Republican Mayor Stole $207k from Taxpayers. Then she ran for Governor.
You Won't Believe What She Bought
Erin Stewart suspended her campaign for governor on May 14. She did it within an hour of the city releasing a report detailing how she’d spent New Britain taxpayer money for over a decade.
She read that report and knew it was over.
$207,000 on a City Credit Card
Stewart served as New Britain’s mayor for 12 years and ran up $207,076.07 on her city-issued credit card. The accounting records called all of it office supplies. The receipts told a very different story.
Her husband turned 40 in 2022. Stewart threw him a party on the taxpayers’ dime, charging birthday balloons, cocktail napkins, Trump gag cards, a vest, swim trunks, and a hat to the city card. Everything delivered to her house. Everything logged as office supplies.
The rest of the charges read like a personal shopping list. Women’s clothing, men’s clothing, children’s clothing, a yoga mat, a salad spinner, power tools, diapers, beach toys, a lighted vanity mirror, baby formula, maternity clothing, children’s bed sheets, and Halloween decorations. All billed to New Britain taxpayers. Right before her wedding in 2018, she charged a makeup artist and $1,374 worth of wedding invitation printing to the city. On her own birthday in 2023, she put a $531.62 dinner at the Capital Grille in Hartford on the public tab.
More than half the purchases came with zero receipts. Of the charges that did have documentation, $22,600 worth of goods were shipped straight to her home.
Then Came the Tuition
On top of the credit card spending, NBC Connecticut reported that Stewart collected over $31,500 in city reimbursements to cover her own graduate school tuition at the University of New Haven between 2021 and 2022.
She didn’t just ask for the money. She engineered a system to get it. Stewart got the city to quietly change the account that normally funds employee healthcare costs so it would also cover education expenses. Then she signed a special memorandum of agreement making the city responsible for finishing her master’s degree as long as she passed her courses and stayed employed. Taxpayer dollars set aside for workers’ medical needs paid for the mayor’s personal graduate degree instead.
“Deliberate and Potentially Criminal”
Democrat Bobby Sanchez replaced Stewart as mayor and he has not held back. “This does not seem to be just a simple lapse in judgment, but represents a deliberate and potentially criminal effort to circumvent the rules that exist to protect taxpayers and ensure transparency in government,” Sanchez said.
He hired outside investigators. The chief state’s attorney’s office and State Police opened a separate inquiry into whether city tax bills were backdated under Stewart’s watch. The FBI has since joined the investigation. Connecticut State Police are actively involved. Stewart’s attorney declined to comment on any of it.
Her Explanation Falls Apart Immediately
Stewart claims everything she purchased benefited the community somehow, pointing to events, raffle prizes, food drives, and employee appreciation as justification. A salad spinner, maternity clothes, and her husband’s birthday balloons apparently all served the public interest according to her.
She also admitted other city employees used her card at various points, which directly violates city policy. Her defense was that it was fine because they asked her first.
That’s the whole defense.
She Was Running for Governor
Stewart spent years building toward a governor’s race, arriving at the state GOP convention with real momentum and asking Connecticut voters to hand her control over a state budget that dwarfs anything New Britain ever had.
She quit within an hour of the city releasing its report. No press conference, no pushback, no fight. Just gone.
Politicians who have nothing to hide don’t disappear that fast.