Connecticut has finished its criminal case against Eric Reichbart. The sentence was 30 days. The restitution is $3,650. And the sentencing judge ordered Reichbart to write the family he was convicted of stealing from a letter of apology.
The nine-page court file, provided by the GA-22 clerk's office in Milford on September 15, 2026, and confirmed by phone with Assistant Clerk Rob Kochiss, fills in what was missing when Obitley reported the July 15 sentence in July. That article ended with the restitution terms not yet publicly available. They now are.
For the family at the center of the case, the answer is $3,650 and a letter. For the other families, the answer runs through a second case that is still open.
By the Numbers
The $3,650 has a receipt trail
The restitution order matches the payments one family made to Reichbart's business, Spartan Stone and Monument, dollar for dollar.
The arrest warrant affidavit, written by West Haven Officer Jeffrey Nielsen, lays out the timeline. "Rosemary said, they went to SPARTAN STONE& MONUMENT and spoke to owner Eric Reichbart and they designed and placed a deposit on there headstone on 7/18/2021 for a price of $3,250 dollars."
The stone never came. The affidavit continues: "Rosemary said she keeps sending emails to Eric which he has kept saying there is delays or he is sick. Rosemary said Eric told her on 4/15/2024 when she went to visit Eric at there new location on 347 Forbes Ave, New Haven CT to see if the stone was in yet, she needed to pay an extra $400 dollars to get the stone in."
She paid the $400 with a debit card, at the store, that day. The stone still never came. When the family checked in March 2025, the affidavit says, the store was empty. They reported it to West Haven police on March 13, 2025.
$3,250 plus $400 is $3,650. That is the restitution figure ordered on July 15, 2026, two years and four months after the second payment and five years after the first.
The sentence, plainly
The file resolves a discrepancy Obitley flagged in July: the file's own pages disagreed about the custody term. The sentence box on the Information form reads "5 years e/s/a 30 Days." A plea-day entry reads "CAP of 5 years e/s/a 3 years." The clerk's office confirmed the first version: 30 days in custody, five years suspended hanging over him, three years of probation.
"E/s/a" means execution suspended after. Reichbart served 30 days. A probation violation puts him back before the judge with the five years available to impose.
His plea was entered under the Alford doctrine: he did not admit guilt, only that the prosecution's evidence would convict him. The plea table in the file reads "P/G u/ Alford."
The apology letter condition
The sentencing entry on the docket sheet, in Judge Grogins' July 15 orders, reads verbatim:
“"Write a letter of apology to Rosemary and Paul Roddy, screened by Probation for appropriateness, within first 30 days of probation. No contact with victims. Letters of apology will be sent to Probation who will send those letters to the Roddys."”
The order names the victims individually. It routes the letter through probation screening for "appropriateness" before the family ever sees it. And it imposes a no-contact order alongside it.
The same entry bans Reichbart from the trade for the probation term. Verbatim: "If [Reichbart] returns to work force [Reichbart] will contact Probation to make sure any business is licensed, registered and insured. During Probationary period [Reichbart] will not work in the stone business."
Read the two together. A court heard evidence that a family paid $3,650 for a headstone that never arrived, including a second payment demanded "to get the stone in," and responded with 30 days, an apology letter, and a three-year ban on working in the industry where the harm occurred. The five-year suspended sentence is the enforcement mechanism. It is only as real as his compliance.
What the order covers, and what it does not
The restitution returns exactly what the Roddys paid: $3,650. Not the full $6,500 contract price. The remaining $2,850 was never paid, so it is not a loss the court can order returned.
The order names only the Roddys. The criminal case was a single larceny count with a single set of victims. WTNH News 8 reported in September 2025 on other families, including one that paid nearly $3,000 upfront for a headstone for their mother. None of them are in this restitution order. Under Connecticut law, restitution is enforced as a condition of probation (C.G.S. 53a-30). If Reichbart stops paying, that is a probation violation.
The civil case is where the wider net is
The other families' claims are alive in a separate case: the Connecticut attorney general's consumer protection lawsuit against Spartan Stone and Monuments LLC, Eric Reichbart, and Joseph Reichbart, filed September 17, 2025 in Hartford (docket HHD-CV25-6211139-S). None of the three defendants appeared. The case was placed on the Hearings in Damages trial list on August 5, 2026. At a damages hearing, the state puts on its evidence unopposed, and the court sets the remedies.
