A 17-year-old New Hampshire prep school student who was missing for nearly 24 hours has been found in Connecticut.

Authorities said Phillips Exeter Academy student Jed Breen was found safe and healthy in Hartford on Wednesday and has since been reunited.

"I would definitely like to report some happy news. Jed has been returned to his family," Exeter Police Chief William Schupe said Wednesday afternoon.

Schupe said IT professionals proved to be crucial in helping police find Breen by tracking down the IP addresses the teen was using to send his family emails.

"Through that we were able to get some out-of-state authorities to locate Jed, and again, reunite him with his family," Schupe said.

Foul play was not a factor in Breen's disappearance, police said.

Breen was last seen leaving a hospital Tuesday evening after being treated for dehydration. He was taken to Exeter Hospital when he was discovered passed out on a neighbors' lawn following a run, according to the teen's uncle.

Schupe had said Breen was seen leaving the hospital in the direction of an outdoor walking path called the PEA trail near the Phillips Exeter football stadium.

Breen's uncle said the teen lives on campus with his family, as his mother is an English teacher at the prep school.

"We are so relieved and grateful that Jed has been located," his family said in a statement. "Jed is now safe with family members. Going forward we want to provide him all the support he needs. We're asking others to give him privacy as we all regroup after a difficult 24 hours."

University of Connecticut's (UConn) former basketball coach Jim Calhoun is coming out of retirement to help the University of St. Joseph's first basketball program, according to reports.

Calhoun is a Hall of Famer who led UConn's mens basketball team to three national championships.

He's been retired since 2012, but according to the ESPN, he will a consultant for the university's Division III school in West Hartford.

Calhoun would be responsible for helping create the school's first basketball program. The St. Joseph BlueJays are scheduled to begin playing in the fall of 2018 when the university admits full-time, traditional male undergrad students for the first time.

St. Joseph's was formerly an all-female school.

At his annual golf tournament in August, Calhoun talked about how much he missed coaching.

"It's not a great day. You go in and you play a game, you win it. It feels like 85 degrees, perfect weather and you get on that cause a group of us got up and worked for the last three or four months to get this and we did it. Together we did it, and that's the part that I really miss," Calhoun said.

The athletic director at St. Joseph, Bill Carderelli, coached with Calhoun in Storrs in 1986.

Calhoun built the UConn basketball program and would have to do it from scratch again at St. Joseph.

Crews worked on Wednesday night to put out an attic fire in New Haven. 

Firefighters said the fire happened on Dagget Street around 9:30 p.m.

No other details were immeidately available. 

Check back for updates. 

Gov. Dannel Malloy strongly hinted Wednesday that he will shortly veto the Republican budget bill that passed the General Assembly more than 10 days ago.

He said the budget, which passed with Democrat votes in both the House and Senate, is a measure that he can't sign.

“I have one vote," Malloy said during a news conference following bipartisan budget talks with House and Senate leaders. "I am likely to exercise that one vote in the coming days with respect to the existing budget, but I’m hopeful we can get to a budget I can sign.”

The Republican budget narrowly passed the House, but sailed through the Senate with three Democrats breaking ranks, and siding with the minority party.

The budget depends on projected retirement savings due to higher contributions a decade from now, leading to decreased payments for existing obligations. Those changes are what Malloy has described as "illegal," because he said they result in a backdoor to avoid collective bargaining.

Republicans have started a statewide tour, making their pitch to locals as to why the governor should sign the budget.

Sen. Len Fasano, the top Republican in the Senate, said the only budget that has reached the governor's desk with bipartisan support is the GOP proposal, which he said is reason enough for him to sign it.

Fasano said he would be open to coming back in a Special Session to make changes to the budget saying, “Let’s make that the law and then we can do amendments to it but are you really going to leave the state without a budget?”

Following the news conferences, there was no indication that a bipartisan budget agreement was imminent, or even on the horizon.

A new lawsuit involving crumbling concrete named former Stafford Springs concrete company J.J. Mottes as a co-defendant.

This summer an exclusive NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters investigation shared the story of Marya Mahoney.

Her Ellington garage tested positive for pyrrhotite, a naturally occurring mineral experts say causes concrete to crack.

The concrete was poured by J.J. Mottes in 2013, making it perhaps the most recent project known to have crumbling concrete.

A spokesman for J.J. Mottes has told us the company is out of business, and it insists its concrete is not to blame, but rather poor workmanship by installers.

