Under the Knife

by Diane Fanning

  Greg repeated his answer, but realized that no matter what he said or how many times he said it, they were not going to believe him. He signed a document waiving his attorney–client privilege so his lawyer could answer the investigators’ questions. Greg hoped they would believe his attorney. However, neither Prunty nor Della Rocca ever made that follow-up call.

  Greg left the meeting in turmoil, wondering if what they had told him was even true. Did Della Rocca make some of that stuff up? he wondered. Greg knew he could no longer trust the investigators or the prosecutors.

  Greg took the tone of the meeting as an indication that he needed a criminal attorney on his side, but he didn’t want to go into further debt hiring one. Dean trashed his credit and left him in a deep financial hole—he was already climbing as fast as he could, and there was no end in sight.

  He sought legal advice elsewhere. First, Greg visited the Legal Aid Society of New York. Since he was not charged with a crime, though, they could not help him. He then consulted with advisors at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Greg, however, had no reason to believe he was being discriminated against because of his sexual preferences. The Gay/Lesbian Center sponsored a legal clinic each month in which they offered free fifteen-minute consultations with attorneys. Greg made an appointment. It would be difficult to condense his bizarre story into the short time frame allotted, and revealing it was embarrassing. But he did it anyway.

  “It looks like you’ve gotten yourself into a sticky wicket,” the lawyer said, but aside from that observation, offered nothing more.

  Up until this point, Greg avoided interviews with the media. He didn’t want his role in the mystery exposed. He didn’t want Dean to know that he went to the police. But the tabloids outed him just the same, and they did it in what he regarded as a sleazy, nasty way.

  Greg wanted to counteract the negative effects of the stories. He needed to talk to someone who might give him answers—information about the chain of events that he had not been able to get from the police. And he hoped that if he told his whole story to a reputable publication, everyone would read it and at last leave him alone.

  Greg chose to approach Vanity Fair first. He selected them because of their reputation for journalistic integrity. He knew there were less reputable venues out there who would pay him for his story, but Greg was more interested in enhancing his credibility than in lining his pocket. Walking into their offices on the seventh floor of 4 Times Square, he asked if they were interested. They were, and they assigned Bryan Burrough to cover the story. Greg told him about his involvement in Dean’s life and the recovery of Maria’s body. But Bryan could not offer him any new information—he knew less than Greg. He suggested that Greg contact the producers at 48 Hours.

  The CBS show began covering the disappearance of Maria Cruz in the summer of 2003 as part of a bigger story about missing persons in New York. At some point, the story seemed to be going nowhere, so they shelved their footage and let it drop. But new developments in the Maria Cruz case revitalized their interest, and they resurrected the material.

  Greg approached the producers with great trepidation. It was a big stretch for a private person like him. Again, Greg divulged his story to a media outlet whose policy prohibited paying for interviews. But the 48 Hours–Greg Bach collaboration proved mutually beneficial in other ways. Greg filled in some blanks for Harold Dow, one of the show’s star producers, and field producer Susan Mallie, and they answered many of Greg’s questions in return.

  Again and again, Greg fielded queries about the $25,000 reward money. Why hadn’t he requested it? Initially, Greg had seen the fund as blood money, and wanted nothing to do with it. But as time went by, his attitude changed. He suffered a lot of inconvenience by coming forward, and he staggered under the financial burden of Dean’s actions. He decided in the end to request the reward.

  First, he called CrimeStoppers. They said that the reward was not listed with them. He needed to call Detective Della Rocca they told him. Greg thought about it for a few days before he got up the nerve to call the detective and ask about it.

  “We want to wait until Dean is in the United States before we deal with that,” Della Rocca responded.

  But the people at 48 Hours insisted that he was entitled to the money and that he should contact Barclays—after all, they put up half of the money, and should have some control over the distribution. Greg discussed the issue with the human resources department at Barclays, who also referred him to Della Rocca.

  Greg called the detective again and pointed out that the reward was not offered for the return of Dean Faiello but for information leading to the whereabouts of Maria Cruz.

  “That’s not what I do,” Della Rocca said. “Call the number on the poster.”

  “Your number is on the poster, Detective. That’s why I am calling you.”

  Greg did not understand. He had cooperated fully from the beginning. He never even got a thank you, only grief.

  The next time Greg met with Assistant District Attorney Ann Prunty and Detective Della Rocca, their hostility sucked the air out of the room. They peppered him with questions that sounded very familiar to Greg. “Are you asking me about stuff you read in the Vanity Fair article or what’s in police reports?”

  He got no answer, but knew his assumption was right. Still, it made no sense.

  Referring to the death of Maria Cruz and the disposal of her body, Della Rocca asked, “You mean you’re telling me you didn’t know?”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you from the beginning, Detective,” Greg said.

