Convicted former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez is back in business — partner in a new insurance agency, Su Seguro, in the city he once led.
The agency, which Perez said has been open for about six weeks, is located at 685 Park St. His partner is William Dominguez.
In 2010, a jury found Perez guilty of accepting home remodeling work as a bribe from a city contractor and of trying to extort a payoff for a powerful political broker. He resigned as Hartford mayor a week after his convictions.
Perez was sentenced to three years in prison but has been free on bond and is awaiting a decision in his latest appeal of five felony corruption charges.
Perez said Su Seguro will be owned and operated by Latinos and marketed exclusively to Latinos, who he said are typically underserved in the insurance and financial planning industries.
“When clients come here they’re going to come maybe looking for insurance, they’re going to find we’re interested in the whole family, the whole household and how to think about college education and how to think about ensuring that they have adequate coverage and long-term coverage,” Perez said.
It is, he says, an extension of the public service he started as a community organizer 30 years ago and then as mayor of Hartford for almost a decade, a time he recalls wistfully. “Hey, I miss being mayor, I miss doing the work that I did and seeing the impact I had and wish it had continued.”
As for what he did that got him convicted, there still seems to be a sense of bitterness. “Well, I’m not happy things happened the way they happened. There was a little bit of piling on, so to speak. … That’s why I appealed,” he said, “because my story hasn’t been told to the fullest.”
He declined to specify what part of the story wasn’t told. He said he was more concerned about the future than the past.
“I did things that I shouldn’t have done,” he said. “So I let a lot of people down. … I regret that, put my family through a lot. … My family shouldn’t have to go through what I’ve gone through.”
And if the appeal doesn’t go his way? “Life goes on,” he said. “Life goes on.”