A man with a long record of domestic violence who was accused of raping a woman with whom he was in a relationship in Enfield in 2015 has accepted a plea bargain in which he was convicted of reduced charges and faces a likely sentence of three years in prison.
DOMESTIC DEAL
DEFENDANT: Daniel J. Candella, 35, most recently of Grove Street in Manchester.
CONVICTIONS: Fourth-degree sexual assault and first-degree unlawful restraint in Enfield incident on Dec. 19, 2015; violating a family violence protective order in Manchester on April 9, 2022.
LIKELY SENTENCE: 10 years, suspended after three years in prison, followed by five years of probation.
Daniel J. Candella, 35, who most recently listed an address on Grove Street in Manchester, was convicted in the Hartford Superior Court plea bargain of fourth-degree sexual assault and first-degree unlawful restraint in the 2015 incident. He had originally been charged with first-degree sexual assault.
He entered the pleas in that case under the Alford doctrine, meaning that he didn’t admit guilt but acknowledged that the prosecution’s evidence was sufficient for a conviction at trial.
In the same plea bargain, Candella admitted he was guilty of violating a family violence protective order in Manchester in April 2022.
Sentencing is scheduled for May 3. The three-year prison term is likely to be followed by five years of probation, with the possibility of up to seven more years behind bars if Candella violates release conditions, court records show.
The plea bargain will resolve the cases Candella has pending in Hartford Superior Court. But he still has two unresolved cases in other courts.
He is facing a probation violation charge in Vernon Superior Court in a case in which he was convicted of second-degree strangulation after originally being accused of raping a former girlfriend. He could face up to 3 1/2 more years behind bars in that case.
He also has a case pending in Manchester Superior Court in which Norwich police charged him with crimes that include second-degree threatening and violating a family violence protective order in late January.
Candella was free on bond in his other cases before he was arrested Feb. 1 in the Norwich case, but he is now being held on $1.3 million bond, online records show.
Lawyer Aaron Romano, who represents Candella in most of his cases, said the Norwich case should have been transferred to the Hartford court, rather than Manchester. He declined to comment on the substance of any of the cases against Candella, saying, “Because of the nature of the charges, I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
When Candella was sentenced in 2019 in the Vernon strangulation case, he made a long statement to the judge vowing that never again would anyone be his victim.
During that sentencing, Elizabeth Leaming, who was then a prosecutor and is now a judge, said Candella had consistently abused substances and women over the years. Recently, though, his violence against women had escalated, she said. Leaming added that she hoped Candella would benefit from treatment in prison and would never abuse another woman again.
The woman who reported the abuse to police wrote in a statement read at the sentencing that Candella’s actions had a lasting impact on her. She said she suffered from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and still feared at times that he would find her and harm her as revenge for calling police.
Candella said in his statement at the 2019 sentencing that the past 18 years of his life had been clouded by his abuse of drugs and alcohol. Only since gaining sobriety, he said, had he realized how his past choices and actions had harmed the people around him.