You can watch the original story we aired on Marya Mahoney here.

Long waits and being late for work are some of the gripes passengers have with the Southeast Area Transit District (SEAT) bus system.

“If you’re paying to go somewhere you should hurry up and go,” said Taj Johnson of New London, who uses SEAT buses to get around town.

Delays have made him late multiple times.

“It could be a job interview. It could be me going to pick up somebody, like a family member from school. It could be anything,” Johnson said.

Caitlyn Turner has also been late to her job.

“Right now they’re doing a whole bunch of construction so now there are a lot of buses that are being delayed 15 minutes sometimes,” said Turner, an East Lyme resident.

SEAT said Connecticut’s money problems are to blame. Personnel costs are the biggest part of SEAT’s operating budget, general manager Michael Carroll said.

“We would love to have more service, we would love extra drivers, obviously,” he added.

For the last couple of years, SEAT's state funding has been frozen in place, according to Carroll, adding about 70 percent of funding comes from the state, about 20 percent comes from fare revenue and the last 10 percent from the 10 local towns participating in the program.

Spare buses and spare drivers are limited. Plus with the state budget is in flux, Carroll fears cuts.

“We don’t have a lot of staff that we can cut, so unfortunately if funding is cut, we’re going to have to look at service reductions,” Carroll said.

Passengers can track buses in real time and SEAT works to be transparent on Facebook and Twitter when there is a delay like there was Wednesday morning.

“We schedule two extra drivers every day when we can find them. This morning we had three drivers call out at the last minute,” Carroll said.

Some passengers told NBC Connecticut they don’t normally see service interruptions. In fact, Carroll said it makes up less than 1 percent of the total service, but he understands the frustration and would be willing to talk with anyone affected to see if SEAT can help make it right.

Federal investigators have revealed a wide-ranging alleged bribery scheme in men's college basketball, and some experts say the only way to fix the recruiting system is by paying players, NBC News reported.

Prosecutors have alleged that Adidas supplied as much as $150,000 to secure at least three top high school recruits' attendance at two universities sponsored by the shoe company.

College basketball has brought in millions of dollars every year for top-tier colleges, coaches, advertisers and bookmakers, and overhauling it will start with the NCAA.

"There's this underground network already going on of secret deals and corruption," said Marc Edelman, a Baruch College associate law professor who focuses on sports and gambling. "The most reasonable way to resolve this matter would be to overturn the NCAA principle of amateurism, which would force the compensation of college athletes into an open and above-board market."

Two people were injured in a four-vehicle crash on Route 4 in Farmington just after 6:15 a.m. Thursday and police said one of the vehicles caught fire.

Four cars collided at the intersection of Pilgrim Path, which is just west of the Interstate 84 ramps, and Route 4 was closed from that spot to Mountain Spring Road, but it has reopened, according to police.

The people who were taken to the hospital do not have life-threatening injuries, police said.

Officers are investigating the crash and ask anyone with information to call 860-675-2400.

Two people will be displaced until at least this evening after a fire at 1081 Boulevard in West Hartford. 

Officials said there was a small fire in a bedroom om the second floor and it was knocked down quickly. 

Everyone got out safely. 

The two people who live on the second floor will be displaced for at least this evening. 

The building owner will inspect the property to assess the damage.

A Bridgeport man has been charged in a five-year-old cold case murder in Norwalk.

Police said they have charged 22-year-old Hakeem Atkinson, of Bridgeport, with the murder of Joseph “Jabs” Bateman, who was shot behind the Avalon Gates housing complex on Belden Avenue in Norwalk on Feb. 3, 2012.

Police said Atkinson was 16 years old when Bateman was shot to death and the crime was related to street gang activity.

Bateman’s death was featured on the nine of diamonds card in the fourth edition of the cold case playing cards produced in conjunction with the Department of Correction and sold to inmates in the Connecticut corrections system, police said.

Atkinson surrendered to Norwalk police this morning and is being held on $1 million bond.

He will be arraigned today at Norwalk Superior Court.

A popular shrub called Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) remains on some garden center shelves in Connecticut in spite of attempts to have it added to the list of invasive species the state prohibits from sale.

State researchers found Japanese barberry plays a role in the rising population of diseased ticks, but local homeowners and businesses continue to buy and plant the shrubs. Denis Horgan of West Hartford, whose neighbors have multiple Japanese barberry’s in their yards, told the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters he was troubled to learn of the plant’s connection to Lyme disease.

