Dangerous Liaisons

Prosecutors say the Georges secretly passed thousands of dollars to Zaffino before and after his trial to help pay for his legal fees. The detective showed the paper trail—a series of checks that went from Ed and Cindy to their attorneys. Then from their attorneys on to Zaffino’s lawyer.

Sherri Bevan Walsh, prosecutor: It totaled around $15,000— that was paid to Zaffino that we were able to track as coming directly from the Georges.

Corderi:  And you brought that up in court as hush money.

Walsh: Uh-huh (AFFIRM).

Gessner: Yes.

Hush money, the prosecutors say, that was discovered after Zaffino’s conviction when Detective Whiddon listened to recordings of Zaffino’s phone calls from prison...

During one call to his sister Judy, Zaffino says his “friends” better step up and pay for his appeal, or else.

Zaffino: ...I said, “Call my friends. You tell them that they will pay for it. And just to get the checkbook out and not to worry about it. That’s they way it’s gonna be, or they’re gonna lose their freedom.”

Zaffino: That was the deal, Judy. If anything ever happened they’d take care of it.

Prosecutors say it was a threat Zaffino made several times, and there was no doubt at whom those threats were aimed.

Prosecutor: In the course of this telephone call, we hear him say “my friends.” In the call state then who his friends are?

Whiddon: Yes.

Prosecutor: And who is that?

Whiddon: The Georges.

Four months after this call, the Georges sent Zaffino’s lawyer another check.

Prosecutor:  And were you able to determine the nature of that transaction, where that began from, or originated?

Whiddon:  From the Georges’s.

Prosecutor:  And that was $10,000?

Whiddon:  That’s correct.

The deal, say prosecutors, was ongoing.  As long as Zaffino kept quiet about Cindy, she would always help him.

Gessner:  And there in jail and he’s in for the rest of his life, it’s his hope that she can do something still to get him out.

Prosecutors say Cindy also promised to take care of Zaffino’s son financially, and that once Zaffino got out of prison, he eventually would run the George’s restaurant.

Walsh: She has all this money and she will take care of him and she will make sure that she bails him out.  Because that was the plan

Finally, the prosecutors argued that Cindy used more than just money to keep Zaffino quiet. They displayed a series of letters Zaffino and Cindy had written to each other after his conviction.

In one, Zaffino writes: “What are you going to do now? You said that you would not leave me here. I could have knocked 20 years off my sentence if I would implicate you. I stuck by you and now I have lost my life...”

And then he writes Cindy should pay for some big legal guns to get him out of jail:

“I need some new lawyers to fight for my life, like F. Lee Baily, Johnny Cochran, Gerry Spence...somebody big that will use the media and win.”

Then, detective Whiddon read the court two letters Cindy sent to Zaffino in response...

“Johnny, Johnie, Johnie, Johnie, I worry so about you...”

...One letter that sounds as if it’s written by a woman still longing for her lover.

“I miss all your stubborn bullheaded pig-headed ways, but most of all I miss you.”

Walsh:  And it was all set up that way just to remind him of her never ending love that she has for him.

Corderi: Do you think it was more than just bad judgment on her part?

Gessner:  I think it was trying to make sure that the evidence of her involvement never came out.

And in another letter, Cindy warns Zaffino of the importance of listening to their attorneys.

“Pray for their wisdom. We cannot make one mistake.”

Gessner:  The most incriminating part in her letter to him is when she said, “We can’t afford to—to make one mistake.”

Walsh: I can’t think of another interpretation for that, “We cannot make one mistake—“ other than what we believe that means is, “Don’t mess up.  We’re in this together.  And—“We did this together.”

Why would Cindy take such rash action—write Zaffino letters and pay for part of his defense? Prosecutors say it was an explosive equation: affairs plus motive plus phone calls and money equals murder... guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

But the defense had yet to tell Cindy’s side of the story, and the public was eager to hear every sensational detail.

Trexler: For four and a half years, you never heard Cindy George utter a word in her own defense.  We all wanted to hear what Cindy George had to say about the murder of her boyfriend.

Cindy was about to get some help from an unlikely source—the man she’d betrayed not once, but twice, a man incredibly who was still standing by her.

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