Christopher Dukes Continues to Seek Justice

Samantha Bender

March 10, 2021

On March 5, A crowd gathered outside of Central's Student Center to support former Director of Student Conduct, Christopher Dukes, whose wife, Christine A. Berenbach, accused of assaulting and kidnapping her at their Hartford home in 2018.

Dukes has a 30-year history working for Central, where he started in an entry-level position and worked his way up the ranks. He has been fighting for more than two years to get his career back.

"I need to introduce myself to people because, for whatever reason, people thought it was appropriate to create a new identity for me. So I need to let you know who I am," Dukes said. "My name is Christopher Dukes… the most important thing to know about me is that I am a child of the most high God who has seen me through everything that I've been through."

He provided detailed proof of his innocence at the rally held on Friday, February 26. Phone records read at the protest Friday revealed Dukes' activity leading up to the incident, as well as Berenbach's phone activity during and after the incident.

Dukes shared that approximately four months after his arrest, on September 4, 2018, the Hartford Police Department claimed that Dukes used duct tape to bound and restrain his wife. They submitted duct tape evidence to the state forensic lab and received the results on May 14, 2019.

"They knew, on that date, that I was an innocent individual," Dukes said. "They knew beforehand, because on January 30 of 2019, I reported to the court and to the prosecutors that I was being falsely accused, that my children and I were swatted. They laughed at me."

At the rally, Dukes stated that when they took a collection of the DNA evidence from his basement floor, it was fabricated by his wife and a Hartford police offer. The results show that on one particular piece of duct tape, there was a mixture of DNA.

The mixture of DNA consisted of Dukes, the owner of the duct tape, who had used it eleven days before and put it down on the counter, his wife's DNA which was found on the non-adhesive side, along with the police officer who's identity will not be confirmed by the Hartford Police Department. On the second piece of duct tape, there was no mixture of DNA, only his wife's.

"They knew, by my DNA not being on both pieces, there's no way I committed that crime," Dukes said. "They withheld these results for seven weeks before they gave them to the defense."

The state was presented with an analysis of all of Berenbach's statements and identified 506 false statements from every time she testified, from the 9-1-1 call, to the DCF report. Of those statements, 442 were found to be provable violations of perjury, though Berenbach has still not faced any jail time.

The accusation that Dukes lured his wife to the basement between 10 p.m and 12 a.m. and started choking, strangling, and beating her was disproven by phone records, which revealed that at 10:21 p.m Berenbach texted her boyfriend, who was also her accomplice.

"How can you text your boyfriend at 10:21 if you've been beaten for the last 21 minutes?" Dukes asked. "How come that text message was never provided to authorities?"

Dukes pointed out that CCSU has dealt with several misconduct cases where students were victims, which were all buried and resulted in very little disciplinary action, even after Dukes brought reports up to administration. Dukes pointed out that all of them had one thing in common: they involved white males.

After firing Dukes and claiming to have done an investigation, CCSU never wrote a report on Dukes. He has voiced several demands he has for the university; including an investigation into any collusion between the State Attorneys office in Hartford and the Chief State Attorneys office in Rocky Hill, as well as the removal of himself from the "persona non grata list", which he says people are put on if officials believe they are a threat to people on campus.

On November 30, 2020, an arbitrator conferred Dukes was credible and was terminated from CCSU without just cause. According to the arbitrator, the allegations were "not corroborated" and "contradicted by evidence", and they have ruled Dukes be reinstated as Director of Student Conduct and fully compensated. CCSU is currently appealing the arbitrator's decision.