The complaint, as described in WTNH's September 2025 reporting, alleges more than the criminal case covered. One customer paid in full for a memorial inscription and was told it would be finished in six to eight weeks. It was never delivered, and the defendants stopped answering calls and texts about a refund. Another paid approximately $6,000 on July 29, 2024 for a headstone for her daughter and sister-in-law. "Defendants failed to inform the consumer that the headstone would take more than a year to complete," the complaint reads. The same $3,250 July 2021 deposit from the criminal case appears again, described as payment for a monument at the customer's future burial site, with a refund refused in September 2024.
What can that case do that the criminal sentence did not? Three things, all written into the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Restitution available to every consumer who proves a claim. Civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation where the conduct was wilful, under C.G.S. 42-110o(b). And an injunction.
The injunction is the remedy with no expiration date. The criminal stone-business ban lasts exactly as long as the probation: three years, ending in 2029. A civil injunction stays in force until a court lifts it. The statute backs it with a penalty of its own: violating an injunction issued in a CUTPA case costs up to $25,000 per violation, under C.G.S. 42-110o(a), and the court keeps jurisdiction to enforce it.
There are limits. A civil case cannot put anyone in prison. A judgment is worth only what can be collected from it. What the attorney general will request, and what the court will order at the damages hearing, has not been decided. The statute allows an injunction. Whether Reichbart ends up under one is a question for a hearing that has not happened yet.
What the case cost taxpayers
At the Connecticut Department of Correction's published rate of $164.01 per day, the 30 days of custody cost about $4,920. Connecticut publishes no per-person cost for probation supervision, so the supervision tail is a labeled estimate: roughly $2,000 to $14,000 over three years, using federal post-conviction supervision costs ($4,742 per person per year, AO U.S. Courts FY2024) as the ceiling proxy. Criminal-justice spending on this case, custody plus supervision, lands in the range of $7,000 to $19,000.
Two caveats. The per-diem rates are averages across the whole system, and Connecticut's was verified as of August 2026. That range is only part of the bill: prosecution, public defense, and court time are excluded because no one publishes those figures, and every one of them pushes the real total higher.
These totals leave out the $3,650 restitution. That money is Reichbart's debt to the Roddys, and it runs from him to the family without passing through the state's budget.
What this means for the industry
This is the shape of accountability for headstone fraud in Connecticut as of September 2026: a criminal conviction with minimal custody, restitution to one family, and a temporary occupational ban. The longer ban, if it comes, will arrive through the civil case.
The timeline is the story for anyone who sells memorials. The family paid in July 2021. The store was empty in March 2025. Police were called the same month. The case took another 16 months to a plea and a sentence. By the time a court weighed in, the complaint was already four years old.
What families can do
If you paid Spartan Stone and Monument, Eric Reichbart, or Joseph Reichbart for a headstone that was never delivered:
- File a complaint with the Department of Consumer Protection. The AG's case rests on the complaint record. The DCP complaint portal is at portal.ct.gov/DCP.
- Check the civil docket. The AG's case is public at civilinquiry.jud.ct.gov under docket HHD-CV25-6211139-S. Damages hearings for default cases are where the court sets what the defendants owe.
- Consider small claims court. Connecticut small claims handles amounts up to $5,000, with a $95 filing fee and no lawyer required. For a single unpaid headstone deposit in the $3,000 range, it is the fastest path to a judgment.
What This Means for You
*Sources: State v. Eric Reichbart court file, GA-22 Milford, docket A22M-CR25-0128329-S (Information, docket sheet, arrest warrant affidavit of Officer Jeffrey Nielsen, West Haven PD), provided by the clerk's office September 15, 2026; clerk verification by phone, Assistant Clerk Rob Kochiss, September 15, 2026; Obitley, "30 Days for Three Years of Theft," July 20, 2026; WTNH News 8, "Connecticut attorney general files lawsuit against cemetery marker owner following News 8 exclusive," Jenn Brink, September 18, 2025; WTNH News 8 investigative reporting by Ellie Sennhenn and Jeff Derderian, September 2025 and March 2025; Connecticut attorney general civil action, Hartford Superior Court, docket HHD-CV25-6211139-S; Connecticut General Statutes 42-110o (civil penalties), 53a-30 (conditions of probation); Connecticut Department of Correction per-diem rate ($164.01/day, as cited in WTNH reporting, verified August 2026); AO U.S. Courts, federal post-conviction supervision cost, FY2024; Connecticut Judicial Branch small claims information, jud.ct.gov, 2026.*
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