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August 16, 2001

WATERBURY, Conn. -- A Waterbury teenager has told authorities that Mayor Philip A. Giordano paid her to have sex with him in his private law office. The teenager, now 17, is the cousin of two girls that Giordano last month was accused of luring into sexual encounters.

The teenager told investigators from the state Department of Children and Families that Giordano paid her to watch him have sex with her aunt and, on one occasion, to have oral sex with him.

The aunt, referred to in court documents as Jane Doe, was charged last month with arranging for Giordano to have sex with the two younger girls - her daughter and a niece, now 9 and 10.

Both Giordano, 38, and Doe, a convicted prostitute, have been held at undisclosed locations and denied bail. Documents detailing the charges have been kept under seal.

The 17-year-old's claims are contained in a Department of Children and Families investigative report. That report and other sources also assert:

Doe told law enforcement officials last month that the mayor is the father of her 7-year-old son - raising the possibility that one of the girls that Giordano allegedly victimized might be the half-sister of his illegitimate child.

The teenager said that from the time she was 12, Doe frequently took her out for sexual encounters with men for pay - a practice that Doe euphemistically referred to as "going to wash windows."

FBI electronic surveillance picked up the mayor allegedly planning a sexual liaison in his office, but agents did not realize the significance of what they had heard - until their surveillance captured the sex act itself on tape.

It was that encounter that alerted investigators to the involvement of a minor in Giordano's alleged sexual exploits, sources said. Federal agents then revisited earlier wiretapped conversations and discovered one in which Giordano and Doe allegedly arranged the liaison with the child.

That wiretapped conversation formed the basis of the federal charges of conspiracy and using an interstate facility - either a telephone or computer - to engage in sexual activity with a minor.

The affidavit in that case remains under seal and the nature of Giordano's contact with the two alleged victims remains unknown.

The Department of Children and Families' document, filed at juvenile court in Waterbury, requires the mother of the 17-year-old girl to appear in court Friday for a custody hearing. The agency, which has a long record of involvement with the family, is seeking to extend its custody of the children who have been taken from the family in the past month.

In the court documents, the girl told workers from the child protection agency that she did not become involved with Giordano until after her 16th birthday. She said she has since watched Giordano, a married father of three, have sex in his office with Doe at least four times.

Giordano twice paid the teenager $40 to watch, she said - the second time as he and Doe had sex on the floor. In June, she t old investigators, he began fondling her breasts and then paid her to let him perform oral sex on her. In July, after the mayor's arrest, an investigator wearing a biomedical hazard suit was seen carrying a rug from that office.

The revelation in the Department of Children and Families' investigative report that Giordano might be the father of Doe's son is an unexpected twist on rumors that dogged the mayor during his 1997 campaign. Then, fliers circulated throughout the city claiming that he had an illegitimate daughter by the same woman.

Giordano denied the allegation at the time, and Doe identified another man as the father.

The mayor's arrest on July 26 revealed a previously undisclosed federal corruption investigation of his administration. Federal investigators also seized boxes of documents from city hall.

Giordano's attorney, Andrew Bowman, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

State prosecutors are working with federal officials to bring state charges aga inst Giordano and Doe. Each could face up to 10 years in prison on the federal charges, but state prosecution could bring them far lengthier jail terms.

Federal authorities approached inspectors and prosecutors in the office of Chief State's Attorney John M. Bailey for assistance several weeks before Giordano's arrest. By law, however, Waterbury State's Attorney John Connelly's office has jurisdiction in the case, and he is expected to take the lead in any state investigation.

Connelly said he has yet to receive the evidence gathered by federal officials.

Also Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Joan G. Margolis declined to unseal additional court documents that would reveal details of the case, relying largely on a ruling last week by Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas.

Nevas ordered that the documents in Giordano's case remain sealed, and he barred the press and public from the courtroom during Giordano's two-hour detention hearing.

At that hearing, prosecutors play ed tapes of conversations they had picked up on court-authorized wiretaps of Giordano's telephones. Nevas ruled that the conversations were so volatile that they would "inflame and prejudice the entire community" if released. He said that release of the information could irreparably harm Giordano's right to a fair trial.

