Dunn gets 4 months in police chief test scandal
Former city personnel director sentenced for conspiring to rig selection process, lying to FBI
BRIDGEPORT — Former city personnel director David Dunn was sentenced Tuesday to four months in prison for conspiring with former police chief Armando Perez to cheat on the selection process that made Perez police chief and then lying to the FBI about his participation.
For more than three decades Dunn, 73, has been the final word on hiring in the city of Bridgeport but he claims that his loyalty and faithfulness to Mayor Joe Ganim and other city administrators caused him to help Perez cheat the process.
“Your crimes remain
inexplicable,” U.S. District Judge Kari Dooley told Dunn as he stood before her Tuesday for sentencing. “Because even if you correctly perceived that Mayor Ganim or city officials wanted Mr. Perez to be the next chief of police you could have simply hoped for the best and let the transparent, fair and competitive process play out.
“Mr. Dunn, I still don’t know why you are here,” the judge added.
“I don’t know either,” Dunn replied.
In addition to the four months in prison, Dunn will serve two years of supervised release and pay a fine of $2,500. He must also do 100 hours of community service work.
He is to surrender to federal prison officials on May 25.
Perez, 65, was sentenced Monday by Dooley to a year and a day in federal prison. He must surrender to begin serving the sentence on May 24.
Both Perez and Dunn previously agreed to repay the city a total of $299,407 in restitution. Both are still awaiting resolution of a civil case regarding the status of their pensions, after the attorney general filed to have them revoked or reduced.
While the judge said she didn’t find Dunn’s actions as egregious as Perez’s, she did agree with federal prosecutors that prison time was warranted.
“As I stand before you the wrongfulness of my conduct is apparent, the harm it has caused. I accept full responsibility for these actions,” Dunn told the judge.
Details of Dunn’s part in the chief selection scandal were spelled out in a sentencing memorandum submitted to the court by federal prosecutors.
“Based on the common knowledge of the close friendship between the mayor and Perez, the mayor having appointed Perez as the acting chief, as well as the frequent inquiries about Perez’s prospects by members of the city
council, to the exclusion of the other candidates, David Dunn correctly assumed that Perez was the choice of his superiors for appointment to chief of police,” Dunn’s sentencing memorandum states.
Both Perez, 65, and Dunn, pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making a false statement to the FBI.
Ganim has not been implicated.
For his part in the conspiracy, the prosecutor’s memorandum states Dunn hired a private consultant who had once worked for the city under
Dunn’s direction to conduct the search process. Dunn then told the consultant 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 the consultant containing nonpublic information about the status of the search process.
The memorandum states that Dunn later provided Perez the questionnaire and essay questions the consultant 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 the consultant long before the other candidates got them.
The memorandum states that Dunn requested the consultant 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, the memorandum states 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,” the memorandum states.