by Brandon Whiting, Inside Investigator
July 27, 2026
At the Jan. 8, 2025, sentencing of Manuel Santiago, who pleaded guilty to three counts of fourth-degree sexual assault and three counts of risk of injury to a child in Waterbury Superior Court, Judge Joseph Schwartz issued a protective order, stipulating that he never contact his three victims or their mothers. Schwartz told Sandoval that a violation of it would be a “felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.”
In September 2025, Santiago called Denise, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of two of his victims, twice. In April, Denise told Inside Investigator that she attempted to get authorities to act on these violations of the protective order to no avail. Now, after being notified that Santiago’s release date had been moved up yet again, Denise said she tried to get authorities to act on the protective order violations again, to no avail. Santiago was ultimately released on July 8th.
“I was still adamant that the protective order was going to be looked into,” said Denise of her efforts preceding his release. “I wrote a letter to the Chief State’s Attorney over in Rocky Hill — well, I wrote two letters.”
Denise shared the letters, written on June 13, with Inside Investigator; the first asked the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office (CSAO) and the state Office of the Victim Advocate (OVA) to conduct “an immediate state-level investigation” of the Waterbury State’s Attorney’s Office for “a severe violation of victims’ rights” regarding Santiago’s “unlawful” sentence modification.
“Manuel A. Santiago was sentenced for the sexual assault of my two minor daughters back in April 2025,” wrote Denise. “In December, I discovered that the local District Attorney Maureen Platt, the defense counsel Tanisha Williams and Judge Corrine Klatt, a judge who did not originally hear the case, held an unnotified proceeding to modify his sentence. This modification was hidden from us, directly violating our constitutional rights under Connecticut’s Victim’s Rights Amendment to be notified and present at all post-conviction proceedings.”
Her second letter, addressed to the State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations, the CSAO and the OVA, requested that action be taken for the previous protective order violations.
“I am writing to demand the immediate intervention of state authorities to arrest and charge incarcerated offender Manuel A. Santiago Jr for violating a criminal protective order,” wrote Denise. “The offender is currently scheduled for release on July 7, 2026, due to ‘good behavior.’ He is not behaving well; he committed a felony while incarcerated.”
Denise said she heard back from the CSAO, who told her a detective would be looking into the violation, as well as Merit Lajoie, a complaint officer at the OVA, who told her, “First things first, I want you to get a restraining order,” said Denise. Lajoie explained that the protective order only bars Santiago from attempting to visit her at her home. Shortly after, Denise heard from a detective at the Waterbury Police Department, who tried to tell her that the calls were not a violation of the protective order.
“He called to tell me that the protective order in question was only for [one of her daughters], and only had three conditions,” said Denise. “I said, ‘But there should have been a protective order in place for all three victims, and God as my witness, I recall there being a fourth condition that basically stated that he could not have contact with the house or anybody within it.'”
After the call, Lajoie confirmed that Denise was right and that the protective order contained a clause barring Santiago from contacting her or her daughters until 2073. After reiterating the protective order to the Waterbury detective, she then had Lajoie call him to straighten it out. After that call, the Waterbury Police called her back to tell her she was right and that he had the call logs and was “filing as we speak for a warrant,” said Denise. Denise said this call took place on the first “Tuesday or Wednesday” of July.
Around that same time, Denise went to file for a restraining order at the Milford Courthouse. Unbeknownst to her while filing was that she needed to request a separate form to ensure her address would remain undisclosed to Santiago when he was provided the restraining order. Denise said she only found out when she talked to the Marshal who served him on July 3.
“I said, ‘So he just signs the paper, right? You gave him the paper, but he doesn’t have my address, right?'” Denise recalled. “He goes, ‘Ma’am, whatever you gave me to serve him, is what I served him with,’ and I look back up at [the paper] and that’s when I realized.”
Denise said, “we just handed him me and my children on a platter,” and said she “didn’t know enough” to ask for the restraining order to be filed without her address included. Despite this error, Denise still felt “a little bit of peace of mind” after having it filed.
“As I’m doing that, the detective is calling and saying that they’ve got the warrant being applied for,” said Denise. “And because of the threat of continued collusion, and the threat of conflict of interest, they’re sending it to New Haven. And I said, ‘Okay, good to know.’ Like, I didn’t know that they were going to do that, and so I was like, ‘Well, that’s good, we can bypass [Waterbury State’s Attorney Maureen] Platt altogether.'”
Despite this news, Denise said that when she called the Department of Corrections on July 7th to check and see if he would be held, she was told that, “there’s nothing holding him.” She then called New Haven’s State’s Attorney, Jack Doyle, to see how that could be. After being told that someone from the office would call her back, Denise then received another call from the Waterbury Police.
“He goes, ‘I have really shitty news,'” said Denise. “I’m like, ‘Please, I don’t have time for shitty news. I need good news,’ and he goes, ‘They denied the warrant.'”
Furious, Denise called back the New Haven’s State’s Attorney’s Office, and “didn’t give them a chance to get a word in.”
“You guys literally had this man in your custody and he violated a protective order,” said Denise. “Then you had him in your custody still, and you had the opportunity to hold him accountable for that violation, and you didn’t fucking sign the warrant. So you know what? Screw you. Screw your family. I hope your kids never have to be sexually assaulted and find out that their daddy won’t protect them.”
Denise said she still does not know why the warrant was denied, as she still hasn’t received a call back from the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office. The New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office did not respond to Inside Investigator’s inquiries on the subject either. An officer from the Waterbury Police Department told Inside Investigator that the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office did “not find probable cause” for the warrant.
Since his release, Denise was informed that Santiago has been made to take sex offender programming and is being GPS monitored to ensure he doesn’t approach her home, workplace, or the workplaces of her daughters, which gives her some degree of solace. Despite this, she is still upset.
“I’m still very angry,” said Denise. “The GPS — I don’t really know what prompted it, but regardless, it’s on for a minute, and that’s golden, so at least I have a little bit of peace of mind, but angry? Yes, very, very much so.”
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