Perez sentence: One year, one day
Ex-Bridgeport police chief gets prison time in test-rigging scandal
BRIDGEPORT — After more than three decades serving the city, Former Police Chief Armando “A.J.” Perez will serve 12 months and one day behind bars for cheating on the process that made him chief and later twice lying to the FBI about it.
“I am so sorry,” Perez told U.S. District Judge Kari Dooley during his sentencing hearing Monday, his voice quivering with emotion. “I spent most of my life on the right side of the table and I betrayed myself ... my family in the Police Department, those are my kids. The Police Department in the city of Bridgeport is a young department and I looked upon them as my children and it has just torn my heart out that I am not there to protect them anymore. I hold no malice to anyone, I did this to myself, I panicked.”
But the judge told him, “I know it is not what you wanted to hear but a sentence of incarceration is warranted. You were the face of the Bridgeport Police Department and yet you chose your own selfish career goal or ego over the values and mission of the department. You betrayed your oath and every member of the department who took the same oath and who daily try to live up to it.”
In addition to the prison term, the judge ordered Perez to serve 24 months of supervised release and to pay a $7,500 fine. He must pay his part of the $299,407 in restitution to the city and do 100 hours of community service.
He is to surrender to federal prison authorities on May 24.
The sentence of a year and a day is significant because Perez would only be able to get so-called “good time” credits for sentences over one year.
Perez, 65, had faced up to two years in prison after he and the city’s former personnel director, David Dunn, 73, pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making a false statement to the FBI. Both men are also expected to be ordered to make in total nearly $300,000 in restitution to the city for their actions.
Dunn also faces a 2-year prison term when he is sentenced on Tuesday.
According to federal prosecutors, both Perez and Dunn participated in a 9-month conspiracy to deceive the city by secretly rigging the purportedly open and competitive selection process for a permanent Bridgeport chief.
“The most important fact of this case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Francis told the judge, “was the defendant’s abuse of his position. He was the chief law enforcement officer in the largest city in Connecticut.”
City officials claim Perez and Dunn’s conspiracy cost the city nearly $300,000 and that figure could go much higher.
Both Police Capt. Roderick Porter, who had been a finalist for the chief’s job, and former Assistant Chief James Nardozzi, who had been an applicant, are suing the city because they claim they lost the chief’s job as a result of Perez’s and Dunn’s criminal action.
Prosecutors stated that Perez enlisted two officers under his command, who are only designated in the memorandum as Officer 1 and Officer 2, to prepare his resume and cover letter for the search process and later to complete his written examination and to get the oral exam test questions in advance.
Early in the search process for a new police chief the prosecutors stated that Perez began telling other Bridgeport police officers that he would be selected as the next chief.
For his part in the conspiracy, prosecutors stated that Dunn hired Randi Frank, who had previously worked for the city under Dunn’s direction to conduct the search process. Dunn then told Frank that a bachelor’s degree for a chief candidate was not a requirement — favoring Perez, the only candidate without a degree. Dunn later forwarded to Perez an email from Frank containing nonpublic information about the status of the search process.
Dunn later provided Perez the questionnaire and essay questions Frank intended to use for the candidates a month before the other candidates got them and Dunn gave Perez the questions to the oral exam he got from Frank long before the other candidates got them, the prosecutors stated.
Prosecutors stated that Dunn requested Frank make changes to the scoring process of the exams to Perez’s benefit, such as awarding extra points for Perez serving as acting police chief and not awarding extra points as previously were made to candidates who live in the city since Perez was not a city resident.
On October 17, 2018, prosecutors stated that Dunn called a panelist appointed to interview the finalist for the chief’s job and told her that the mayor “would like to see Perez in the top three.
“Panelist-1 understood Dunn wanted her to score Perez higher, or influence the other panelists to do so, to please Mayor Ganim,” they stated.
During a Feb. 15, 2019, interview with the FBI, the prosecutors stated that Perez gave numerous false and misleading answers regarding his and Dunn’s part in the chief selection process. They continued that almost immediately after the interview with the FBI, Perez began communicating with witnesses seeking to influence the investigation.
He asked his civilian driver to get him another cell phone because he was concerned his was tapped, the prosecutors stated.
During an interview at the U.S. Attorney’s Office on May 1, 2019, Perez continued to make false and misleading statements, the prosecutors stated.