Dangerous Liaisons

Cindy George: All my life I believed in the justice system. And I just couldn’t believe that this happened to me.

Cindy George was a long way from home—behind the razor wire of the Ohio Reformatory for women. There was barely a trace of the beaming beauty queen left in this softspoken 52-year-old mother of seven. More than a year after her conviction, she was still reeling from the verdict that sent her to prison for 23 years to life.

Cindy George: I just remember looking at my children, and the horror on their faces. And just how this could happen to our family.

Corderi: You had faith that there would be an acquittal?

Cindy George: Yes.

Looking back on the past four and a half years, the stories that portrayed her as a vain, self-centered, scheming adulteress, Cindy said she’d been misunderstood—that she’s not a villain, but a victim of mental illness, of physical and mental abuse, of bad legal advice.

Corderi: What do you think it is that people don’t understand about you

Cindy George: The way it’s been portrayed is how a mother of seven children has two affairs and—I think that’s the most misconstrued conception.                      

Corderi: Misconstrued in what way? You’re a mother of seven. Did have two affairs.

Cindy George: Right.

Corderi: Well, what is missing from that picture that would make someone look at that a different way?

Cindy George: Of how it started. And the depression. And what I was up against.

Cindy said she began to battle depression during her many troubled pregnancies.

Cindy George: Headaches that never went away for one minute. They would actually nail blankets up and the windows so that the light wouldn’t come on.

Her marriage, she said, was once very strong.

Cindy George: We knew that it would be forever from the minute we met.

Corderi: If you were so happy, then why did you start an affair with Jeff Zack?

It’s a question she never quite answered, except to relate this story about Zack coming to her rescue when her husband had insulted her. 

Cindy George: He came over to me and said to my husband, “You have such a wonderful wife.” And “She’s got seven kids.”  And my husband said “If you think she’s so great—if you want—if you can afford her you can have her.”

Corderi: Your husband said that?

Cindy George: (SOBBING) And I know it was just a joke. But to me (SOBBING) it was like a ton of bricks. Jeff Zack steps up behind me and says, “You don’t deserve that. Why don’t you come over and talk to me and my wife.” And that started a bond.

She said her husband spent most of his time at the family’s restaurant... and that Jeff Zack always was around the house.

Cindy George: In the beginning it was infatuated. Cause I was lonely. But it turned quick.

Corderi: Turned ugly quick?

Cindy George: Very.                    

Cindy said Zack was moody and would become abusive...their sexual relationship began, she said, when he came to her home one night in a rage.

Cindy George: (SOBBING) And he came in. (SOBBING)  And bad things happened after that.

Corderi: Your first night together he raped you?

Cindy George: Yeah.

Corderi: Why didn’t you tell your husband?

Cindy George: My husband had such a good name. And the family had such a good name. And I was afraid of what my husband would do.

As hard as it may seem to believe, Cindy said she stayed with Zack for 10 years because he terrorized her. Zack would call at all hours, she said, demanding her time and attention, threatening her life if she crossed him.

Cindy George: Things got worse and worse. Where he threatened—with a razor blade at my face. Or pour acid down my throat. Or—set—set me-- (SOBBING)

Corderi: Set you on fire?        

Cindy George: Yes. So that I would be able to smell the smell of gasoline.

Corderi: He had gas rags?

Cindy George: And he would put them to my face.

Corderi: Did anyone know about all these things?

Cindy George: No. (SIGH)

The threats and violence she described cannot be verified because she never went to a hospital or to police. However, in court, her therapist testified that Cindy was afraid of Zack. And when we talked to the former nanny, she told us said she knew of one instance when Zack was violent.

Marianne Brewer: One time she came home and she was kinda beat up.  And I said, “What in the world happened to you?  And she said, “Jeff did this.”

So in the middle of this mess, why would Cindy decide to make it even more complicated by taking on another lover?

Corderi: Why did you start an affair with John Zaffino?

Cindy George: It didn’t start as an affair. All I know is in this whole darkness, that somebody was extending their hand.

When they met in that bar in 2000, she said Zaffino was kind, trying to help her work out her problems with Zack.

Corderi: Did you ask him to kill Jeff Zack?

Cindy George: I never asked anyone to kill—

Corderi: Did you encourage him—

Cindy George: No.

Corderi: --in any way?

Cindy George: No. I never asked him, I never paid him. I never knew. He was just trying to help me.

She said if Zaffino murdered her former lover, he was acting own his own... even though some evidence at trial made it look like she was in on it.

Corderi: Did you give Zaffino $5,300--

Cindy George: Yes.

Corderi: --to buy a motorcycle?

Cindy George: Yes I did. He asked me to buy—if he could borrow money to buy the motorcycle.

Corderi: But you had no idea that it was gonna be used in the commission of a crime—

Cindy George: No. No.

And what about the phone records that showed her talking to Zaffino before and after the murder? Cindy said that was coincidence.

Corderi: What were you talking about?

Cindy George: I don’t remember much about it.

Corderi: He never told you what he did—

Cindy George: No.

Corderi: —that he had taken care of your problem?

Cindy George: No.

So then why did she hide all of this from the police?

Cindy George: I did exactly what my attorneys everything that I know.

And that, Cindy said was her greatest mistake—listening to her high priced-attorneys. She said they were the ones who convinced her to opt for a judge instead of a jury. And they also told her not to testify.

Cindy George: I even said, “This isn’t going to make sense. I need to tell the story. I need to tell the truth.”

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