Police query Gibbons again in investigation

Jeff German and Sam Skolnik

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006 | 7:08 a.m.

Metro Police have questioned Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons for a second time in their investigation into allegations that he assaulted a woman and tried to force her into having sex.

Gibbons was re-interviewed Friday at the department's 4950 W. Oakey Blvd. building, which houses the Investigative Services Division, sources close to the investigation said.

Gibbons' attorney, Don Campbell, did not return calls Tuesday.

The sources did not specify how long Gibbons was questioned or whether his statements were consistent with his denials during an interview with detectives on Oct. 14, the day after his late-night encounter with Chrissy Mazzeo, a 32-year-old single mother and cocktail waitress.

The incident occurred on Oct. 13, about 3 1/2 weeks before the election, at a Hughes Center parking garage across the street from McCormick & Schmick's restaurant, where Gibbons, his campaign consultant Sig Rogich, Mazzeo and three other women had been drinking.

Mazzeo told police that Gibbons grabbed her arms inside the parking garage, pushed her up against a wall and tried to force himself on her.

But the following afternoon, at an interview arranged by Sheriff Bill Young, Gibbons told detectives that no assault occurred. Gibbons contends that he simply grabbed Mazzeo's arms to break her fall when she slipped while he was helping her try to find her truck outside the parking garage.

Less than an hour later, in a follow-up interview, Mazzeo told detectives that she did not want to press criminal charges against someone as powerful as Gibbons. She did not, however, recant her allegations.

Two weeks later, after Gibbons held a news conference with Campbell to publicly proclaim his innocence, Mazzeo and her attorney, Richard Wright, met with reporters to stand by her story.

Mazzeo also added new allegations that the Gibbons camp, through telephone calls from her friend, Pennie Puhek, one of those drinking that night with Mazzeo at McCormick & Schmick's, had tried to coerce her into dropping the charges and keeping silent about her allegations as the election neared.

The next day, videotapes inside the parking structure - which police originally were told did not exist - mysteriously surfaced.

Those tapes, turned over to police by Hughes Center security officers, did not show Mazzeo or Gibbons in the garage. Experts, however, questioned whether police would ever be able to authenticate the tapes, which had been out of police custody for 11 days.

Mazzeo formally asked police to reopen the case Oct. 30, and was re-interviewed by detectives the following day.

Puhek and Rogich are among those who have since been questioned by detectives, who also have subpoenaed telephone records from everyone in the Gibbons drinking party that night.

Puhek acknowledged in an interview with the Sun last week that she telephoned Mazzeo several times in the days after the incident, but denied that she was attempting to broker Mazzeo's silence on behalf of the Gibbons campaign.