CT community college employee accused of vandalizing Tesla
Conor Perreault, 40, of New Haven faces one count of second-degree criminal mischief after turning himself in on April 16, according to the New Haven Police Department.
Police said they responded to the report of a Tesla being vandalized on March 5 and learned that someone had scraped a key along the driver and passenger side doors while the vehicle was parked in the Temple Street Garage. The damage was estimated to cost between $500 and $2,000, according to police.
Police said the cameras on the vehicle captured the individual responsible for the vandalism. Investigators identified Perreault as a suspect and obtained a warrant for his arrest. Police said they discovered that he is an employee at the CT State Community College Gateway campus.
According to the college's website, Perreault is listed as a systems librarian.
A spokesperson for the college did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Perreault did not immediately respond to an email sent to his Gateway email account.
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Some lienholders told CNN they still hoped to be paid for their work, while others said they had written off the losses and doubted they'd ever see the money they claim to be owed. They described how excitement about major contracts with the company eventually turned into financial crises and sleepless nights. One contractor even told CNN that he had been so excited to land a project with Tesla that he bought himself a brand-new Model X, which he says now only serves to remind him of the nightmare business deal. A number of contractors interviewed by CNN said they weren't surprised by this business practice, noting how it aligned with Musk's reputation for penny pinching and slashing budgets at all costs – caring more about his personal missions than the people who get hurt along the way. 'His goal is to run through everything now – he doesn't care what or who that impacts – to save the future of the world,' said one entrepreneur about his impression of Musk. 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'While Tesla has never denied receiving the fuel, Tesla has offered a myriad of procedural reasons it has not paid,' Sun Coast wrote in its lawsuit. 'Moreover, Tesla has had constant personnel turnover and passed Sun Coast off from person to person who only conjures up some new reason as to why Tesla has not paid.' This month, Sun Coast Resources asked the court that the case be closed, and an attorney for the company told CNN the case had been resolved. And in 2022, a small Austin-based company, Full Circle Technologies, said in court that it was forced to file bankruptcy when Tesla refused to pay for work it did supplying and installing security cameras and other equipment at the electric automaker's Gigafactory. In bankruptcy filings, Full Circle Technologies said Tesla owed it nearly $600,000 and that it was 'forced to take on short term high interest loans to bridge the gap between performing the work for Tesla and the payment for its services.' When a creditor began to levy the company's bank accounts, the company said it had no option but to file for bankruptcy. Tesla then made its own claim in the bankruptcy hearings, stating Full Circle actually owed the carmaker money for allegedly breaching its contract. The two companies ultimately settled, but Full Circle CEO Abheeshek Sharma told CNN that Tesla was released from its obligation without paying a cent. And when Full Circle wasn't paid, the company said it couldn't pay its subcontractors either. One of the subcontractors, Electra Link, filed its own lawsuit against Tesla in a last-ditch effort to get paid the roughly $128,000 it said it was owed for the cabling it installed at the Gigafactory. It said Tesla had 'ignored' its three written notices that it had not been paid and that Tesla 'refused' to make any payments – prompting Electra Link to file liens against Tesla. Tesla turned around and countersued the company, claiming its liens were fraudulent because the contractor had only notified Tesla of the debt, and not the LLC used by Tesla for the project. The lawsuit was ultimately settled. After Musk's high-profile purchase of Twitter in 2022, at least seven different businesses filed lawsuits for non-payment – all of which have since been resolved. 'Twitter responded with a campaign of extreme belt-tightening that amounted to requiring nearly everyone to whom it owes money to sue,' attorney Ethan Jacobs wrote about the company's alleged refusal to pay contractors including marketing and consulting firms. Another lawsuit cited emails saying that new management wanted to 'hold firm' about not paying the invoice for private jet transportation that had already been provided. Twitter claimed it told the jet operator that the services had not been approved by an authorized employee and therefore it was not responsible for the expense. Jacobs, who represented many of these companies in their litigation against the social media firm and said all of his cases settled, said he found it surprising that a businessman as powerful and high-profile as Musk would be brazen enough to have 'a practice of not paying people until they sue.' 'They were essentially saying that they just decided not to pay until they had to,' he said of X under Musk's leadership. 'It's not the way I have generally seen people doing business.' After Meissner of Professional Process Piping filed for bankruptcy, she said she liquidated all available retirement and savings accounts, sold land just to be able to afford an attorney and stopped sending her daughter to the ballroom dance lessons Meissner said had served as a form of therapy for her. Meissner said she now works two jobs and will be working to pay off her debts for a long time. She also still worries that she could lose her house or car. 'It's been horrible,' she said. 'If I didn't have my family, I don't think I would have made it.' While every billion-dollar business is going to encounter some level of dissatisfied contractors or subcontractors, Meissner said the large number of liens that have been filed against Tesla indicate to her that this is simply the way the billionaire operates his companies. 'When there are that many (liens), that looks like standard business to me, and that's shady,' she said, adding that she wants Musk to know just how many lives have been impacted by these practices. 'It's not just my company, it's all the companies that support you. You own that business – your name is on it.'