According to the Department of Children and Families' report, the agency was asked to investigate by the FBI on July 18, eight days before Giordano's arrest. Investigators were not allowed to interview Doe, but they talked to other family members, including Doe's 17-year-old niece.

She told investigators she did not know that her aunt, as federal authorities now charge, was arranging for her younger cousins to have sex with the mayor.

"If I knew, I would have had sex with him to protect them," she said.

WATERBURY, Conn. - The woman linked to Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano's arrest on federal sex charges used the telephone or mail to offer him one of two girls, ages 9 and 10, for sexual activity, according to government prosecutors. The information was in a detention hearing transcript released Tuesday by a federal judge, the Waterbury Republican-American reported.

The woman is known in the transcripts as Jane Doe, and is the mother of one the 9-year-old girl involved in the sex charges against Giordano. She is the aunt of the 10-year-old girl. The mother of the 10-year-old is incarcerated on unrelated charges.

Jane Doe, 30, is charged with conspiring with Giordano, who is accused of using an interstate facility to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity. Jane Doe was arrested July 21, and appeared at her detention hearing in U.S. District Court in New Haven July 23, three days before Giordano's arrest.

According to the transcript, Margolis read Jane Doe the following charges: "On or about July 12 you did knowingly initiate a transmission of the name of (an) individual that had not attained the age of 16 years with the intent to entice, encourage, offer or solicit any person to engage in any sexual activity which any person can be charged with a criminal offense and did conspire to do so."

Government prosecutors said Jane Doe is a drug addict who has been convicted of prostitution, and who suffers from depression and diabetes. Jane Doe is being held in pretrial custody because of her prior criminal record. If convicted, she could face a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a $250,000 fine.

Giordano, 38, has been held without bond at an undisclosed location since his arrest. The girls were taken into state custody a day after Jane Doe's arrest. Last week, the state took the girls' siblings into custody, but it is unclear why. They grandmother and an aunt are now seeking custody of all six children, said their attorney Michael Ferguson.

WATERBURY, Conn. - As new details emerged Friday in the sex-crime case against Waterbury Mayor Philip A. Giordano, state officials took custody of five more children from the family of two girls alleged to be the mayor's victims.

Officials would not explain or even confirm the action Friday, but sources say there was no indication Giordano was involved with the children newly removed from the family.

"Because this is a proceeding before juvenile court, the matter is confidential," said Gary Kleeblatt of the state Department of Children and Families.

An attorney for the family, Gerald Harmon, said that he too believed that the removal was not related to any conduct by Giordano. "At the moment, it does seem like an overly protective move by DCF. I don't really know what it's founded upon."

The relationship of the children taken into state custody Friday to the two girls Giordano is accused of victimizing - cousins now ages 9 and 10 - could not be determined immediately.

Meanwhile, court documents released Friday reveal that Giordano's alleged co-conspirator - the mother of one of those two girls - was arrested five days before the mayor and was the subject of a secretive nighttime court proceeding.

The details were revealed in documents released Friday in what is officially the case of "Jane Doe," who is charged as the mayor's accessory. Giordano, 38, is accused of using an interstate facility - presumably a telephone or a computer - to arrange a sexual liaison with the two girls.

The girls were taken into custody days before the first arrest.

The woman has remained in federal custody since her arrest July 21. Federal prosecutors were so concerned about keeping her arrest a secret that her detention hearing was held at night, on July 23. All records of that unusual proceeding originally were kept sealed because "disclosure could jeopardize the ongoing investigation,'' U.S. Attorney John A. Danaher III wrote in a motion filed July 24.

Danaher requested that even his motion to seal the file remain under seal "in view of the highly sensitive nature of the case." His request was granted.

It wasn't until Aug. 3 that Danaher moved to unseal some of the more innocuous documents in the "Jane Doe'' case, reasoning that "the need for keeping the facts of [her] arrest under seal is no longer present.'' She remains in custody, however, and the more informative documents in her case remain under seal. Her identity has been concealed to protect the identity of the children.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joan Glazer Margolis, responding to both Danaher's motion and one by the media to unseal documents, Friday released several documents in the case and is scheduled to rule next Wednesday on whether the rest should be released.

