Talk about trains for Christmas! Gov. Jodi M. Rell said this week that Metro-North should be getting 13 new locomotives to the tune of $25 million, so that more commuters would ride the rails to help ease highway congestion. The State Bond Commission is expected to approve the funds Friday, Dec. 9, Rell said.

“Attracting commuters has been hampered by decreasing reliability and the age of the existing rail fleet,” said Rell. “These new locomotives will improve reliability and increase flexibility in meeting the growing need on the New Haven line.”

Steve Korta, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, said that until last year the state’s rail system “had suffered from decades of neglect and deferred maintenance.”

“As we continue to invest in a first-rate rail system, we will see more and more people using commuter rail,” he said.

Wine and spirits distributor Pernod Ricard S.A. is looking to move 30 jobs from Westport to Westchester County following its acquisition of former rival distributor Allied Domecq plc, according to the Fairfield Country Business Journal.

Paris-based Pernod Ricard is expected to make a decision about the move in the next month, the report said.

The employees would join the company’s U.S. executive and administrative offices now based in White Plains but would possibly move with other workers to larger space in Purchase, N.Y.

Pernod Ricard reached a $14.2 billion deal to take over Allied Domecq last April. The company has offices on Riverside Avenue.

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that a Westport man is one of the principals involved in a Stamford-based hedge fund now the subject of a fraud investigation by federal and state officials that may involve hundreds of millions of dollars.
261 Bayberry Lane: for sale sign outside. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

The newspaper said Daniel Marino, chief financial officer of Bayou Management LLC, lives in Westport and earlier this month a visitor to his office found a six-page letter on his desk that began, “This is my suicide note and confession.”

The letter asserted that Marino, along with Bayou founder Samuel Israel III and a former partner named James Marquez, had “defrauded all these investors” from “about 1998 to now,” according to Sgt. Gary Perna of the Stamford Police Department, the report said.

The Journal quoted the police officer as saying he tracked down Marino and took him to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Reached by telephone over the weekend, Mr. Marino sounded weary and referred a reporter to his attorney, who declined to comment, the Journal said.