“Everyone knows about Lyme disease… anything that would add to that you’d think would be very well known,” Horgan said.

At least four northeastern states where Lyme disease is prevalent, including Massachusetts and New York, have barred Japanese barberry from sale. Though Connecticut recognizes it as an invasive plant, nurseries here both grow and sell it.

Representative Mary Mushinsky (D-Wallingford) fought to have Japanese barberry added to the list of 80 plants banned in our state. She claims the nursery industry lobbied against a ban because the barberry is a big seller.

“They’ve invested a lot and they don’t want to lose that investment. It’s as simple as that,” Mushinsky said.

In 2010, she agreed to drop the push for a ban after the Connecticut Nursery and Landscape Association (CNLA) volunteered to phase out sales of some varieties, but big box stores are not part of that agreement. Its invasiveness continues to worry Mushinsky.

“Every spring I open up the flyers that come in the paper and I see ads for the barberry,” she told the Troubleshooters.

The same year, state researchers discovered Lyme disease-carrying tick populations are 12 times higher than normal in forests infested with Japanese barberry.

University of Connecticut Forestry Professor Tom Worthley said removing Japanese barberry reduces the Lyme disease-carrying tick population by as much as 60 percent, but controlling the resilient bushes is no easy task.

“Just cutting it doesn’t control it,” Worthley explained as a crew of his UCONN students demonstrated how to use flame weeders, herbicide, or repeated cuttings over time to kill it off.

Worthley said it will be an uphill battle as long as invasive varieties of Japanese barberry are sold, but the Troubleshooters learned a potential solution is in the works.

Across campus at UConn, Dr. Mark Brand is hard at work breeding Japanese barberry that can’t reproduce. He explained that these sterile barberries will occasionally have seeds that are not viable, much like seedless watermelons and grapes.

Dr. Brand’s work has been funded in part by the USDA and the nursery industry. He told NBC Connecticut it is part of an effort to, “get rid of bad invasive forms of the plant but allow sterile forms.”

His sterile barberries are already in production in Connecticut and are exclusively licensed to independent nurseries for sale as early as 2018.

Mushinsky said she feels the development is a step in the right direction, but plans to introduce legislation banning sales of invasive Japanese barberry.

She explained, “you really have to put this plant in the forbidden list,” to slow the rising rate of infection in ticks and, in turn, humans.

The Troubleshooters reached out multiple times to the Connecticut Nursery and Landscape Association for this report, but they have yet to respond.

For more information on how Japanese barberry is connected to Lyme disease in ticks, click here.

To see how experts say to remove any Japanese barberry you may have near your home, click here.

A small group called Keep Griswold Quiet is fighting a proposed state police firearms training facility in town and the members gathered outside the State Capitol Thursday. 

The chairwoman of the group, Pamela Patalano, said many people move to Griswold for the peace and quiet and to embrace the precious recreational land of eastern Connecticut. 

“People around the state come,” Patalano said. “They hike, we have Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, tons of horse camps that go riding up there.” 

The “there” Patalano referred to is the Pachaug State Forest. 

Voluntown resident and Keep Griswold Quiet member Bob Panko said it’s the last place the state police should be considering. 

“It is smack in the middle of the most heavily used part of the Pachaug state forest”, Panko said. “The location just doesn’t make any sense.” 

In June 2016, a majority of residents voted against the bid by state police to build a new gun range. 

The proposal calls for a 55,000 square-foot training center in the forest and it has a $22 million price tag. 

“The state wants to spend $22 million on a facility and the state’s broke,” Patalano said. “So how do they justify that? I understand they’re bonding the money out, but eventually, the taxpayers have to absorb that cost anyway.” 

State police said they need this space to simulate real-life scenarios involving guns. They also said the current training facility in Simsbury isn’t conducive to expansion. 

Keep Griswold Quiet, however, said there are other options, like East Haven or Stone Ranch Facility. The process of approving this proposal, according to state police, is governed by the state, not local regulations. 

More information about the proposed firearm facility is posted on the state of Connecticut website.

The Connecticut Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in an appeal on a 12-year-old lawsuit about how education is funded in the state.

A non-profit organization, the Connecticut Coalition For Justice In Education Funding, filed a lawsuit in 2005 that argues wealthy towns get more money for education at the expense of the poorer districts.

