Ganim denies involvement in alleged scheme to rig chief search
BRIDGEPORT — Two days after his longtime friend resigned as the police chief of Connecticut’s largest city, Mayor Joe Ganim denied he had anything to do with what federal prosecutors describe as a corrupt process that led to the appointment of Armando Perez as Bridgeport’s top cop.
On Thursday Perez and Personnel Director David Dunn, who resigned Friday, were arrested and charged by federal authorities with a conspiracy to help ensure Perez in 2018 received a five-year contract from Ganim.
“Dunn, according to the investigation complaint, told a panelist, who was responsible for ranking the candidates in the final stage of the examination for the police chief, that “the mayor wanted Perez to be ‘in the top three’ ” — meaning one of a trio of finalists forwarded to Ganim for selection.
Ganim, speaking by phone to The Associated Press on Saturday, denied he influenced the selection of the candidates for chief in any way.
“I never had any contact with anybody in the process until I got three names and what I did was by charter,” Ganim said.
“I’m sorry it happened,” the mayor said. “It’s just not a good thing for the city at all. But there is no question of (my) involvement.
No claims at all. The city completely has done everything, provided everything in information. If you get an opportunity to talk to them, the government wouldn’t disagree with anything I’m telling you.”
For some, the decades-old friendship between two of the most powerful figures in Bridgeport government is cause for scrutiny.
“When Joe was going through his first term, somehow they made a connection,” said Lisa Parziale, a former City Council president who served with Ganim when he was first mayor from 1991 until 2003.
Perez joined the police force in 1983 and, in the late 1990s, served as Ganim’s driver. It was while carrying out that responsibility in 1998 that Perez, as he testified during Ganim’s federal corruption trial on racketeering and bribery charges, loaded boxes of expensive wines into the trunk of Ganim’s car — just one of the gifts the mayor had received for steering work to connected businesses. While Ganim was convicted and spent seven years in federal prison, Perez was never charged with anything.
“Joe Ganim is my friend,” Perez told The Connecticut Post in 2014 when the then- captain was made head of
the detective bureau. “And I am very loyal to my friends. I never saw him do anything wrong, only good for the city of Bridgeport and that’s it.”
And when the freed Ganim decided in 2015 to challenge fellow Democratic Mayor Bill Finch in that year’s primary, Perez was often at his side on the campaign trail, vouching for the once fallen politician.
And rumor at the time was that anyone who knew Ganim and Perez didn’t doubt that Perez would eventually be named chief of police, said Parziale, who also was part of Ganim’s 2015 comeback campaign.
The defeated Finch, who had failed to convince enough primary voters that returning Ganim to office would be detrimental to Bridgeport, allegedly anticipated Perez being made chief as well. A Finch confidant at the time said that was why one of the outgoing mayor’s last decisions in late November 2015 was to extend then-Police Chief Joseph Gaudett’s contract against the returning Ganim’s wishes.
“How does that make the city look?” the Finch ally, who had requested to be anonymous, had said of installing Perez as top cop given his history as the ex-mayor’s driver. “How do you help the city move forward if that’s the optic?”
Ultimately Ganim in early 2016 struck a deal with Gaudett allowing him to retire, then be rehired as a private emergency management consultant. Ganim then installed Perez as acting chief.
Two years later, after Perez publicly stated his desire for job security — a contract — Ganim in March 2018 launched the city charter-required national search. Despite Dunn’s and the administration’s insistence the chief search was an objective process, critics at the time accurately predicated that Perez would prevail.
“He did not demonstrate the skills or knowledge necessary to serve as police chief,” state Sen. Marilyn Moore, who unsuccessfully challenged fellow Democrat Ganim for mayor last year, said this week. “Nonetheless, the mayor approved his appointment.”
Finch in a brief statement Thursday on the arrests of Perez and Dunn said, “Clearly this looks bad. It’s yet another sad episode that negatively impacts Bridgeport residents and keeps the city from reaching its full potential. But I’ll hold on comment regarding the actual case until more of the facts are in.”
One former municipal employee who knows both the mayor and chief characterized their relationship as more one-sided: “He (Perez) puts a lot of love out. I don’t know what that meant to Joe.”
Love is one word that Perez himself used to describe his friendship with the mayor.
“I know him and love him,” Perez said of the mayor in November 2018 before Perez’s ceremonial swearing in. “He’s my brother.”
When Ganim ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018, Perez wrote checks totaling $4,300 to Ganim’s failed 2018 primary campaign, according to campaign finance filings with the State Elections Enforcement Commission.
The following summer, when Ganim faced his own primary challenge from Moore, the mayor continued to stand behind his choice to make Perez the permanent chief. With the chief and the police force at the time buffeted by several scandals, Moore called for the mayor to fire Perez.
“The department under Finch ... overall was a mess at addressing some of the fundamentals of public safety out in the streets,” Ganim said at the time. “I think we’re doing a better job of that.” He cited Perez’s strong community connections from his 36-year-career, but added the chief needed a more robust “support staff” of deputies and assistants.
But another former City Hall employee on Friday recalled the mayor apparently all along lacked faith in Perez’s ability to lead the force.
“They have a long-standing personal friendship and great affection for each other,” the person said. “(But) he did express some pretty serious reservations about A.J’s ability to perform the job.”
Which is why, the source said, they could not understand Dunn’s alleged statement in the federal probe that Ganim would have wanted to ensure Perez was a finalist in the chief search.
“It’s so baffling to me,” this person said. “Why go through such hoops if you find in your gut he can’t do the job?”
Councilwoman Eneida Martinez has been a Perez supporter. She maintained on Friday that the chief and Ganim have had “a good friendship” but there was some tension over management of the police department.
“The mayor was holding him accountable (and) did put his foot down to a lot of expectations of the chief,” Martinez said.
Ganim also hired a consultant in April 2019, a handful of months after giving Perez his five-yearcontract, to recommend ways to improve the police force. Council President Aidee Nieves at the time said the move should not be interpreted as a slight against the chief, but acknowledged, “Some might see it as, ‘Oh we have to hire a consultant to help him (Perez).’”
Neither Dunn, Perez nor Perez’s attorney responded to requests for comment for this story. Dunn’s attorney declined to comment.