Dangerous Liaisons

Since Jeff Zack was gunned down, detectives had followed a winding trail in pursuit of an elusive murderer, from a bloody gas station scene to a posh mansion full of secrets to a tough talking blue collar worker with an apparent grudge.

They finally thought they’d found their man—John Zaffino, but they lacked a motive... until his ex-wife let them in on a secret—Zaffino was having an affair with none other than Cindy George.

Todaro:  She was giving him clothes, money, paying his payments, paying his rent, paying his phone bills.

Police say Cindy, the married, mother of seven, had not one lover, but two at the same time—Jeff Zack and John Zaffino.  She first met Zaffino at this bar in the summer of 2000, and now, a year after the murder, they were still seeing each other.

Lt. Whiddon: Now there’s a connection between John Zaffino and Cindy George and Jeff Zack and Cindy George.

To detectives, it looked like a love triangle turned deadly.  Finally, detectives believed they’d pieced together the puzzle behind Jeff Zack’s killing, and now it was up to prosecutors to convince a jury.

Sherri Bevan Walsh, district attorney: This was one of the most intense cases that we had in this office, and certainly one of the most publicly followed cases that we’ve had in a long time.

Up until John Zaffino’s trial in February of 2003, the sordid details of the case—the illicit affairs, the child out of wedlock, the connection to the socially prominent George family—were secrets confined to an ongoing police investigation. But those secrets were about to be revealed. The case would become the topic throughout Akron and change one family forever.

Trexler:  Wherever you went, it was the talk of the town.  It was just—things like this don’t happen to—to rich, beautiful people in Akron.

John Zaffino had pleaded not guilty, and prosecutors believed that Cindy George somehow had masterminded the murder plot, but they didn’t have the evidence to charge her. Now, in order for them to convict Zaffino and establish a motive, prosecutors had to expose Cindy’s secrets to show her connection to the alleged murderer and victim.

Corderi: What was his motive?

Brad Gessner, assistant prosecutor:  His motive?  He was going to be the hero for his girlfriend.

Corderi: Get rid of her problems?

Gessner:   Yes.

Assistant prosecutor Brad Gessner argued that a love struck Zaffino killed Jeff Zack because Zack had been harassing Cindy and threatening to take away their child when she ended the affair. Even though Cindy was not on trial, her public image was taking a beating.

Trexler: People took a different look at Ed George and Cindy George and took a step back and realized that maybe that fairytale marriage and lifestyle that they live—were living was not what it appeared to be.

Cindy had been called to testify in Zaffino’s trial, but had pleaded the fifth.  Still, her silence didn’t stop her secrets from spilling out.

Her extramarital antics were a source of gossip and shame that affected the entire George family—a husband who was the public face of a popular restaurant and nightclub and seven children who had to go to school every day.

Corderi:  How difficult was it?

Cindy George's daughter:  It was very difficult. I mean just hearing news reporters bash our mom.

Alysiarose, Annamaria and Antoinette are the three of the Georges’ oldest children. They say they leaned on each for strength.

George daughter:  We had to each hold each other together to get through it.  Cause everyone was falling apart.

Up until the murder trial, they say, they didn’t realize Zack was their mother’s lover... just that he was a strange family friend who showed up too often and at odd hours while their father was working at the restaurant. 

George daughter: I just didn’t like it when he was around.  I just felt a bad vibe from him.

Corderi: So he would just show up?

George daughter:  In the middle of the night sometimes.  Like the alarm would go off.  And we always wondered why it went off.  It was because of him.  It just scared us.

The sisters—at the time ages 9 to 17— went to Catholic school and were involved in many activates. As their mother’s dirty laundry was aired in newspapers and on television, they say they often heard unkind comments.

George daughter: You kind of have to ignore it.  You know, the real truth in your heart. They don’t know your mom—you know, my mom.  They don’t know the person that I know.

During Zaffino’s trial, the girls say  their mother sat each of them down separately and, with much difficulty, told them about her long-term affair with Jeff Zack.

George daughter:  I could tell that she didn’t even like want to tell us.  But she knew she had to.

George daughter: When she said sorry to you, she even cried about it.  She meant it.  And you could tell.  It just took us a while to get over it.

