Imprisoned Mayor Says Pay Up

A former Connecticut mayor and once-prominent Republican politician serving a lengthy federal prison sentence for child sexual abuse had the audacity to claim that the city he once headed owes him tens of thousands of dollars in personal benefits.

Former Waterbury Mayor Philip A. Giordano was convicted in 2003 of 17 counts of child abuse involving the use of city-owned equipment to set up sexual liaisons with two young girls. He was sentenced to 37 years in federal prison and now claims that Waterbury owes him $61,000 for unused vacation, sick and personal days.

Giordano, a three-term Waterbury mayor, had also served as a Connecticut state representative and was the Republican challenger against popular incumbent Senator Joseph Lieberman in 2000. The child sex charges surfaced in 2001, during a federal corruption investigation into Giordano’s administration. He was accused of taking kickbacks involving city contracts, making him Waterbury’s third consecutive mayor to end up in court and the second to go to prison.

Now residents of the industrial city, located about 30 miles southwest of Hartford, are outraged that this disgraced mayor is demanding money after all the damage he has already caused. One editorial called Giordano’s demand insulting and points out the setbacks and lost revenue he made Waterbury and its citizens suffer because of his tawdry actions.