Mayor Eddie A. Perez pleaded not guilty to bribery charges in Superior Court in Hartford this morning and asked that his case go immediately to trial. Instead, his case was continued to March 3.
Also this morning, former city employee Edward Lazu pleaded not guilty to bribery and second-degree forgery charges.
Perez's mother, his wife Maria and his lawyer, Hubert J. Santos, accompanied him to court this morning. The mayor was arrested last Tuesday and charged with bribery, fabricating evidence and conspiracy to fabricate evidence in connection with allegedly deeply discounted work done at his home by city contractor Carlos Costa, owner of USA Contractors.
The case against Perez is connected to roughly $20,000 he paid Costa for a new kitchen counter and a renovated bathroom. Costa was arrested last Monday and charged with bribery, fabricating evidence and conspiracy to fabricate evidence. As Costa worked on the $7.3 million Park Street project, he also worked on the mayor's Bloomfield Avenue house beginning in 2005. He did so without proper permits, and some of the work was done by an unlicensed contractor. The work was completed in 2006, and Perez has said he did not pay Costa for the work — estimated to be worth $40,000 — until July 2007.
Echoing what he said after investigators executed a search warrant on his home in August 2007, Perez called his decision to hire Costa a "lapse in judgment."
"There is no excuse for it. I apologize for putting my family and my city under this situation," Perez said. But he added, "At the end of the day, a lapse in judgment is not a crime."
Lazu was also arrested last Tuesday and charged with one count of receiving a bribe and two counts of second-degree forgery. As a city contract compliance supervisor, Lazu was in charge of overseeing the employee who monitored Costa's work on Park Street. But state investigators also have asked questions about a driveway that Costa partially built for Lazu in 2004. Lazu paid Costa $1,100 to begin work on the driveway at Lazu's Broadview Terrace house, Brown has said. Costa did some work until a neighbor complained, and the work was never completed.
State criminal investigators have been looking into allegations of political corruption in the mayor's administration since early 2007, seeking documents and secret testimony and forming an investigatory grand jury in October 2007.
Now, here's the same story, written by WNPR's Anna Sale today:
Hartford mayor Eddie Perez pled not guilty to charges of bribery and fabricating evidence on Tuesday, and his attorney made clear he wants to move swiftly onto a trial.
Perez did not speak during his 5-minute arraignment in Superior Court, but his lawyer Hubert Santos told Judge Julia Dewey that the mayor wants to get right to fighting the charges against him.
"We would ask for an immediate trial, your honor. We're prepared to go to trial today."
But state prosecutor Christopher Alexy told the judge that the state has amassed a dozen bankers boxes of evidence that he thinks the defense may want to review before trial.
Judge Dewey agreed, and asked both sides to work with a court scheduler to set a "realistic date" for trial. She scheduled a pretrial conference for March 3.
Mayor Eddie Perez was arrested last week after a more than a year-long grand jury investigation. State prosecutors allege that Perez took a bribe when he had a city contractor renovate his home in 2005.
Perez did not pay for the work until two years later, after investigators questioned him about it. Prosecutors say that $20,000 payment only covered about half of the value of the kitchen and bathroom upgrades.
Perez has apologized for hiring the city contractor for work on his home, but denies that he broke any law. He says he has no plans to resign.
So, what's different about these two stories? One's shorter, of course, one has more detail. But what is it about the writing that's different? If you've read far enough in the book, and listened to some broadcast news, you have a pretty good idea. I have for you a few very simple re-writing excercises to do for next week. I'm going to give you some links to print versions of stories, that I'd like for you to re-write in a more radio-friendly way. That means:
1. Shorter sentences.
2. Paraphrase the quotes (or soundbites) into your own words.
3. Write the way you speak.
These stories should flow, and make sense as read. Make sure that when you read these stories, they're no more than one minute long each. If you have questions about how to do this, you'll find most of them in that marvelous chapter 3...and some of the "Basic Rules" we talked about last week. Please post them to the comments section of this blog post. I'll give you until tomorrow evening, since we're getting a late start. Then, we'll go over next week. Here are the selections...and have fun:
Daschle Withdraws
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/us/politics/04obama.html?_r=1&hp
Hospital Merger
http://www.courant.com/news/health/hc-webuconn0204feb04,0,1851156.story
State to help Sub Base
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=40c9f0a7-f5ed-4c5d-8727-a8b272c67dd0
