Stories diverge on way to garage

Sam Skolnik

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006 | 7:33 a.m.

The cloudburst changed everything.

There's little disagreement about how things began last Friday at McCormick & Schmick's. At 6 p.m., Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons arrived at the restaurant to dine with his political adviser, Sig Rogich, two campaign donors and several others.

The dinner lasted about two hours. But as the group walked outside, the clouds opened and rain began to pour. So Gibbons and Rogich headed back inside to wait out the storm. This time, they turned left and headed into the bar.

There, they met up with two female law firm employees who work in Rogich's office building across the street. Soon after, a second pair of women joined them.

This is where two very different stories take root.

In Gibbons' version of events, backed by Rogich, the congressman's evening concluded at 10 p.m., when he quietly walked to his hotel room at the nearby Residence Inn by Marriott to prepare for his upcoming debate with Democratic state Sen. Dina Titus.

In the other version, Las Vegan Chrissy Mazzeo, one of the women to join the Gibbons group, contends that she was forced to flee Gibbons' unwanted threats and advances. Her night ended, Mazzeo says, with several desperate calls to 911 in which she claimed that the congressman from Reno assaulted her.

Following is a parallel timeline of events, starting from the time Mazzeo joined the Gibbons party for a drink. The sequences are based on 911 tapes, transcripts of police interviews with Gibbons, Mazzeo and others, and police officers' investigative reports that were released Wednesday. In some instances, grammatically incorrect comments reflect the subjects' direct quotes in the transcripts.

At the bar, between 9 and 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13:

Gibbons tells police that after Mazzeo and her friend, Penny Puhek, joined them at their table, they engaged in amiable banter, and that he never touched her. He said he drank two glasses of wine.

"Uh, so we, we talked about just generalities," Gibbons told police in a statement Saturday. "And it, it was very pleasant and, she's a certainly, a nice lady I don't have any problem with her. She's a wonderful young lady and, uh, you know, I'm, I'm surprised that, uh, she would think that I would do something wrong.

"Uh, I think it was, uh, uh, you know, we were having a good time. We were laughing."

Mazzeo, though, says Gibbons started talking about his marriage not being successful "and that marriage wasn't everything it was cracked up to be."

Then, she told police, Gibbons started playing "footsie" with her, and then touched her leg several times. "At that point I already knew that he was making , you know, unwanted advances, but I didn't think he was being weird, I just thought maybe he was flirting with me."

The walk from the restaurant, starting about 10 p.m.:

Mazzeo told police that she got up to leave and find her truck in an adjacent parking structure when she bumped into Gibbons, who was standing by the McCormick & Schmick's valet.

"And he said, 'Are you looking for me?' And that's when I said, 'No.' And he goes, 'Well, um, well, I'll, I'll take you to your truck "

Mazzeo said she consented, and started walking across the street to the parking garage.

Gibbons told police that as he started to walk back to his hotel, Mazzeo approached him. After she mentioned that she was looking for her car, he offered to help and she accepted.

As she pointed in the direction of the parking structure, he said, "Good. I'm walking that way. I'll walk with ya."

The incident, at roughly 10:10 p.m.:

Mazzeo told police that they had walked into a garage stairwell when Gibbons attacked her by grabbing her arms and pushing her against a wall.

"I thought he was joking at first, and that's when he said, um, he, he said, 'You have two choices.' And I said, 'Are you really, you know, rape me at this time?' And he said, 'You have two choices right now.'

" 'One,' " she told police, " 'where you could try to leave and the other one, you could just do what he says.' "

She said she responded by telling him that she had just survived cancer for 11 years. " 'Lucky you,' " she said he responded, " 'you survived cancer.' "

Mazzeo said when she saw three people walking by, she fled, telling Gibbons to "Go f--- yourself."

As she was leaving, Gibbons told her that she had just "f----- up," Mazzeo told a dispatcher during a subsequent 911 call.

According to Gibbons, there is a simple, innocent explanation to what happened inside the garage.

As they entered the garage, Gibbons said, Mazzeo tripped and he reached out to grab her.

In helping her up, Gibbons said he "grabbed one arm ... and I reached, and I probably missed, and I went under the other arm ... and stood her up and asked her if she was OK."

"And she looked at me and walked away. And I went into the hotel."

He strongly denied touching her inappropriately or threatening her with rape: "Didn't happen. Didn't happen. And if she assumed that helping her up and asking her her (sic) was OK was detaining her, well then, I'm ... shocked at that."

The 911 calls, from 10:23 to 11:14 p.m., and the aftermath:

Mazzeo called 911 three times, all from her cell phone, the first time telling the dispatcher that she had just come from the La Quinta Inn, across Paradise Road from the Marriott. After the last call, she met with Metro police at the Gordon Biersch brewery, and went with them back to McCormick & Schmick's to give them a statement.

Saturday, Oct. 14

1:30 a.m., Mazzeo gives her first statement to police at McCormick & Schmick's.

2:55 p.m., Gibbons gives his police statement in his hotel room.

4:11 p.m., Mazzeo gives her second police statement. In it, she tells police that she no longer wants to go forward with a complaint against Gibbons. When asked why, she said: " 'Cause of who he is and I just don't want to go up against that."