HERNAN: PLEASE SEEK HELP IMMEDIATELY

My phone began ringing early Sunday morning with several callers asking if I had read Hernan LaFontaine's op-ed piece in Sunday's Courant. I hadn't by that point, but I got up and got online at courant.com to read it.

After reading the defense of Perez written by LaFontaine, it should be quite clear to just about everyone why City Hall is the ethical and criminal cesspool that it is. I'm sure that LaFontaine's assessment of the jury verdict is based on his blind allegiance to the puppet master Eddie A. Perez, rather than any common sense reasoning.

LaFontaine claims in his blind review that the state failed to prove their case and that he sat in the courtroom for "weeks" listening to testimony. I saw him there on a few occasions, certainly not weeks, but he apparently missed a few key witnesses.

In claiming that the State never proved any criminal intent, I would ask him to recall a couple of witnesses testimony. Carlos Costa's testimony was damaging, and apparently credible in the eyes of the jury. His testimony pointed out one fact, that when Perez realized that people "on the streets" were talking about the dirty deals at the Mayor's residence, Perez instructed Costa to make up a bill. Hernan, that is what is known as "criminal intent".

Then I guess he missed the testimony of Inspector Michael Sullivan. Sullivan testified that Perez lied to him when he stated that he had paid the bill to Costa. Then less than an hour after Sullivan left City Hall, Perez was at the Hartford Federal Credit Union applying for a loan to pay the bill to Costa that he had just told Inspector Sullivan he had paid much earlier. Once again Hernan, that is known as criminal intent.

Then the extortion charges related to the butt ugly building. Joseph Citino testified to the e-mails and the $100,000 payoff to "take care of Abe". According to testimony, Perez stated that if Citino didn't take care of the payoff to Giles there would be no "next step" and the deal would be dead.Seems pretty clear from that testimony that extortion was in the air at City Hall.

And if that wasn't enough to prove the State's case in the eyes of the Jury, throw in the Mayor's Chief of Staff and his former Chief of Staff's testimony. The "dyslexia defense", I think, sealed the Mayor's reputation as a fraud and a liar. If one ounce of truth was in that testimony, a diagnosis of dyslexia by a doctor would heave been entered into evidence and most likely an expert witness on dyslexia would have been put on the stand.

That testimony went directly to the Mayor's character and the Jury saw right through it.

To say that State Prosecutor's didn't prove their case is the furthest thing from the truth. The State did an exceptional job proving their case, the Defense team for Perez are the one's that did a terrible job. But then again, they had nothing to work with from the start.

And if your buddy, Eddie A. Perez, wasn't so afraid of questioning from Prosecutors, he would have taken the stand to defend himself. What was he hiding that he was so afraid to be questioned about the Extortion charges?

And your allegations that the jury verdict was because of a "population that cannot adjust to a shifting cultural paradigm" seems to infer that the verdict was based on race and Caucasians that are afraid of Hispanics in positions of power. That comment proves your ignorance of the matter. The jury was made up of people that Perez and his attorney's chose.

To blame the verdict on race is more of the ignorant narrow minded thinking that continues to drag Hartford down. The verdict shows that people have no tolerance for criminal behavior, and not because they want to remove Hispanics from office. That is most likely why we have been hearing Eddie Perez being described as a convicted felon since the verdict, not as "the Hispanic Mayor".

And as far as people celebrating or gloating over the verdict, I haven't seen anyone taking great pride in our former Mayor being a convicted felon now. I do see many people ready to pitch in and work with Mayor Segarra in building Hartford's reputation once again to the proud City we once were before your leadership, and I use the word loosely, and Eddie Perez began Hartford's downward corrupt spiral.

Maybe it is time for you to come clean about your support of Perez and why you owe your loyalty to the puppet master.

To read LaFontaine's nonsense, click here