Former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez has lost his latest legal battle, as a state appellate court dismissed an appeal he brought before it, and he's now asking the state Supreme Court to intervene.
Perez was convicted in 2010 in two separate schemes: one alleging bribery, the other alleging extortion.
In one case, the now-former mayor was alleged to have taken deeply discounted home improvements from a contractor doing business with the city. In the other, he was alleged to have tried to get a developer to pay off an influential city politician.
Perez denied the charges. In the end, a jury found him guilty of both accusations, and he resigned soon after.
But his lawyer, Hubert Santos, appealed the convictions, saying the judge in the trial court was wrong to try his the cases together, and that it unfairly biased the jury against Perez. The State Supreme Court eventually agreed, and ordered two new trials.
As the two trials now began to weave their way back through the court system, Santos again appealed, arguing in what he said was a “novel question of law” that his client couldn’t be tried twice for the same crimes.
He lost that argument at state court. And earlier this month, he lost that argument in the appellate court, too.
Santos did not return a call for comment.
Prosecutors also declined to comment, though they did say they were informed that Perez’s lawyers are attempting yet another appeal -- this one to the state Supreme Court.