  “We believe you knew all about it, Mr. Bach. If we’re right, we’ll charge you with conspiracy after the fact,” Prunty said.

  “I did nothing wrong. I brought my suspicions to Investigator Ford. I didn’t know if they were justified or not. You know there’s no truth to that charge.”

  Prunty ignored Greg’s assertions of innocence and left him feeling that she did not care.

  Greg left the encounter stunned. Anger roiled through his body. First Dean used him and tossed him aside. Now the authorities were doing the same thing. Greg could not worry about the expense any longer. He needed a criminal attorney. He hired one that day.

  With that action, Greg severed the line of direct communication between himself and the investigation of Dean Faiello. Greg would no longer speak to investigators without his attorney present. After all of his cooperation, it galled Greg to think that any time he sat down with the authorities, he would have to pay a legal fee. Unfortunately, he felt he had no other choice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  AFTER DEAN MOVED OUT OF THE IMMIGRATION FACILITY AND into the regular jail, most of the reporters headed back home. Jeane MacIntosh stuck around. She was there on March 17, 2004, when the office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morganthau filed a felony arrest warrant with the Criminal Court of the City of New York charging Dean Faiello with one count of murder in the second degree:

  The defendant, under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, recklessly engaged in conduct which created a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby caused the death of another person.

  Two circumstances allowed the district attorney to charge Dean with murder instead of manslaughter, even though when Dean injected the lidocaine into the tongue of Maria Cruz, he had no intention of killing her or doing her any harm. First of all, Maria’s death occurred in the commission of another crime—practicing medicine without a license. Second, Dean called Dr. Goldschmitt, who’d advised him to rush Maria to the hospital. Dean chose to ignore the advice that could have saved Maria’s life.

  When Dean fled from the United States, he faced a 6-month term of imprisonment. With these new charges, he now looked at the possibility of 25 years to life behind bars.

  BEFORE RETURNING TO NEW YORK, JEANE MACINTOSH REceived an invitation to dinner with Costa Rican defense attorney Moises Vincenzi, at his home in the country. Vince
nzi had a long history of death threats, compelling him to wear a bullet-proof vest and travel with armed guards. Knowing this, Jeane was not surprised to discover that Vincenzi lived in a gated community and had armed guards around the perimeter of the home where he lived with his beautiful wife and son.

  After a pleasant dinner, Jeane was taking her leave when she tripped over a suitcase standing behind a sofa. She righted it and noticed an identification tag labeling it as the property of Dean Faiello. “Can I look inside?” she asked.

  Vincenzi rushed over to secure the bag. “I’ve been storing some of Dean’s belongings for him.”

  “Come on, let me take a peek inside. Have you looked at the contents? Maybe there’s another body in there,” she joked.

  Vincenzi laughed. “Maybe so,” he said, but he would not let Jeane check it out.

  MOISES VINCENZI CONTINUED HIS BATTLE WITH THE POWER vested in the New York government. Most extradition requests resulted in the fugitive’s return within six months of arrest. But, thanks to Vincenzi, six months after Dean’s capture, he remained in San Jose.

  Somehow, Dean arranged for take-out meals from McDonald’s, Burger King and Pizza Hut to supplement the usual prison fare of beans and rice and had money placed into the accounts of other inmates to provide protection for him behind bars. In addition, he paid a lot of money to jailers to enjoy the simple luxury of sleeping on a bed each night. In the first six months of his incarceration in Costa Rica, $7,000 went through Dean’s hands to pay for these perks.

  Vincenzi denied that he’d made these arrangements. “It was my job to protect him legally, not in jail. It is not my business what he does in jail. I did not get into those issues with him.”

  Dean expected Vincenzi to get him out of jail while he awaited a decision on the extradition request. Vincenzi tried, petitioning the judge to allow his client to go to his beach home and report in to court every two weeks. His request was denied.

  When it appeared that Vincenzi had exhausted his arsenal of maneuvers to delay extradition, Dean fired him. He knew that changing lawyers would automatically delay the legal process a little bit longer. “Dean Faiello thinks he can buy liberty,” a Costa Rican lawyer told Jeane MacIntosh. “But Vincenzi doesn’t operate that way. He believes in the justice process. If Faiello had had a bad defense, he’d be back in the United States already.”

  “The guy’s a fool,” Vincenzi said. “He won’t listen to anyone. He prefers living in a Costa Rican jail to coming back to the States.” Vincenzi could not understand how Dean—or anyone—would choose the primitive conditions of the Central American jail over the far more civilized situation in U.S. prisons.

