21-04-2025
U.S. judge, ‘first-rate' CT jurist, prosecutor and legislator dies. He presided over mafia trials.
U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas, a state legislator and top federal prosecutor before being appointed to the bench and presiding over one of the biggest mafia trials in New England history, died Saturday after suffering briefly from lymphoma.
He was 97.
Nevas, a Westport Republican, was elected to three terms in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and, after his appointment as Connecticut's U.S. Attorney in 1981, supervised the indictment of members of the violent Puerto Rican nationalist group, Los Macheteros.
But it was Nevas' trial rulings and stern control of his courtroom that made him front page news for most of the summer of 1991 when, after his appointment to the bench, he presided over the sensational racketeering and murder trial in Hartford of the underboss and five other members of the Patriarca crime family.
Each morning mobsters from Providence, Springfield and Hartford would appear at the federal courthouse on Main Street and pack themselves behind tables shoved together in the cramped well of the courtroom. At recesses, they gathered in a conference over boxes of cannoli and argued over whose city had the best bakery.
Inside the courtroom Nevas used threats of contempt at times to keep order. Reporters from around the country followed the case, which marked the first time ever that prosecutors would play for a jury a surreptitious FBI recording of mob soldiers taking the oath of omerta during a mafia initiation ceremony.
The trial ended with convictions of all defendants and Nevas imposed sentences as long as life in prison. Law enforcement called the case the beginning of the end of the mafia in New England.
'The judge was always true to the oaths he took as U.S. Attorney and U.S. District Judge to act without fear or favor, always treating his fellow citizens equally and fairly,' said retired U.S. Attorney John H. Durham, leader prosecutor on the mafia case. 'Connecticut has lost a good and just man.'
There was wide praise for Nevas Monday.
'Judge Nevas was a first-rate trial judge with a vast knowledge of the law and a dedication to fairness in his courtroom,' said Christopher Droney, a former U.S. Attorney and federal district and circuit judge who worked with Nevas. 'He was also a great mentor to so many of his fellow judges.'
Former U.S. Attorney Stanley A. Twardy, Jr, who replaced Nevas as the state's top federal law enforcement officer, called him a 'tremendous gentleman and a very caring person, he had a great sense of humor, a wry sense of humor. And he was a wonderful mentor to me as U.S. Attorney.'
Said state Supreme Court Justice Nora R. Dannehy, who formerly before Nevas as a federal prosecutor, 'He was smart and always well-prepared. But he was always always practical. He let the litigants try their cases, but he controlled his courtroom.'
Nevas presided over some remarkable Connecticut cases. The Puerto Rican Independentistas of Los Macheteros were indicted after stealing more than $7 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford in what then was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history. The case dragged on for decades and it was learned ultimately that the robbers were trained and financed by Fidel Castro's Cuban intelligence service.
He also was a harsh sentencer who presided over cases involving the Latin Kings gang, whose drug sales resulted in a spike in the Hartford murder rate, and that of former Waterbury Mayor Philip A. Giordano, who remains imprisoned after being convicted of charges involving municipal corruption and the abuse of girls.
While on the federal bench, from 1985 to 2009, Nevas was president of the Federal Judges Association for two years. He was appointed U.S. Attorney and district judge by President Ronald Regan.
After graduating from Syracuse University and the New York University School of Law, Nevas worked in the private practice of law for 30 years with the exception of two years of service in the U.S. army in the early 1950s.
In addition to his election to the state house, he served on the Westport Board of Finance, was a local justice of the peace and active in civic organizations. In the 1960s, he joined the civil rights movement, traveling to Mississippi where he provided pro bono representation to arrested activists.
After federal service he returned to private practice in mediation and arbitration. During that period, former Gov. Jodi Rell appointed Nevas to chair the state's investigation into the causes of the deadly 2010 explosion at the Kleen Energy power plant in Middletown.
Funeral services will take place at Temple Israel, 14 Coleytown Road, on Tuesday, April 22 at 10 a.m. followed by burial at the Independent Hebrew Cemetery, 135 Richards Ave., Norwalk.