Corderi:  Did you sense that she felt ashamed?

George daughter: Oh yeah she felt very—

George daughter:  Very.

George daughter:  --ashamed.  She felt very ashamed.

George daughter: It was very heartbreaking.  Like you don’t really know how to deal with it.

Corderi: Did any of this at any point shake your faith in your mother? 

George daughter: Yeah, I lost a lot of faith in her for a long time. When you hear that it’s so shocking.  And when you’re growing up with such like great morals, to hear that it’s just—it’s very—heartbreaking.

But they say they couldn’t remain angry at the woman who had loved them and had raised them to believe in forgiveness.

George daughter:  I mean it was hard at first.  I mean, you know, I was mad at her for a little bit.  But I mean I learned to forgive her. She’s still my mom.

Corderi: Did she ask you for forgiveness?

George daughter: No.

Corderi: No.

George daughter:  We did it ourselves.  And I could tell that she was deeply—sorry for what she had done.  And you know, regretted it.

But remember, it wasn’t just adultery. The trial also revealed that Jeff Zack was the biological father of the George’s youngest daughter. Cindy later sat her down to explain what that meant. We’ve disguised her identity for her privacy.

George daughter:  I was 11.

Corderi:  What was that like for you? Did you get what she was saying?

George daughter:  At first I didn’t. But then I really understood it after a while

Corderi: Were you shocked?

George daughter: Yeah, it made me feel a little bit weird at first, but, I mean, I realized that she’s my mom, and I’m always gonna love her, no matter what kind of mistakes she makes.

Corderi: did she tell you anything else about him?

George daughter: She told me that she—that he really wasn’t what she thought he was and that it was a mistake, and that she was really sorry about it.

Corderi: You don’t blame her at all.

George daughter:  No. I just—I don’t—a lot of people make that mistake.    

She calls Ed George the “dad of her heart.” And her sisters say the news has changed nothing.

George daughter: It was hard to hear, but she’s still our sister, you know? I mean she is my dad’s daughter, you know, he still—you know, loves her exactly as a daughter and she’s—nothing has changed between that.

They say they felt very protective of their father as he suffered through the embarrassing publicity.

George daughter: You really felt bad for him.  You know, because no husband should have to go through that. 

Corderi: And not publicly.

George daughter: Right, and not publicly.

In the meantime,  John Zaffino was facing murder charges for killing Jeff Zack.  He declined to testify in his own defense during the five-day trial. Prosecutors, remember, were convinced that Cindy was the real mastermind, but when they tried to strike a deal with Zaffino in exchange for turning on Cindy, he refused.

Corderi:  Wasn’t she sort of an invisible co-defendant in that case in terms of how often she came up and her role?

Brad Gessner: Yes, because John Zaffino had no reason to have any connection to Jeff Zack other than through Cynthia George.

Corderi: But she wasn’t there?

Brad Gessner: Yes.

Corderi: Was that frustrating for you?

Gessner: Oh, absolutely. 

With all the evidence presented—the motorcycle, the guns, the affairs, the taped calls, the alleged botched hit in the park—it took the jury less than four hours to reach a verdict: guilty. The prosecutors tried one more time to get Zaffino to turn on his lover.

Corderi: Didn’t you ask to delay sentencing after Zaffino was convicted to try to work out the deal to lessen his sentence?

Gessner: Yes. He said he did not do this and she was not involved.

The court sentenced Zaffino to 23 years to life. So, a murder solved, a case apparently put to rest. But was justice really served? Not, says Gessner, according to several jurors who demanded to know one thing from the prosecutors after the trial.

Gessner: First questions were, when is she being tried?

Corderi: When is Cindy George being tried?

Gessner: Yes.

Trexler: There was a great outcry from the public demanding that Cindy George be held accountable for this murder as well.

Perhaps no one voiced more outrage than Jeff Zack’s mother, Elayne.

Elayne Zack, Jeff's mother: I nagged the police all the time.  I wanted both people that were responsible to be convicted and put where they belong.  People don’t get away with murder.

Corderi: And it seemed to you that she was getting away with murder?

Zack: Yes.

