A barrier-breaking attorney is temporarily taking the helm of New Haven government’s legal office while the mayor seeks a permanent chief.
The attorney, John Rose Jr., begins work as New Haven’s interim corporation counsel on Jan. 20, Mayor Toni Harp said Friday.
Rose temporarily succeeds Victor Bolden, who resigned as corporation counsel this week to assume a federal judgeship.
After his graduation from Yale Law School, Rose began his career in 1966 at New Haven Legal Assistance Association, then as a state prosecutor. He moved on to the Hartford firm of Ribicoff & Kotkin, where he rose to become Connecticut’s first African-American partner. After working at the politically connected firm of Levy & Droney, he served as the city of Hartford’s corporation counsel from 2004 through 2010. He’s now a supervising attorney at the Hartford-based Crumbie Law Group. Rose was the first African-American to serve on the state’s Judicial Selection Commission. (His resume notes that he’s the father of the singer and film and stage actress, Anika Noni Rose, who starred in For Colored Girls and Dreamgirls and was the voice of Disney’s first African-American princess.
This man of the law comes with a lot of baggage and was the front man for disgraced and convicted hartford mayor Eddie Perez. Harp continues to make one bad choice after another.
Google him and one can read the baggage. What a disgrace to replace Bolden with him.
At this pace the Feds will be here soon enough, just like hartford, at least we'll have an experienced lawyer when it comes to defending corruption.