Giordano Admits Having Sex With Prostitute. Denies Children Participated Sexually
www.nbc30.com POSTED: 2:17 p.m. EST March 20, 2003
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- Former Waterbury, Conn., Mayor Philip Giordano admitted Thursday that two preteen children may have watched him receive oral sex from a prostitute.
PHILIP GIORDANO
Bio Birthdate: March 25, 1963 Birthplace: Caracas, Venezuela. Moved to Waterbury, Conn., at age 2. Education: Degree in political science and history from the University of Connecticut; law degree in 1990 from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan. Family: Wife, Dawn; three children. Career: Enlisted in U.S. Marine Corps, 1981-1985; opened law office in Waterbury in 1992. Elected to state House of Representatives in 1994; elected mayor of Waterbury in 1995. Re-elected in 1997, 1999. Announced July 18, 2001, he would not seek fourth term. The Arrest Arrested: July 26, 2001, on federal charges of using an interstate facility to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity. Charged: Sept. 10 with six counts each of first-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual assault. Currently held without bail at undisclosed prison.
But Giordano, testifying in his defense on federal charges he sexually abused the two girls, denied the girls ever participated.
"Those children have never given me oral sex. I have never touched those children," he said.
The girls testified Tuesday that they repeatedly performed oral sex on the mayor at Giordano's City Hall and law offices, home, car and elsewhere. They said that a prostitute who is the mother of one girl and the aunt of the other brought them to Giordano. The girls were 8 and 10 years old at the time.
The prostitute, who has pleaded guilty to state and federal charges, also testified against Giordano. The Associated Press is not identifying the woman or her family members to protect the identities of the children. Giordano admitted that he and the prostitute, a law client, had oral sex on numerous occasions. He said the girls usually waited outside his office with the door closed. On two occasions, he said, he left the door open. Giordano said the prostitute suggested allowing the girls to watch, and told him some men liked that.
"The kids had watched, or could have watched, from four rooms away, this person giving me oral sex," he said.
Giordano said he "reluctantly agreed" to let the children watch.
"I don't find that arousing. I don't find that interesting," he said.
Giordano was arrested in July 2001 a few days after FBI agents videotaped him paying the prostitute $500. Investigators have testified that they set up a sting after learning of the alleged abuse. An agent called Giordano, pretending to demand a payoff to keep the story out of the media. Giordano testified Thursday that he paid the money in hopes of avoiding a scandal, asking the jury to put themselves in his place.
"I was definitely concerned that this person had credible evidence, by way of children, that I was getting oral sex from a known prostitute in the city of Waterbury," he said.
Prosecutors were expected to begin cross-examining Giordano later Thursday morning. Giordano has pleaded innocent to 18 federal charges that he violated the civil rights of two girls by molesting them, conspired with the prostitute and used his cell phone, an interstate device, to set up liaisons with the children.
Giordano, who was mayor when he was arrested in 2001, faces life in prison if convicted. The defense opened its case Wednesday with an aunt of the two girls. The woman screamed at a prosecutor Wednesday and denied she ignored her 8-year-old niece's plea for help.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Jongbloed pressed the aunt on whether she had turned the girl away and told her not to use such dirty language.
"I'm not answering that," she shouted. "I'm not going to answer that filth. That's filthy."
"She told you what was happening and that was your same reaction," Jongbloed said. "Were you there?" the woman responded. "You don't know what was told to me, sir. My niece didn't tell me nothing, you hear me?"
The government rested its case Wednesday after an FBI lab expert testified that DNA evidence linked Giordano to semen stains found in his City Hall and law offices. Frank Baechtel, a scientist at the FBI's crime lab in Quantico, Va., said he found Giordano's DNA on 15 samples taken from the law office and on one from the carpet in the mayor's office.
"I see the profile of a single individual, and it's the same DNA profile I developed for Philip Giordano," he said.
He said the odds were, at best, 1-in-17 billion that the stains were made by someone other than Giordano. But Baechtel said he found no samples that matched the girls' DNA.
"One explanation, the first one that comes to my mind, is that it was never there," Baechtel said. He said it also was possible the girls did not leave behind enough DNA to show up in the samples.
Prosecutors put more than 40 witnesses on the stand during a week of testimony. They also played more than 100 taped phone conversations between Giordano and the prostitute.
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