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Time to revisit the curious case of Melissa Ramirez.

That case is about an illegal alien who was drunk, high, and speeding when she crossed the double yellow line, killing Bridgeport Police Officer Cooper Whiteside and his girlfriend, Brittany Islami, in a head-on collision on Sugar Hollow Road in Danbury. ICE issued an immigration detainer. The police warrant listed a driver’s license number for Ramirez that matched the license number on a voter registration card for an active voter in New Britain.

As soon as the allegation that an illegal alien was on the voter rolls started circulating on social media, Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas issued a statement. She alleged the voter registration card had been altered (the New Britain registrar’s records produced to the Centinal were not altered), blamed media outlets for spreading misinformation, said there were two people in Connecticut with the exact same name and exact same birthday, and promised the “right” Melissa Ramirez was in jail.

During a later court appearance, State’s Attorney Stacey Haupt Miranda “determined that somehow, some way, there are databases throughout the system that had merged the personal information of (Melissa Ramirez) with the personal information of another person with a similar name and date of birth” and suggested there could be “various ways” to “speculate as to how that happened.”

A Centinal contributor contacted Cathryn Vaulman, Governor Lamont’s communications director, on August 5 to obtain clarification on Miranda’s statement. The comment raised a voter integrity question that still has not been answered in public: if databases can merge two people who share a name and birthday as the State's Attorney argued, how many other Connecticut voters might have a doppelgänger whose records get stapled to theirs, and could it impact their ability to vote?

Lamont’s office did not initially answer the question, but an August 6 Freedom of Information (FOI) request shows what happened instead.

“The confusion basically stems from Danbury PD”

Vaulman forwarded the Centinal contributor's question to Richard Green, communications director at the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) and a former Hearst, WTNH, and Hartford Courant journalist.

In the August 5 email, Vaulman wrote that “the records were separate at DMV and only 1 had a SOTS record, so the confusion basically stems from Danbury PD.” Records, plural. That line suggests more than one Melissa Ramirez file at DMV, and only one of them tied to a Secretary of the State voter record.

Sarah Karwan, Lamont’s general counsel since June 2026 and previously counsel to the DESPP commissioner, told Vaulman she assumed State's Attorney Miranda “misspoke somewhat.” Her understanding was that “there was some amount of human error here, too.” “I seriously doubt that she intended to call into question DMV and other official data,” Karwan wrote. “Perhaps forward to her with a request that she clarify?”

In other words: internally, the Governor’s office and DESPP attributed the mess to Danbury Police and human error. Publicly, Lamont thanked Danbury Police for investigating “thoroughly” and blamed “misinformation pushed in a rush to advance a political agenda.”

Vaulman turned up first in the FOI

The earliest document in the FOI file is a July 13 text between Lamont and Vaulman at 5 p.m.; the message is entirely redacted. The crash happened that morning at 2:45 a.m. Additional messages from July 16 and July 27 are also fully redacted. The first unredacted texts between Vaulman and Lamont appear on July 29 and July 30 about an alleged voter issue that needed to be clarified ASAP. Lamont’s office issued a formal statement on July 30 — a full 17 days after the crash. The rest of that text chain, including messages on July 30 and July 31, is redacted.

Green showed up first in emails

Green was in Vaulman’s inbox on July 29 — the same day the Centinal first obtained the New Britain voter record and the same day Blue Lives Matter posted it.

He offered Vaulman a few thoughts: ICE does not inform the state about detainers, “which are civil.” SOTS would handle any voting issue. The Danbury state’s attorney had mentioned the immigration detainer; Green said he confirmed that with OCSA. “Seems like mostly unverified claims on social media driving this. Melissa Ramirez is a pretty common name.”

Vaulman wrote back at 3:43 p.m. the same day. DMV, she said, had “just cleared up with the inquiring reporter that we have legal documentation on file for this individual.” Then she said: “It does beg the question of how this information has been not conveyed to ICE, or OCSA?”

That is the Governor’s communications director, on July 29, wondering why legal documentation on Ramirez in state files had not reached federal immigration or the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney.

Note that ICE confirmed in a July 28 statement to the Centinal that a detainer had already been lodged against Ramirez, a "criminal illegal alien."

Campaign staff on the official thread

July 29 is also the date the Centinal obtained the New Britain voter record showing an active voter named Melissa Ramirez, born July 4, 1999, with a history of in-person voting. The Centinal shared it with other independent journalists and, after Blue Lives Matter posted it at 4:14 p.m., noted that the driver’s license number on the warrant still needed to be matched before anyone could be sure it was the same person. The Centinal then requested the paper voter registration card to get that drivers license number.

At 4:52 p.m. on July 30, Vaulman received a text with Ryan Fazio's post about Ramirez which blamed the "pro-criminal Trust Act." The text appeared in a batch of messages between Lamont, Vaulman and Rob Blanchard, who left Lamont’s staff in April for a paid role on the re-election campaign. Blanchard is now running for the State Senate seat Tony Hwang is vacating against Republican challenger, Amybeth LaRoche.

