Friday, July 28th – Last week, a three-judge panel ruled that Joe Ganim cannot have his law license back. For many Bridgeporters, this is a relief. Voters have watched in disbelief as Ganim has repeatedly tried to regain access to the legal profession after losing his license for his 2003 conviction on 16 federal charges, including racketeering, extortion and bribery and his sentence to nine years in prison. He was released after seven years only because he lied about being addicted to drugs to get into a program that knocked two years off his sentence. 

In a hearing before the standing committee in August 2022 in Hartford, among the crimes Ganim admitted to for the first time were accepting payoffs on bids for the city’s wastewater contract, on energy programs, and the state juvenile detention facility, purchasing a life insurance policy for himself with city funds and filing false tax returns.

It was during that August 2022 hearing that Ganim was asked about the allegations he took bribes regarding the city’s sewer contract in the mid-1990s. Ganim related that there were two competitors for the contract, one represented by Paul Pinto and the other by Lennie Grimaldi, who testified in 2003 that as the mayor’s friend, campaign manager and self-described bagman, he extorted money from would-be city contractors on Ganim’s orders. 

“Pinto and Grimaldi had a tremendous amount of influence over me,” Ganim related. “I said you guys should work 50-50 and I would get the benefits of that — wine and suits and money.”

“Pinto and Grimaldi had a tremendous amount of influence over me,” Ganim related during the August hearing. “I said you guys should work 50-50 and I would get the benefits of that — wine and suits and money.” When asked if those benefits also included work done on his Black Rock home, Ganim answered, “Yes, there were some home improvements on my personal home.” Ganim said he also used funding that had been meant for marketing the city for his own purposes.

This is something he appears to be doing today, too, judging by page 157 of this year’s budget. Bridgeport taxpayers are paying for the Communications Manager to manage Joe Ganim’s personal Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube accounts.

The judges were therefore correct in their ruling that “Ganim has not proved that his efforts to rehabilitate himself outweigh the damage he did when he was convicted on corruption charges while serving as mayor.” The judges were also correct in their ability to see through Ganim’s attorney’s argument that the standing committee had made a mistake. His attorney tried to argue that the mistake was in the lack of consideration they gave “the 200,000 citizens of this city,” stating “we presented evidence that the people of Bridgeport trust him.”

The people of Bridgeport (of whom there are actually 148,654) do not trust Joe Ganim. As we reported back in March, in an August 2022 poll, voters were loud and clear that they are tired of corruption and overwhelmingly want new leaders to end it once and for all. 87% of all adults say reducing corruption is very important for Bridgeport elected leaders to address.

Ganim cannot be the candidate who reduces corruption because he is the candidate who upholds it. As voters were reminded this week, when a judge ruled that former Bridgeport Police Chief Armando Perez must give up half of his pension. In 2020, Perez, then a key member of Ganim’s administration and a proud Ganim loyalist, pled guilty to conspiring with Ganim’s then Personnel Director David Dunn to rig Bridgeport’s national police chief search in his favor. 

Perez, who first joined the police force in 1983, was Ganim’s driver in the 1990s. In 1998, Perez testified at Ganim’s trial that he loaded boxes of expensive wines into the trunk of Ganim’s car and then stored them in his own basement — just one of the gifts the mayor had received for steering work to connected businesses. 

It’s been a bad week for Ganim. But it’s not a bad week for the people of Bridgeport, who are ready to vote for change. On Tuesday, Sept. 12th, Bridgeport Democrats will go to the polls to vote for a new Mayor – one who will move corruption out of the way once and for all. 

Love Bridgeport? Learn Why Marilyn Moore is The People’s Choice For Mayor, Read The People’s Platform,  Pledge to Vote on Tues, Sept, 12th and Donate to the Year of Change HERE!