“We believe that every child, regardless of the zip code that they live in, or the zeros at the end of their parents’ income, should receive the same quality of education,” Rev. Abraham Hernandez, of Branford, said.

A Superior Court judge sided last September with the coalition and said he wants a rational funding plan, high school graduation standards, a definition of elementary education, teacher evaluation standards, teacher pay standards and reforms to special education.

The attorney general, however, appealed the decision and the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.

Gov. Dannel Malloy has vetoed the budget.

After months without a state budget, the General Assembly passed the Republican-backed version of the spending plan and the governor had been vowing to veto it.

On Thursday, the governor sent a letter to the Secretary of the State saying he is returning the budget without his signature.

"Unfortunately, this budget does not balance, risks potential litigation, and undermines our fiscal stability, educational system, and economic development efforts," Malloy wrote. 

He went on to say the budget adopts changes to the state's pension plan that are "financially and legally unsound" and it would do "lasting harm" to the state's education system.

"I cannot overstate the urgency and need for all parties to come together to negotiate a realistic, responsible budget that addresses our state's fiscal issues, distributes education aid equitably, and balances without the use of illusory gimmicks," Malloy wrote.

He added that the failure to reach a deal soon could risk federal approval of $343.9 million in increased provider tax revenue and $366.5 million in federal Medicaid reimbursement. 

The iPhone is an incredibly advanced device, but some versions have a very old piece of technology embedded in it lying dormant: a radio receiver.

Now, the chairman of the U.S. agency that regulates radio, phones and other forms of communication wants Apple to activate the FM chips in iPhones to help get information to Puerto Ricans, whose island is near-totally blacked-out after Hurricane Maria hit land with devastating force last week.

"When wireless networks go down during a natural disaster, smartphones with activated FM chips can allow Americans to get vital access to life-saving information," said Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai Thursday in a statement. "I applaud those companies that have done the right thing by activating the FM chips in their phones. Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted doing so."

Pai's call was backed by the National Association of Broadcasters, which also urged Apple to "light up the FM chip."

"It is time for Apple to step up to the plate and put the safety of the American people first," Pai said in his statement.

Puerto Rico is in the midst of what San Juan's mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, House Speaker Paul Ryan and others have called a humanitarian crisis. Nearly half the island is without water and about all electricity customers without power as of Wednesday, according to federal agencies' most recent updates.

About nine in 10 cellphone sites were still out of service by Wednesday, and residents have complained that there's no way for them to get vital news about where to get supplies. Many people continue to be unable simply to reach family members on the mainland.

Usually, smartphones get data through the internet, but with so much of the island crippled, internet service is very hard to come by. But the FM chips that most phones are made with would allow them to tune into radio frequencies without anything other than power — if the chips are activated, and users have an app downloaded that can access broadcasts.

Pai has long identified this capability as being important option for smartphone owners to have when disasters hit, and the FCC has recognized that it's particularly useful in disaster situations when the internet is hard to access.

"I don't think people realize how vulnerable people get," said former FEMA Administator Craig Fugate, citing cell system overload during Hurricane Sandy and the Virginia earthquake, in an interview with NAB. 

FEMA urges people to have battery-powered radios in their disaster preparedness kits, but Fugate said in the 2014 interview, "If your radio's now in your cellphone, that's one less device that you have to have extra."

Currently, the NAB-supported NextRadio app, which can broadcast from the FM chip, is available on a wide variety of Samsung, HTC, Moto and other smartphones. But not iPhones.

Apple did not respond when Wired wrote about the issue of smartphones' FM chips last year. In a statement to NBC on Thursday, an Apple spokesperson said that its iPhone 7 and new iPhone 8 do not have FM radio chips in them "nor do they have antennas designed to support FM signals, so it is not possible to enable FM reception in these products."

"Apple cares deeply about the safety of our users, especially during times of crisis and that’s why we have engineered modern safety solutions into our products," Apple said in a statement. "Users can dial emergency services and access Medical ID card information directly from the Lock Screen, and we enable government emergency notifications, ranging from Weather Advisories to AMBER alerts."

Apple did not address the older models of iPhones, and the FCC declined to comment on the company's statement.

Activating the FM chip wouldn't immediately help anyone in Puerto Rico without internet already. But advocates argue it would help Americans be prepared for the next disaster.

