Mazzeo: ‘If he had apologized … it would have been done’

By Jeff German (contact)

Saturday, Feb. 10, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

Chrissy Mazzeo says a simple apology from Jim Gibbons after their late-night Oct. 13 encounter outside the McCormick & Schmick's restaurant could have quickly and quietly ended one of the biggest political brouhahas of all time in Las Vegas.

"If he had apologized and admitted that he was maybe a little out of line, it would have been done," Mazzeo told the Sun on Thursday. "I would have said, 'Let's drop it.' "

Gibbons, it turns out, considered making an apology.

He suggested doing so during his first interview with detectives the morning after Mazzeo claimed he tried to force himself on her inside a parking garage across the street from McCormick & Schmick's following a couple of hours of drinking.

"I'm surprised that, uh, she would think that I would do something wrong, and certainly if there's an opportunity for me to apologize to her, I'd be happy to do that - if she thought that would help," Gibbons told detectives.

But there was no apology.

Instead, there were two criminal investigations - one by Metro Police and one by the Clark County district attorney's office - accompanied by saturation publicity during and after the Republican governor's successful campaign for the state's highest office.

And although investigators were unable to prove a criminal case against Gibbons, questions remain - and perhaps always will.

For Mazzeo - a 32-year-old single mother, cocktail waitress and college student - being thrust into the public limelight the past four months has been a life-changing experience.

"I don't have any friends now," Mazzeo said. "I want my privacy back, but that's not going to happen.

"Every single day at work, people are whispering and pointing ... People come up to me everywhere. I can't even go out to dinner with my daughter. They'll come up to me at restaurants. Random people. They just say, 'Good job on going forward.' They say stuff about him. I feel sorry for him."

Mazzeo said she has no plans to file a civil lawsuit but hasn't ruled that out if new evidence turns up.

Mazzeo said she is aware of the criticisms coming from investigators and the Gibbons camp that her story has changed several times about exactly where in the parking garage - or even in which of two garages - the encounter between her and Gibbons occurred.

"I was confused in there, but I know I told the truth," she said. "When you tell the truth, you don't need a good memory."

Overall, Mazzeo said, she doesn't feel that she was treated well by police as the victim in the case. It wasn't her decision to make public her name, address and cell phone number after she leveled the assault allegations, Mazzeo said. Weeks later, when police interviewed her for a second time, she said officers asked her "if somehow I had made up the whole thing in my mind."

"I don't think they treated me fairly," she said.

Mazzeo contends that after being pressured by her friend, Pennie Puhek, who was with Mazzeo at McCormick & Schmick's the night of the incident, she decided not to press charges against Gibbons, telling detectives she didn't want to take on such a powerful public figure.

Mazzeo said she originally thought Puhek was just being a good friend in advising her to sign a statement dropping the case. But later, she said, Puhek pressured her into doing more.

"She called me and asked me what I wrote, and I said I just wanted to drop this, and she said you have to make sure and write in there that it was just a misunderstanding and that there was alcohol involved," Mazzeo said.

Mazzeo said she told Puhek she didn't want to say that, but Puhek responded, "You don't understand. It will become so big unless you come out and say it was a misunderstanding."

Mazzeo said she became angry after she learned last week that Mike Karstedt, the top investigator in the district attorney's office, discovered that in the days after the Oct. 13 incident, there were 18 cell phone calls between Puhek and Gibbons' political consultant Sig Rogich, who also had been drinking with Gibbons and the women at McCormick & Schmick's.

"Sig Rogich covered up for him (Gibbons) because he (Rogich) knew the truth," Mazzeo said.

Both Rogich and Puhek have denied being part of any conspiracy to influence Mazzeo's statements to police, insisting they were simply attempting to put out an accurate version of what happened that evening.

The entire experience, Mazzeo said, has caused her not to trust police, and she no longer feels safe and comfortable living in Las Vegas.

Because of all the publicity, she said, she recently moved to a new residence, and her goal is to move out of the state after she graduates from college this year so that she can have "peace for me and my daughter."

Mazzeo also said she doesn't want to live in a state in which Gibbons is governor.

"I know he's got a lot of people on his side," she said. "It's just me and my 3-year-old."

Despite everything that she has gone through, Mazzeo said she's glad she stuck to her story.

"I would do it all over again," she said of standing by her account. "I'd do the same thing."