Paul Green Dies at age 50

From the Journal Inquirer:

“Paul A. Green, a former Journal Inquirer reporter and editor who also served as press secretary to John G. Rowland in the U.S. House of Representatives and the governor’s office, died Wednesday at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y. An autopsy was inconclusive. He was 50.

Green attended Cornell University and was hired by the JI as a reporter in 1982, leaving in 1984 to join Rowland’s successful campaign for Congress from Connecticut’s 5th District. Green worked as press secretary in Rowland’s Washington office before becoming an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Daily News, where he won first place in a statewide newspaper editorial contest. Upon Rowland’s election as governor in 1994, Green returned to Connecticut as gubernatorial press secretary but soon resigned because of his arrest for driving while intoxicated.

Green rejoined the JI as an editor in 2000 and became state editor in 2002, helping to supervise the newspaper’s reporting about improprieties and corruption in the Rowland administration, during which the governor’s legal counsel publicly accused Green of acting on a grudge against his former boss and demanded Green’s replacement. The newspaper denied the accusation and rejected the demand. Facing impeachment by the General Assembly and federal criminal prosecution, Rowland resigned in 2004, pleaded guilty to a corruption charge, and served 10 months in federal prison.

Green also left the JI in 2004 and moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he had grown up, beginning a career in real estate. He most recently had been employed by the New Millennium agency in Brooklyn’s Park Slope section.

He leaves his mother, Connie Green of Brooklyn, and two brothers, Michael Green of Brooklyn and Richard Green of Cornwall, N.Y.

Calling hours will be held at the LaBella Funeral Home, 2625 Harway Ave. in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, on Tuesday, May 26, from 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 27, at St. Mary Roman Catholic Church, 85th Street and 23rd Avenue, also in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst section.”