For the next two years, under a cloud of suspicion, Cindy George was free to go about living a normal life with her family.

Until news broke in January 2005 that police had uncovered new evidence.

“Cynthia George, the wife of Tangier owner Ed George is behind bars tonight.”

Cindy George was arrested for the murder of Jeff Zack. This time the harsh glare of publicity was unrelenting—a wealthy former beauty queen with seven children accused of having one lover kill another.

Trexler: It was a bombshell.  People had been waiting and waiting for it so long.  They thought it would never happen.

Prosecutor: What did John Zaffino tell you about Cindy George and the murder of Jeff Zack?

Todaro: He told me that she knew everything about it. Everything that was going on.

Just before Thanksgiving of 2005, four and a half years after Jeff Zack was murdered, Cindy George would have to face justice.

The charges?

Conspiracy to commit murder and complicity to commit aggravated murder.

With her family and friends looking on, Cindy appeared unglamorous and subdued. Surrounded by a team of five veteran, top-tier lawyers.

Corderi: Had you ever seen that before?

Gessner: Five lawyers for one defendant?  No. I calculated and I figured she had an excess of 200 years of legal practice sitting there.

Corderi: Was that daunting?

Gessner: With what we had, it wasn’t.  It was more one of those feelings of—I—she knows she’s guilty.  She had to go to the—this extent to try to find some way out of this.

Just as the trial was about to start, there was surprising news from Cindy’s defense team—she wanted her case heard by a judge instead of a jury a very unusual move.

Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove: I was surprised, perhaps even stunned.

Now, Cindy George’s fate would be in the hands of only one person, presiding judge Patricia Cosgrove. She says only a tiny fraction of criminal defendants make that request, and for good reason.

Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove: You have 12 individuals sitting on a jury. You would only have to convince one of those individuals either of the person’s innocence or create some sort of reasonable doubt.

Corderi:  Do you think it showed on the defense’s part that they were afraid of the judgment about her moral conduct, that a jury might have?

Walsh: I’m sure that that weighed on the minds of the defense attorneys.

Prosecutors Brad Gessner and Mike Carroll had successfully convinced a jury two years earlier of John Zaffino’s guilt.  And now they’d have to prove to the judge that Cindy George was the spark that ignited the murder plot, that even though she didn’t pull the trigger, she was just as responsible as Zaffino for the death of her former lover.

Day 1 of the trial

MIKE CARROLL:  What this evidence is going to show is the defendant, Cindy George, had a problem in her life. And her problem was a man named Jeff Zack. And she solved that problem through a man named John Zaffino.

The case was circumstantial; there was no gun recovered, no eyewitnesses, yet prosecutors say there was plenty of evidence to prove that Cindy persuaded Zaffino to kill Zack to keep him from exposing her secrets—the affairs, the child born out of wedlock, secrets that threatened her lavish lifestyle should her husband find out.

Gessner: She had already talked to divorce attorneys in Cleveland.  And that that was not an option. Her way of dealing with not being penniless, with not being divorced, was to permanently and finally get rid of Jeff Zach.

Even though Zaffino had already been convicted, prosecutors needed to show once again that he was the triggerman Cindy manipulated.

Robert Cole, a friend, testified that he sold Zaffino two hand guns, one of them a .357 magnum, the suspected murder weapon.

Robert Cole: I know John and know how he is, that is why I had asked him ‘don’t be doing something stupid’  you know because I had sold him the weapon. I was afraid he was gonna go out there and shoot somebody with it or something.

Then, prosecutors wheeled in Zaffino’s motorcycle, and several witnesses said it looked just like the one the killer had ridden.

Next, Zaffino’s ex-wife from Pennsylvania took the stand. When Zaffino ditched the bike at her house just days after the murder, she says its distinctive lime green stripes were concealed.

They also called Chris Todaro to the stand, Zafffino’s other ex-wife, the one who had secretly recorded several conversations with him.

She told the court what zaffino had said to her after zack’s murder.

Christine Todaro: I said, “Was that you?” And he hesitated for a minute. And, and then he said, “Well let’s just say the guy’s going to have a hard time parting his hair from now on.”

