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Sunday, June 27, 2010

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

17 comments:

Gigi said...

Glad to see you're back, Kevin. You have been unusually quiet this week. I hope you are feeling well. It is time to put Eddie Perez behind us. It looks like Mayor Segarra is going to be making some changes. Channel 3 stated he was looking for the resignation of John Rose specifically. That is certainly a step in the right direction. I hope you keep this blog going. Hartford needs you.

Anonymous said...

Hernan is a kept man..and it is interesting that he didn't disclose in his opinion piece that he was specifically recruited by Eddie to be on the Council and was recruited by Eddie to be President of the Council.In other words his piece has no objectivity nor is he "neutral" when he writes,he is just a kept man...visualize a concubine in the French Court who must agree to be bedded by the King or any of the King's consorts that he approves, and you have Mr LaFontaine.Rumor has it that as a "former superintendent of the Hartford School System, he was rewarded by the Board of Education with a nice fat " consultant contract" after he left the Presidency of the Council in 2006.

Jeff said...

This idiot reporter doesn't even deserve to be dignified with a response.

I heard Mayor Segarra was going to be on "Face the State". Trying to dig up info online if that happened today or will happen next weekend.

Bruce Rubentein said...

Jeff..I saw him on today and he was very good...

Jeff said...

Thanks Bruce. I missed it but I see they didn't upload it yet on their web site so I'll keep my eye out for it.

Dave said...

I think the hard part for Pedro will be who to fire, with so many excellent choices. I say clean them all out -- if they were appointed by Eddie, then they are fruit from the poisonous tree.

Jeff said...

Kevin, I have a funny feeling your FOI requests that go through Corporation Council are about to get a whole lot easier.

Jeff said...

Segarra's interview on Face the State is up if anyone missed it.

http://www.wfsb.com/facethestate/index.html

Jeff said...

Segarra's interview on Face the State is up if anyone missed it.

http://www.wfsb.com/facethestate/index.html

Anonymous said...

First, congratulations to Mayor Segarra - he has a tough job ahead of him, but he seems intelligent and savvy enough to hit the ground running!

In addition, as a Hartford resident who left the city (2001) and returned (2008) I am disappointed with the "condition" of the city. The streets are terrible; overgrown weeds and debris in my neighborhhod. On a positive note, however I lodged my complaint with 311 and am waiting for results.

I hope the new mayor will be able to address some of these issues throughout the city.

Anonymous said...

Check this out. Radio interview done with Segarra on his first business day as mayor.
http://www.yourpublicmedia.org/content/wnpr/where-we-live-pedro-segarra

Dave said...

Speaking of Perez puppets, does Rjo really think anyone wants her running the City Council? Any Perez supporter should just sit down, shut up, and hope they don't get arrested during the remainder of their term.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Dave. What nakes rjo think she should be Council President? I thought she was running for State Representative. It is too bad that Pedro can't fire her along with the rest of the Mayor's crew.

Anonymous said...

Gentlemen...Jim Boucher is no better then Rjo and in some respects worse then Rjo. At least Rjo has a mouth. Boucher was on kneepads for years to Eddie Perez until last year when Eddie didnt support him for the Council Presidency and it went to Pedro ( thank god).He has always been a very quiet and timid Councilman who has a huge conflict of interest.He works for ManPower and that non profit is City funded,meaning any Mayor can pull his chain for a vote.Prior to that, he was the Director of HART and bankrupted that non profit.HART is also City funded and right from the beginning when Boucher was selected,he was a kept ho..otherwise HART would lose their city funding.Boucher's buddy Rosetti, the former councilwoman and another Eddie stooge was Boucher's buddy and replaced him ar HART with the understanding that on city issues effecting the people,HART would be silect ..and they sure have been silent for years.Rosetti in her time on the Council also did nothing and was a drinking buddy of that other loser, Councilman John B Kennelly...B stands for booze...and he sure likes to knock them down.Kennelly is rumored to run for Mayor in 2011 possibly on the Budweiser ticket.

Not once has Boucher authored any meaningful substantitive piece of legislation nor has he taken the lead on anything legislative of permanence that might make a difference in someone's life.

Anonymous said...

what about bouchet's ties to OPMAD and all their city funding too?

Anonymous said...

yes..his "close" friemd kathy evans runs opmad which is city funded...

Anonymous said...

I miss George Athanson!

He was a Mayor that made you proud to call yourself a Hartford Resident!

Eddie & Hernan.. fade off into the sunset... just keep going... don't turn around... go!