger John Gomes because of that video footage, which he described as “shocking” evidence of “blatant” ballot harvesting.

Only one of the 11 defendants has resolved their criminal case by pleading guilty to the charges filed against them to this point.

Meanwhile, the Chief State’s Attorney continues to bring additional charges against the growing list of defendants.

Earlier this month, the Chief State’s Attorney’s office rearrested Wanda Geter-Pataky, the vice chairwoman of Bridgeport’s Democratic Party, and charged her with violating the terms of her release after she contacted some of the witnesses who could testify against her in court.

Andrew joined CT Mirror as an investigative reporter in July 2021. Since that time, he's written stories about a state lawmaker who stole $1.2 million in pandemic relief funds, the state Treasurer's failure to return millions of dollars in unclaimed money to Connecticut citizens and an absentee ballot scandal that resulted in a judge tossing out the results of Bridgeport's 2023 Democratic mayoral primary. Prior to moving to Connecticut, Andrew was a reporter at local newspapers in North Dakota, West Virginia and South Carolina. His work focuses primarily on uncovering government corruption but over the course of his career, he has also written stories about the environment, the country's ongoing opioid epidemic and state and local governments. Do you have a story tip? Reach Andrew at 843-592-9958