Because the Giordano and Jane Doe cases are so closely linked, and share as their basis conversations recorded by federal agents using wiretaps and electronic surveillance, it is possible the Jane Doe case will mirror the extraordinary secrecy imposed on the Giordano case.

WATERBURY, Conn. - Days before the FBI arrested Mayor Philip A. Giordano on a sex charge involving a child, authorities secretly arrested the child's mother and accused her of being his accessory.

Documents pertaining to the arrest are sealed, but sources familiar with the case said Friday that the FBI believes the woman permitted Giordano to have sexual contact with at least one of her two daughters, ages 9 and 11.

One source said the FBI and U.S. attorney's office took extraordinary steps to conceal the arrest, both to protect the identities of the children and to avoid alerting Giordano that his arrest was imminent.

Giordano, 38, the three-term mayor and Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate last year, was arrested Thursday after a municipal corruption investigation unexpectedly uncovered evidence of sexual misconduct.

Sources said the investigation involved wiretaps, but it was unclear if Giordano's alleged sexual misconduct was discovered through an intercepted phone call or other means.

The mayor was jailed without bail on two federal charges: using an interstate facility [such as a telephone or the Internet] to entice a child under age 16 into a sexual relationship; and conspiracy to carry out the offense.

Before the arrest, federal authorities alerted the state Department of Children and Families about Giordano's alleged improprieties, and the state agency took custody of both girls.

The girls' uncle, who did not want to be identified by name for fear of identifying his nieces, said the family was shocked when DCF workers took custody of the girls. They had been staying with their grandmother.

The uncle called the mayor a friend of his sister's and a man the family knew and trusted. He said the family was devastated when the girls were taken away and when the mayor was accused of enticing one of them into a sexual relationship.

"We didn't have a clue," said the man, 25. "If we had any idea, we would have told police. How could you know that and not say anything? We only learned about it when DCF called us and took the kids."

He spoke as he checked on his mother's Waterbury apartment, where the children had been staying. It is in a modest building where many rents are subsidized, and is located near social service agencies. He said the girls "are all right" and that the family has been able to talk with them since they were taken into state custody.

He appeared unaware of his sister's secret arrest, saying he had not seen her in weeks. "I don't know where she is," he said.

"It's the worst thing I've ever been through," he said. "I met the mayor before. To me, it was an honor to be with him. I mean, if you're a kid and you have the mayor come to your school, you're so excited you can't wait to get home to tell your family and brag.

"We're all so upset and hurt and angry. I hope to God the feds give him more than 10 years in prison."

The federal charges are punishable by a maximum of 10 years, but Chief State's Attorney John M. Bailey said Friday his office is considering seeking state charges against the mayor, which could carry more jail time.

The precise nature of Giordano's contact with the child is unknown, since his temporary lawyer, federal defender Thomas G. Dennis, persuaded Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas to seal a criminal complaint and a supporting affidavit.

Michael Wolf, the ranking FBI agent in Connecticut, called the mayor's behavior a "disgrace" Thursday as federal officials announced the arrest, but he offered no details.

Giordano's initial court appearance lasted only five minutes, ending before the press and public were aware of the arrest. According to a transcript obtained Friday, Dennis asked that the file be sealed before Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Jongbloed described any details.

"Mr. Giordano is a well known public figure and just the fact of his arrest is going to cause considerable media attention, and I think in order to fully protect his rights to a fair trial, at this stage the complaint should be placed under seal," Dennis said.

When the prosecutor did not object, Nevas sealed the complaint and affidavit.

Dennis quickly told the judge that he had reviewed the charges with Giordano, so the court could skip the usual step of having the prosecutor summarize the case.

If Giordano seeks bond at a hearing Tuesday, the government will be permitted to present evidence showing why he should be locked up.

The Courant filed a motion in court Friday seeking to have the file unsealed, arguing that Dennis did not present a compelling public purpose for closing what is typically a public record.

Meanwhile, the city's acting mayor, Sam Caligiuri, took his first official acts - welcoming a step by a state financial oversight board to tighten its financial control of the city's government.

City hall was rocked Thursday not only by the arrest of the mayor, but by the appearance of dozens of FBI and IRS agents armed with warrants authorizing them to seize a wide array of municipal records.