Wireless companies have long urged Congress to let FM chip activation be up to individual carriers.

Asked at a 2013 congressional hearing why cellphone providers are reluctant to activatation of the chips, then-executive vice-president of the wireless association CTIA, Christopher Guttman-McCabe, said, "we leave it up to that ecosystem, and the carriers will compete against each other as well as the handset manufacturers."

In a recent statement, CTIA spokesman Nick Ludlum touted wireless providers' quick response to the three recent hurricanes that hit the United States, including by bringing in portable generators and cell equipment.

NBC reached out to the CTIA for a response to Pai's statement.

Two people who were stranded on a reef in Fairfield Wednesday night are OK after one was rescued and the other somehow made it to shore and was able to get a cab home to New York, according to the Fairfield Fire Department. 

Fire crews responded to Penfield Lighthouse around 6:45 a.m. Friday after receiving a call about a person in distress and a fire marine unit found the man. 

He said he and another person had been fishing on the reef after walking there from shore around 7 p.m. Thursday. 

When fog rolled in around 11 p.m., they became disoriented and separated while trying to get off the reef. The man who was rescued was able to swim to Penfield Lighthouse when tide overtook the reef, but he didn’t know where the other person was, according to the fire department. 

He was transported to shore and evaluated. 

Fairfield fire marine units then began searching for the other person and learned that he’d managed to swim to shore. 

When authorities contacted him, he said he was not injured and had taken a cab home to Brewster, New York. 

"The individuals involved in this case were extremely fortunate to escape harm. Fishing off Penfield Reef, especially in darkness and fog, can be exceptionally hazardous as environmental conditions often change rapidly. Personal protective equipment such as flotation, signaling devices, and notifying others of your fishing plan can make the difference in survival when conditions turn bad," Assistant Fire Chief Roger Caisse said in a statement. 

Florida authorities said a Virginia woman arrested Tuesday in connection to a decades-old cold case dubbed the "Clown Murder" could face the death penalty.

Sheila Keen Warren, 54, has been indicted on a first-degree murder with a firearm charge in the May 26, 1990 killing of Marlene Warren, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said at a news conference Thursday.

Warren was arrested Tuesday in Washington County, Va., where she had been living with husband Michael Warren, who at the time of the shooting was married to Marlene Warren. Authorities said the couple married in 2002.

Warren could face life in prison or, potentially, the death penalty, Aronberg said, but noted that he won't make an announcement on whether the death penalty will be sought until Warren is extradited to Palm Beach County.

Detectives say on a May morning in 1990, Marlene Warren was at her Wellington home with her son and several of his friends when the doorbell rang, authorities said. Warren answered her front door to find a clown in an orange wig, red nose and white face paint, handing her carnations and foil balloons. 

"How nice," she said.

The clown then pulled out a gun and shot her in the face, detectives said. Witnesses recalled hearing a gunshot and seeing Warren fall to the ground as the clown "calmly" walked back to a waiting car and drove away.

Marlene Warren was taken to a nearby hospital where she died two days later.

Authorities said the case was reopened in 2014. Detectives said advances in DNA technology, combined with evidence gathered decades ago, show Sheila Keen Warren was the killer.

At the time of the shooting, Sheila Keen was an employee of Marlene Warren's husband at his used car lot. The Sun Sentinel reports the two often took long lunches together. After she separated from her first husband Richard Keen in January 1990, Michael Warren reportedly paid her rent, according to the paper.

It had been rumored she was having an affair with Michael Warren but both denied being involved in a relationship, authorities said.

"This was a tenacious effort on the part of the cold case detectives and the people from the state attorney's office and the FBI," sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at Thursday's news conference.

Over the years, detectives say, employees at a local costume shop identified Sheila Warren as the woman who had bought a clown costume a few days earlier.

And one of the two balloons — a silver one that read, "You're the Greatest" — was sold at a Publix supermarket near Marlene Warren's home. Employees told detectives a woman who looked like Warren had bought the balloons an hour before the shooting.

Detectives said new examination of DNA collected in 1990 helped establish enough evidence to make the arrest. They did not give any details on the genetic material or where it was found.

"Technological advances helped crack this case and hopefully will bring justice to the family of Marlene Warren," Aronberg said.

Sheila Warren has waived extradition and is expected to be transfered to Palm Beach County. Attorney information wasn't immediately available.

