Police say not all key phone records subpoenaed

Jeff German and Sam Skolnik

Friday, Dec. 29, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

A top Metro Police official acknowledged Thursday that detectives did not subpoena cell phone records of several people who could have been involved in an alleged plot to persuade Chrissy Mazzeo to keep silent about her late-night encounter with Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons.

And District Attorney David Roger - who announced Wednesday he would not prosecute Gibbons on assault charges stemming from the Oct. 13 incident - said he may have spoken too soon in declaring that Gibbons had not participated in the efforts to influence Mazzeo.

"There is a possibility that he was involved in this activity," Roger said after acknowledging that he did not have all of the relevant cell phone records to rule out Gibbons as having a role. "But it does not seem probable that he participated in these actions."

Roger's top investigator, Mike Karstedt, said in a report made public Wednesday that he had recently subpoenaed cell phone records from several people - including Gibbons political consultant Sig Rogich, a high-powered public relations executive. Rogich was one of the people whose phone records Deputy Chief Greg McCurdy said were not subpoenaed by police.

The other two people were attorney Georganne Bradley and legal secretary Michelle Diegel, who work at a law firm that shares office space with Rogich in the Hughes Center. All three were drinking with Mazzeo and Gibbons at McCormick & Schmick's on Oct. 13, just before the encounter between the pair.

McCurdy said detectives "did not find it necessary" to subpoena the phone records for Rogich, Diegel and Bradley.

Detectives were focusing on the misdemeanor battery charges and only requested records "that they thought were relevant to that charge," he said.

Mazzeo, a 32-year-old single mother and cocktail waitress, has alleged that Gibbons grabbed her arms, forced her up against a wall in a nearby parking garage and tried to coerce her into having sex.

Gibbons, who will be sworn in as governor next week, has denied accosting Mazzeo and said he merely grabbed her to break her fall after she slipped.

Roger would not say whether his office would be subpoenaing additional cell phone records, but may be in a position of needing to do so for Diegel and Bradley (along with Rogich) if it wants to determine with finality whether Mazzeo was influenced.

The district attorney will have to determine whether there was any contact between Rogich, Diegel and Bradley and Mazzeo's friend Pennie Puhek in the hours and days after the Oct. 13 incident. Puhek, who was also drinking with the Gibbons group at McCormick & Schmick's that night, has acknowledged calling Mazzeo "several times" and speaking with Diegel in the aftermath of Mazzeo's pre-election encounter with Gibbons.

Puhek, however, has denied that she was a go-between in efforts to silence Mazzeo, as Mazzeo has claimed.

McCurdy said police subpoenaed Puhek's cell phone records, as well as Gibbons', but have not yet received them. The district attorney has also subpoenaed Puhek's records, but Roger would not say whether his office has made a formal request for the governor-elect's records.

Detectives, McCurdy said, had subpoenaed telephone records from other people, including Mazzeo, her sister Anna Freteluco and her friend Stephanie Damelio, both of whom were called by Mazzeo between the three 911 calls Mazzeo made to report the alleged assault.

But police, McCurdy added, had only received records for Mazzeo and Damelio by the time they turned the case over to the district attorney last month, with the recommendation not to prosecute Gibbons .

Roger confirmed Thursday that those were the only cell phone records he received from the police.

McCurdy said police would provide the district attorney with any additional records they receive.

"They have to take their investigation in the directions they see fit and do what they have to do," he said.