The appearance of the agents was the unmistakable sign that the municipal government of Connecticut's fifth largest city was under a federal investigation for the second time in little more than 10 years.

The city already had been reeling from the disclosure last year that Giordano's administration was on the verge of being too broke to meet the municipal payroll. As part of a $60 million state bailout, the city had to accept the oversight of the Waterbury Financial Planning and Assistance Board.

During an emergency teleconference late Friday afternoon, the board appointed Robert Dakers of the state Office of Policy and Management as the "emergency financial and administrative manager," giving him the power to approve the city's financial operations and transactions.

Marc S. Ryan, the chairman of the oversight board and the state's budget chief, said Dakers' appointment was intended to stabilize city government and to assist Caligiuri, who became acting mayor by virtue of being president of the board of aldermen.

Caligiuri supported the appointment of Dakers, who helped the state panels that oversaw the financial recoveries of Bridgeport and West Haven.

"Our top objective right now should be to restore confidence in the city's leadership," said Caligiuri, a lawyer with Day, Berry & Howard. "I strongly feel that Mr. Dakers' appointment will help us achieve that objective."

Caligiuri, who is recuperating from knee surgery, did not go to city hall.

Mayoral staffers said they expect Caligiuri to come into the office Monday. He did call a few times from home to do some city work.

He was not clear about how long he will be the acting mayor.

"It all depends on what Mayor Giordano does,'' Caligiuri said in an interview Friday. "If he gets out of jail on bond after his hearing Tuesday and does not resign, then that makes him mayor."

Gov. John G. Rowland, a Waterbury native, has called on Giordano to resign immediately.

WATERBURY, Conn. - A previously undisclosed corruption investigation took a dramatic and unexpected turn Thursday with the arrest of Mayor Philip A. Giordano on federal charges that he enticed a child into a sexual relationship.

Giordano, 38, the three-term mayor and Republican nominee for U.S. Senate last year, was arrested by FBI agents in New Haven at 7:45 a.m. and ordered held without bail as a flight risk and public danger.

Within hours of the arrest, FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents seized records at city hall and searched the homes of Giordano and Thomas Ariola, the chief financial officer of city schools and a former city budget director.

Gov. John G. Rowland, a Waterbury native and the grandson of a city official who helped uncover city hall corruption a half-century ago, interrupted an out-of-state vacation to urge Giordano to resign.

"Due to the serious nature of the charges filed against Phil Giordano, I ask that he resign as mayor immediately,'' Rowland said in a statement issued by his office. "Stepping down is the right thing to do for the city and his family.''

Under the city charter, Sam Caligiuri, president of the board of aldermen, will be acting mayor while Giordano is jailed. Caligiuri was undergoing elective knee surgery and could not be reached for comment.

The arrest and searches were the first hint that another Waterbury mayor was under investigation by federal authorities, who convicted former Mayor Joseph Santopietro, a Republican, on corruption charges in 1992.

Sources said federal investigators in the midst of the corruption probe discovered evidence of alleged sexual misconduct and hastily sought a warrant for Giordano's arrest to protect at least two children. The scope and precise nature of the corruption investigation remains unknown.

Giordano was charged with two federal crimes: using an interstate facility to entice a child under age 16 to engage in sexual activity; and conspiracy to carry out the offense. An "interstate facility" could be a telephone, the Internet or another form of interstate communication.

The charges referred to one child, but sources said Giordano's alleged sexual misconduct involved two girls, 9 and 11.

It appears that Giordano did not expect the arrest. He was presented in federal court in Bridgeport before Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas. Thomas G. Dennis, the federal public defender, was summoned to represent him for his initial appearance.

U.S. Attorney John A. Danaher III announced the arrest at a late-morning press conference after Giordano's brief court appearance, but an unexpected order by Nevas barred Danaher from revealing little more than the time of arrest and the charges.

Nevas granted a defense motion to seal a government affidavit and criminal complaint that would have given a fuller picture of the case against Giordano. Dennis, who could not be reached for comment, reportedly based his request on the embarrassment Giordano would suffer as a public official.

