Former Bridgeport, Connecticut, mayor gets old job back after prison

[November 04, 2015]  BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (Reuters) - Former three-term Mayor Joseph Ganim was overwhelmingly elected to his old job on Tuesday despite spending seven years in prison for corruption.

Ganim, 56, a Democrat who was released from prison five years ago, gained nearly 60 percent of the vote and beat his closest challenger, Independent Mary-Jane Foster, by more than a 2-1 margin.

"Some people will say this is an historic comeback, but to me it has always been about the city I felt I never left," Ganim told cheering supporters in the fading industrial city of 148,000 people.

Backers held up a banner that said "Welcome Back Mayor Joe Ganim" as "Eye of the Tiger" played on loudspeakers. Ganim had pledged to cut taxes, improve schools and get tough on crime after a surge in shootings.

Ganim was convicted in 2003 of 16 federal corruption counts including racketeering, extortion, fraud and accepting bribes from real estate developers.

Ganim defeated Bridgeport's two-term incumbent mayor, Democrat Bill Finch, in a primary in September. Democrats outnumber Republicans by a ratio of 10 to one in the city.

Finch tried to stay in the race, saying he would run as a third-party candidate. But the secretary of state blocked him, saying he had missed a filing deadline to run on another party's ticket.

Finch had backed Foster, vice president of the University of Bridgeport.

At the time of his arrest, Ganim was a rising star in the Democratic Party and was considered a potential candidate for governor or Congress.

Ganim supporters on Tuesday said the former mayor deserved a second chance.

"I've lived in this city for 60 years and I voted for him because he was the best mayor we ever had," said Lola Sanders, who was wearing a Ganim T-shirt.

"Nobody cares about all that other stuff, everybody does something wrong sometime in their life."

(Editing by Bill Trott and Richard Pullin)

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