http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Jeff%20Cohen/2012_12_06_JC%20121206%20Perez.mp3
More than two years after he resigned his office, former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez is about to have his second day in court. As WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports, Perez is appealing his corruption convictions and that appeal has been scheduled for January.
Perez was convicted in 2010 on multiple corruption-related offenses.. Since then, he has been out of prison pending his appeal. His attorneys plan to argue that the two cases against him should not have been tried together. They have called for an acquittal on all charges. Alternatively, they have asked for two new trials.
According to an online docket of the state's appellate court, Perez will now have his appeal heard sometime between January 2 and January 23.
Earlier this week, Perez sat for an hour-long interview with a program called All About You on Hartford's accesstv.org. The show was hosted by Jonathan Small. In the interview, the former mayor didn't discuss the criminal convictions that drove him from office. But he did speak of himself as a reluctant politician who initially didn't want to serve as mayor. His family didn't want him to, either.
"They didn't think it was a good idea. And, eventually, about a couple of weeks later, my daughter came in one evening and said, 'Look, it's okay. If you've got a dream, go ahead for it and we'll support you just like we would expect you to support us if we wanted to.' So the rest, as they say, is history."
After sharing his views on a range of issues including education, city politics, and development, Perez was asked if he'd ever consider another run for public office.
"You never say, 'No.' As I said, God has been a center of my life. Public service has been the way that I've been able to express that. So I'm always going to be involved in public service. Whether it's running a soup kitchen or running a city, nobody knows."
You can watch the entire interview at accesstv.org.
For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.