“Have we said anything? I thought I was reaching out to Family and/or union,” Lamont said.

“Will have a draft of a broader message for your review after running by Matt now,” Vaulman replied, then sent family contact information for Officer Whiteside and a photo of a police poster from the officer’s home. The rest of that FOI thread is redacted.

Matt is Matt Brokman, another former Lamont administration official who left the state payroll in May to chair the Governor’s re-election campaign.

At 6:08 p.m. on July 30, Vaulman was texting Brokman and Lamont.

“Governor, just saw your response. SOTS is putting a statement out confirming this person wasn’t registered to vote in an hour supposedly. But yes, it feels late. Took an unfortunate amount of time for them to finish their search.”

She had thought of using the moment “to wrap up the multiple corrections being issued by police, DMV, and SOTS and also to draw a line in the sand that what happened over the last 2 days created danger for an innocent person.” She added: “I’m worried we’re going to keep having these internet detectives publicizing voting records for suspected undocumented people, and it’s a slippery slope.”

If the timing was wrong, she said, “we can use it reactively if needed.”

"What say you, Brokman?" asked Lamont.

"I think it's good to send out, to have clear story out there," Brokman replied. "But also like your idea about stopping by Bridgeport pd tomorrow, maybe when you are there."

Lamont lamented that, "social media keeps repeating the undocumented was a chronic voter. Totally false.” He referenced the Blue Lives Matter July 29 post.

Brokman suggested emailing the reporters already covering the story instead of a press release. Vaulman agreed. “Does not help that SOTS has not cleared this up.”

Then this line from Vaulman: “Personally would rather out it online for search and LLM but if you see risks, we can do targeted distro only.”

LLM means large language model — the AI systems that scrape official statements and serve them back as fact. Brokman suggested emailing reporters and posting on “our news site.” After Thomas’s video dropped, Vaulman asked whether it changed “either of your minds.” Brokman: “She did a good statement.” Vaulman: “She did! Quite strong.”

Lamont, his official communications director and his campaign chair were on the same thread, timing the cleanup, picking the audience, and talking about parking the state’s version where search engines and chatbots would find it. Whether any ethical or campaign lines were crossed remains an open question.

What the public was told

Danbury Police posted at 10:26 p.m. on July 29 that there were multiple Melissa Ramirezes and that the New Britain voter was not the woman in jail. The post did not mention that the department’s own warrant had attached a New Britain license and address to the Stamford defendant that created the link to the New Britain Ramirez voter registration card in the first place.

On July 30 the DMV said Melissa Esperanza Ramirez of Stamford was never issued a Connecticut license. That evening Thomas released a video: two Melissas, an innocent New Britain woman being harassed, blame it on the media. A matching name, she said, is not an investigation.

It was not until August 9 that Thomas directly blamed Danbury Police for the warrant error — in a campaign fundraising email built around the “death threats” narrative her office had already amplified. New Britain Police, after locating the New Britain Ramirez at a gym and checking her license, reported that she said she had not been receiving death threats. Ramirez described journalists calling her as harassment. That contradicted the Governor and the Secretary of the State.

Lamont's office eventually responded

On September 25, Vaulman finally commented on the database mix-up:

“Regarding Melissa Ramirez, our office, the Secretary of the State, and the DMV clarified the situation at the time that this occurred and further questions regarding the licensure of either Melissa Ramirez should be directed to the DMV.”

That is not an explanation of how two women’s database files were "somehow" merged, as the state’s attorney claimed.

The Centinal contacted third-party background-data provider TruthFinder to determine how multiple databases could mix up two women’s records. The service shows a record for “Melissa Esperanza Ramirez” linked to both Stamford and New Britain addresses. A TruthFinder technical support analyst told the Centinal that records are occasionally merged by mistake. The example given was a father and son who share the same name and have shared addresses in their history; in those cases, “junior” is sometimes mixed up with “senior.” He said mixing a legal citizen’s record with that of an illegal alien seemed unlikely.

The Centinal spoke with the DMV on September 25 to determine whether Ramirez had previously attempted to obtain a learner’s permit for a drive-only license. A response is expected in about a week. The Centinal also contacted Lamont’s office and the FOI Commission to challenge the extensive redactions in the records produced so far. Other public records requests still remain outstanding to Danbury Police, New Britain Police and SOTS Thomas.

Ramirez is due back in Danbury Superior Court on October 5. The court granted a continuance at her last hearing after her attorney, Dan Thibodeau, said he had not yet received discovery.

One last item in the FOIA file caught the Centinal’s attention: even Rick Green, Director of Communications at the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, was describing the state as “very much out of the loop with Homeland Security and ICE.” In a separate July 30 note to Vaulman he added that, “as something of an outsider here myself it is striking to see the relationship with ICE” especially when the "FBI top agent is always walking around here."

FOI Records - Messages_-_Cathryn_Vaulman

FOI Records - Messages_-_Matt_Brokman___Cathryn_Vaulman

FOI Records - Messages_-_Robert_Blanchard___Cathryn_Vaulman

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