Michael Warren, 65, has not been charged, but detectives said they have not ruled him out as a suspect and said he was interviewed again Wednesday.

"We don't know if there will be anyone else charged in this, that remains to be seen," Bradshaw said.

A Pennsylvania-based company has agreed to pay $95 million in criminal fines for illegally employing undocumented immigrants. The judgment is the largest of its kind in U.S. history, federal prosecutors said.

Asplundh Tree Expert, based in Willow Grove and described by federal officials as one of the largest privately-held companies in the country, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Philadelphia, agreeing to an $80 million criminal forfeiture money judgment and a $15 million civil payment.

The scheme to unlawfully employ undocumented immigrants was perpetrated throughout the ranks of Asplundh from 2010 to December 2014, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Asplundh, a 90-year-old family owned business, specializes in ensuring utility lines are clear from tree branches. They employ more than 30,000 people in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

"The highest levels of Asplundh management remained willfully blind while lower level managers hired and rehired employees they knew to be ineligible to work in the United States," according to the statement.

Asplundh incentivized managers who skirted immigration law, federal prosecutors said.

Company Chairman and CEO Scott Asplundh said in a statement posted to its website about "the DOJ matter" that Asplundh was aware of the federal investigation since 2015.

He said the company took "immediate correction action."

"Consequently, the circumstances and practices of the past, which gave rise to the investigation, have been addressed and eliminated going forward," Asplundh said.

He apologized to customers and accepted "responsibility for the charges."

The company also agreed to present a compliance program to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The program included revising hiring procedures to verify each ID examination for every new hire and implementing a photo ID card system.

Some families from Puerto Rico have relocated because of the devastation Hurricane Maria has caused and the governor is offering guidelines to schools statewide in the event that displaced children enroll in local districts.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and State Department of Education Commissioner Dianna R. Wentzell said they are sending guidance to every school superintendent in the state, outlining suggested protocols to ensure that any student arriving from Puerto Rico, or any affected storm area, has immediate access to school and expedited connections to the services they might need.

“When tragedy strikes, it is often our children who are most at risk,” Malloy said in a statement. “We anticipate many families affected by the disaster in Puerto Rico may seek refuge in our state. As required by federal law, it is imperative that young children who have been displaced are enrolled in schools immediately and are provided with health and other services necessary to ensure their academic success.”

Waterbury schools are getting ready to welcome students from Puerto Rico.

“We want to make sure that we’re ready from the day the first person comes just in case that we have a large number or just that one person,” Robert Brenker, director of personnel for education in Waterbury, said.

Commissioner Wentzell said the emotional pain and trauma that these storms have exposed countless young people to “is truly heartbreaking,”

“As educators, it is our duty to ensure that all children of school age are given access to the safety, support, and stability that our school environments provide,” she said in a statement.

The guidance state officials are providing, in English and in Spanish, includes that district personnel should be counseled to enroll displaced students immediately, as required by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

These students will also automatically qualify to receive free school meals and must also be provided with health and other related services necessary to ensure their academic success.

They also said all students experiencing homelessness must be accurately reported in the statewide public school information system.

A landlord who was accused trying to intimidate tenants into performing sex acts rather than paying rent for properties he leased has been sentenced to 16 months in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Richard Bruno, 47, of Waterford, was arrested in 2016 after New London Police started investigating allegations that Bruno was trying to extort sexual acts in lieu of cash for properties he had leased to tenants, police said.

Police said they searched the hard drive of a computer at Bruno’s home and found 46 homemade videos depicting nine different females engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Most of the videos depicted Bruno engaging in sex acts with the females, including a tenant who was 17 years old at the time, according to officials.

On four occasions, Bruno videotaped the minor victim engaging in sexual acts with him at his company’s warehouse and he paid her in either marijuana or cash, according to authorities.

As detectives investigated, Bruno solicited a person he thought was a 13-year-old girl online and arranged to pay her money and meet up with her in New London for sexual acts, police said.

When he arrived at the location they set as the meeting place, police took him into custody.

He has been detained since he was arrested and pleaded guilty on May 8 to one count of production of child pornography.

Bruno was sentenced Thursday to 16 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release for producing child pornography.

As part of his sentence, Bruno was ordered to forfeit his company’s New London warehouse, a multi-family residence he owns on West Coit Street in New London, and a van owned by his company.

He has also paid the victim restitution through a settlement in a separate federal civil case.