The order effectively stopped Danaher or any other prosecutor from discussing the case, leaving unanswered one of the day's more intriguing questions: What was the basis for detaining Giordano, the mayor of Connecticut's fifth-largest city, without bail?

Nevas ordered Giordano held until a detention hearing Tuesday, when the government is obliged to show how the mayor is a public danger. If Giordano does not contest his detention, the government need not make the evidence public.

Danaher said the U.S. attorney's office was being assisted in the case by the state Department of Children and Families and the office of Chief State's Attorney John M. Bailey. Danaher said state charges, presumably to be brought by Bailey's office, are possible.

One likely reason for the dual prosecution: Under state law, there are sex charges that carry a greater punishment than the federal charges, each of which is punishable by a maximum of five years in prison.

It was unclear Tuesday how the arrest and premature disclosure of the wider investigation would affect the corruption probe.

Waterbury's city hall shut down for most of the day as several dozen FBI and IRS agents scoured offices, executing an estimated 20 search warrants. They seized computers and financial records from the mayor's office and several departments, including legal, city budget, school, pension and grants.

Agents also searched the mayor's home and the home of Ariola. "My client is cooperating with the federal agents," said Ariola's attorney, Martin J. Minnella, after agents seized evidence from Ariola's third-floor office and his home.

Agents sealed off the mayor's office wing to the public, carting out boxes of papers throughout the day and stacking them in a yellow Ryder box truck before driving off late Thursday afternoon.

For city workers, the federal presence was an unpleasant jolt of déjà vu.

"When I heard it, I had knots in my stomach," said Nancy Vitarelli, the city's Republican registrar of voters. Her husband, Paul Vitarelli, a city alderman in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was among the city officials arrested along with Santopietro.

"We don't got any more eyes left to blacken," said John Sarlo, the Democratic minority leader on the board of aldermen. He stood inside the marble lobby of city hall, watching a dozen news photographers snap pictures every time a federal agent walked out of the sealed mayor's office. "Our poor city has taken a lot of lumps and bruises we don't deserve."

The arrest is the latest of many blows to civic pride. Democrat Edward Bergin, who both preceded and succeeded Santopietro as mayor, was accused and acquitted of bribery. Giordano has had his own public embarassments, including his lopsided loss in the Senate race and then the state's takeover of city finances after his administration went broke.

Giordano, a married father of three children who ran for office as a clean-cut ex-Marine, attracted little sympathy.

"Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. If [the allegations] are true, it's repulsive," Lt. Gov. Jodi Rell said of the charges. "It's absolutely sickening and I literally feel sick to my stomach."

Michael Jarjura, the Democratic state representative nominated for mayor by a divided town committee, said he heard a radio bulletin about the arrest.

"I was shocked. But that shock turned to disgust when I heard more about the nature of the charges. My heart goes to his wife and family," Jarjura said. "It's bad enough this city has to deal with its monumental financial problems. Now we have to restore public trust in government."

Michael Stolfi, the chairman of the city's Republican Party and a firm backer of Giordano in the past, spent much of the day reeling from the news.

"It's devastating to me and what I went through with Santopietro. I never, never thought it would happen again, but here we go," said Stolfi, who volunteered much of his free time the last 10 years to help rebuild the party his own father led in the 1960s. "I concur with the governor that Giordano should resign if the allegations are true. I feel bad, awful, betrayed. I got this guy the nomination for mayor six years ago."

Stolfi said Caligiuri will take over as mayor today, despite his knee surgery.

"I don't know whether it will be from his hospital bed or from home," Stolfi said.

Some city employees had a more immediate concern than knowing who was in charge.

"I was going to do letters to retirees but I can't now unless I can get a typewriter working," said city pension expert Palma Brustat. Federal agents took the computers from the pension office.Customers munching sandwiches or trying the meatloaf special at the counter of Jimmy's Charcoal Kitchen across from city hall were abuzz about the federal sweep.

"It's all people are talking about today," said Joe Cipriano, a heating and air-conditioning vendor who'd stopped in for a salad heavy on the Greek olives. "I first heard about it this morning from my son who told me, 'Dad! You hear the mayor got arrested?' I figured he was kidding, and I told him to stop being the prankster. But then I saw it on TV."