Last month, the city of Hartford gave a series of documents to a federal grand jury looking into the business dealings of troubled insurance broker Earl O’Garro. Now, the city has released those documents publicly.
O’Garro and his business, Hybrid Insurance Group, are clearly a focus of the feds – who also appear to be probing the question of their relationship with city Treasurer Adam Cloud. O’Garro’s company does some of the city’s insurance business; he also did business with the Cloud family.
One series of emails in that document dump rings a bell. It concerns Chris Cloud, Adam Cloud’s brother. O’Garro hired Chris Cloud to be his lobbyist, and the latter apparently helped O’Garro get a $100,000 state loan to move his company to Hartford – into an office building owned by the Cloud family.
In early November, Courant columnist Kevin Rennie wrote that Chris Cloud also approached the city on O’Garro’s behalf regarding a new line of business. And here are emails that seem to describe that interaction.
Chris Cloud reached out to Segarra's now former Chief of Staff Jared Kupiec. Cloud asked for a meeting for O'Garro to discuss "a confidential new line of business that he is pursuing. We may need some help from the City to assist in the launch of this effort that we would like to explain to you at your earliest convenience."
Rennie says the line of business in question was marine insurance. He says Kupiec looked into it and eventually decided the city didn't need what O'Garro was selling.
There’s no way of knowing just what, if anything, will come of the federal grand jury. Throughout, Adam Cloud has maintained that he is the victim of political scapegoating by Mayor Pedro Segarra. And earlier this week, his attorney, John Droney, said WNPR was “being manipulated by Adams [sic] political enemies.”
