Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nextel Engineer Richard Iozzo Testifies in Underage Sex Case-

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 06:33:47 -0500

Nextel Engineer Richard Iozzo Testifies in Underage Sex Case-

Witnesses Corroborate Prostitute's Story
Eight Testify That Woman Set Up Sex With Daughter And Niece For Giordano

By DIANE SCARPONI
Published on 3/15/2003

Bridgeport — Eight witnesses at the trial of
former Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano on
Friday corroborated some of the testimony
of a prostitute who says she brought her
preteen daughter and niece to Giordano for
oral sex.

A secretary at Giordano's law office, a
neighbor and six men who gave the
prostitute and the children rides all placed
the woman and at least one child with
Giordano.

None of these witnesses said they saw the
children performing oral sex on the mayor.

The prostitute has pleaded guilty to
conspiring with Giordano and testified this
week that she brought the children to
Giordano's office and elsewhere for sexual
encounters.

Giordano has pleaded innocent to 18 federal
charges that he violated the civil rights of the
girls by abusing them, conspiring with the
prostitute and using his cell phone — an
interstate device — to set up sexual liaisons
with the children.

The secretary, Georgann Lawson, said that
she saw the prostitute and a girl around 9 or
10 years old arrive at Giordano's law office
one evening in the spring of 2001.

Giordano was not there, so they waited for
him to arrive. He arrived a few minutes later
and “looked surprised” to see the woman
and the girl, Lawson said.

“He said to me, ‘I'm always getting her out of
trouble,' ” referring to the woman, and then
called them into an office and closed the
door. Lawson left the office about five
minutes later.

Under cross-examination by defense lawyer
Andrew Bowman, Lawson insisted she first
told the FBI about this incident when agents
raided the office in July 2001.

Bowman said an FBI report stated she did
not tell the agents about this incident until
January 2003. No written record was
presented to show what she told the FBI in
July 2001.

The prostitute's former boyfriend, Bernard
Frederick, testified that he drove the woman
and one or more children, or just the woman
alone, to Giordano's office regularly.

Each time, she and any children would
spend 10 or 15 minutes in the office. When
she came out, she would have money.

“She would show it to me. She didn't have
any before she went in there,” Frederick
said.

One time the prostitute went into Giordano's
office with the two girls and two boys. Frederick said he could see the boys through the
window, playing in the office, but could not see the girls.

Another time, when the prostitute and her daughter emerged from Giordano's office
building, the girl was crying but would not say why, Frederick said.

Once when they drove up, the prostitute saw the car of Giordano's law partner. They
went around the block and the woman called Giordano from a pay phone, Frederick
said.

Giordano showed up a short time later. The woman and the two girls got in his car and
ducked down, then Giordano drove away, he said.

Bowman got Frederick to admit, however, that he did not tell the Waterbury police about
these incidents when they questioned him in the summer of 2001.

Frederick responded that the Waterbury police had threatened to arrest him for assault
unless he told them what he knew. He said he did not tell them everything because they
did not ask.

He testified that the prostitute smoked crack cocaine. She was “out of control” with the
drugs, he said.

Frederick and another driver, Robert Anderson, testified that they both had used drugs
before, although they said they were clean now. Frederick and another driver, Rhoden
Jones, have long criminal records.

Anderson, who was a Waterbury firefighter, said he once saw Giordano through the
window of his law office when he dropped the prostitute and the girls off. Another time,
he said he drove them to Giordano's house.

The prostitute testified Thursday and Friday that she was addicted to crack and was
desperate for money to buy drugs. The Associated Press is not identifying her by name
to protect the privacy of the children.

On cross-examination Friday, Bowman implied that the woman lied to the jury to get her
own prison sentence reduced.

She had faced 60 years in prison on state and federal sex charges. Under plea
agreements, she could no more than 10 years in prison on state charges and no more
than 20 years on federal charges if she cooperates with prosecutors and tells the truth.

“Your lawyer told you the only way out was by satisfying the government?” Bowman
asked.

“Yes,” the woman said.

Under questioning from prosecutor Peter Jongbloed, the woman said that only state and
federal judges could determine what her sentence will be. She said she was testifying
truthfully, and that no one had made her any promises in exchange for her testimony.

She testified in graphic detail Thursday about sexual encounters she said she arranged
between Giordano and the girls. She said Giordano paid her $40 to $60 each time.

She could not recall again Friday a specific date when she met Giordano and the girls,
or the number of times it happened.

“I know it happened. I was there,” she said.

Also Friday, Richard Iozzo, an engineer for Nextel, testified about how cell phones work.
The federal government must prove that the phones were interstate devices.

Iozzo said that calls to or from Nextel phones in Connecticut would have to travel through

the company's regional switching center in White Plains, N.Y., even if the calls came and
went to Connecticut telephone numbers.

Giordano, imprisoned since his arrest, faces life in prison if convicted. He also faces
state charges of sexual assault, risk of injury to a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual

assault.

The alleged sexual activity surfaced during a federal investigation into alleged municipal

corruption. Details of that investigation, and testimony from the girls, are expected next

week.

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/mktplace/re.aspx?reIDx=C6151E94-73EC-4FF0-A6E0-E3ED2CCF3E45

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