Once Zaffino was established as the murderer, prosecutors set out to prove their main point—that Cindy George had been pulling the strings all along. And they turned once again to Chris Todaro.

Gessner: She was that connecting voice, that voice of what John Zaffino said and why he was doing it. 

Todaro testified that Zaffino had told her Cindy George was in on it all the way.

PROSECUTOR: What did John Zaffino tell you about Cindy George and the murder of Jeff Zack?

TODARO: He told me that she knew everything about it. Everything that was going on.

Knew about the murder, prosecutors argued, and financed it.

To back that up, prosecutors called to the stand a bank manager who verified Cindy’s records—on the day John Zaffino bought the so-called getaway bike for just under $5,300 dollars, Cindy George made a cash withdrawal for the same amount.

Corderi: How important was that to the case?

Walsh: The fact that Cindy George paid for that motorcycle that he used in the crime—we thought was very significant.  She’s funding what he needs to have in his possession to commit the crime that they were planning.

And the funding didn’t stop there. Prosecutors argued that Cindy also footed the bill for Zaffino’s cell phone. The monthly statements would turn out to be key evidence.

Detective Vince Felber said an incriminating pattern emerged as he pored over hundreds of calls between Cindy George and John Zaffino.

Records show the night Zaffino was spotted in that park about a month before the shooting, Cindy was on two cell phones at the same time...with Zack and Zaffino

Prosecutors argued Cindy was trying to lure Zack to the park because Zaffino was hiding there, ready to ambush him. But the park ranger who suddenly showed up foiled the plan.

Gessner: How is it that John Zaffino is there waiting for Jeff Zack with the gun if someone isn’t going to lure him there?  And who is the person going to lure him there?  The girlfriend with the problem, the girlfriend who’s on the phone with both of them at the same time while he’s sitting out in the woods.

Prosecutors say that failed park showdown led to “plan b”—the hit at the gas station a month later. And on that day, they say, the pattern of phone calls appears to be the most damning of all.

Det. Felber:  We saw that John and Cindy were on the phone up until seven minutes before the homicide.

Prosecution:  And what time was Jeff Zack murdered?

Detective:  12:07

Prosecution:  And from that time, were there any calls between those 2 phones?

Detective:  No, there were not.

Det. Felber: Twenty minutes after the homicide, John calls Cindy back or they talk again.

Walsh: Why is it that Cindy George is the first person he calls right after a shooting? Yet she doesn’t even know about any of this going on?

And there was more on Cindy’s mind than just murder, said prosecutors. They were about to unveil evidence they believed would show that Cindy’s criminal behavior didn’t end when Zack was killed.

Summit county prosecutors had just laid out several days worth of evidence in an attempt to show that Cindy George had conceived and bankrolled the plot to kill Jeff Zack.

Now they wanted to tell the court what Cindy did after the murder, how she acted like a guilty woman tying up loose ends.

Corderi: When you look at Cindy’s actions after the murder, what picture does it paint?

Walsh: Someone who is really making a lotta effort to make sure that this is not discovered and just making sure that she’s covering her tracks.

An elaborate cover up, prosecutors say, that began just two days after the murder, when Zaffino ditched the so-called getaway bike in Pennsylvania. Zaffino called a friend to ask for a ride back to Ohio.

Frasher:  I was sleeping one morning. My phone rang. It was John. He told me that he had taken the motorcycle to his ex-wife and that she wouldn’t bring him back to town and asked me if I would come and pick him up.

Prosecution:  Did you do that?

Frasher: Yes I did.

The friend testified that Zaffino made one very significant phone call during the ride home.

Prosecutor: And do you have anyway of knowing who was calling or who he was talking to?

Frasher: He had told me that it was Cindy wanting to know if he was on his way back. 

Prosecutors say Cindy also paid Zaffino’s expenses for the trip and that was just the beginning.  With the help of Detective Whiddon, prosecutors set out to prove that Cindy George also made sure Zaffino kept his mouth shut with cash and promises.

Prosecution:  In the course of your investigation, did you find that there was a payment in addition to what John Zaffino or his family paid his lawyer for his defense?

Whiddon:  Yes.

Prosecution:  And can you tell the court where that payment came from?

Whiddon:  Um, it came from the Georges.

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