  DEAN FOUGHT EXTRADITION TO THE UNITED STATES IN THE San Sebastian jail with 1,200 inmates awaiting trial. Because of the facility’s high elevation, he often watched clouds drifting through the grounds. During the wet season, heavy rains pounded down on the corrugated roof of the jail, creating a loud—but oddly soothing—drumming noise. “I found it very peaceful to read in the library and hear and feel the rain,” Dean wrote. “The noise from the rain also cancelled out a lot of the cacophony of jail noises such as prisoners shouting and the metal clanging of gates.”

  Dean caught exotic glimpses of volcanoes and the surrounding lush rainforests from many parts of the jail, but his favorite spot was the path to the attorney meeting room in an adjacent building. To reach it, Dean walked through an outdoor garden filled with hanging pendulas, banana trees, bougainvillea, palm trees and marble statues of saints. While waiting outside for his lawyer to finish up with other inmate-clients, Dean spent time reading and admiring the flowers in that serene oasis.

  After his meeting, he returned to the chaos of his dormitory-style unit. There, a group of fifty-five men shared two toilets, two showers and one sink. There were no electrical outlets, no hot water and lights were turned on for only four hours a day from 6 to 10 P.M.

  Pandemonium reigned over the area until midnight. Then, for a few hours, a restless near-quiet descended over the unit, broken only by coughing, sneezing and hacking. Half of the men slept on uncomfortable cots and the other half curled up on the floor.

  The government of Costa Rica provides medical care, prescriptions and surgery to all of its citizens at no charge, but the wait for services is often long for everyone. Jail was no exception. Dean often had to wait two to three weeks just to see the doctor. Then, he found that the government did not provide any HIV medications to prisoners. Dean’s T-cell count plummeted from 420 to 183. His viral load shot up from undetectable levels to over 16,000. He contracted pneumocystis carinii, the most common opportunistic infection in people with HIV, and cytomegalovirus, a naturally occurring virus that rarely causes illness except among those like Dean whose immune systems were compromised.

  Another drawback to the jail was the food. There were only two meals a day: lunch and dinner. For both meals, the menu was the same: black beans and rice. Occasionally, the rice was enlivened with bits of vegetable and ground beef, but that was as extravagant as it got. Inmates never received chicken or fish, bread, fruit, juice or dessert.

  To make matters worse, every meal tasted of the scorched canola oil that was used again and again long past its prime. Despite occasional supplementary meals from the outside, Dean lost thirty pounds in the fifteen months he spent in the facility.

  To get out of the dorm room, Dean taught English at the jail school five days a week for five to seven hours each day. “I was fortunate in that my students were very motivated,” Dean wrote.

  Even though there were no officers in the classrooms, I never had a disciplinary problem. I think that had to do with the fact that the school offered so much. Those who caused trouble would miss out on the use of computers, painting classes, wood-working shop (yes, with power tools and cutting blades!), candle-making, sewing classes, watercolors and even free coffee, which was the real reason I stuck it out.

  Dean took advantage of the prison library, stocked with hundreds of books in Spanish, German and English. He often selected a paperback novel in his native tongue, but also learned to read Spanish with a dictionary at his fingertips. Hemingway in Spanish was a pleasurable challenge for Dean. He read Islas en el Golfo (Islands in the Stream), Por Quien Doblan las Campanas (For Whom the Bell Tolls), and El Viejo y el Mar (The Old Man and the Sea). He also enjoyed the Spanish translations of J. R. R. Tolkien’s books, but found that the works of Lillian Hellman fell flat in that language. Between this reading and learning to communicate with his fellow inmates, he was fluent in Spanish within months.

  JEANE MACINTOSH RETURNED TO NEW YORK AND, WITH A PHOtographer, staked out the house of Dr. David Goldschmitt, awaiting his arrival from work. Once he returned, they gave him a few minutes, then knocked on the front door. David welcomed them inside.

  Chaos ruled in the old Victorian home, where a major renovation was underway. David gave the Post duo a tour. They stepped over tools and lumber and dodged scaffolding as he explained the work in progress and the expected outcome. He told them about the history of his house, as well as that of Dean’s place up the street.

  He talked about his concerns for Dean. As a doctor, David knew all too well the risks faced by a bisexual who was promiscuous. “It made me crazy when he went cruising for guys.” He said that Dean often went trolling in a seedy area near the neighborhood of Forest Hill.

  He related the events of the night Maria died. “I could have saved her—somebody could have saved her if Dean had just called an ambulance. I tried desperately to make him understand she needed immediate medical attention. That’s the worst part. In cases like this, we save ninety-five percent of them. It’s very rare for someone to die, unless you wait too long for medical attention.

  “He said she was a friend. Was that the truth? Now, I don’t know. I’ve learned that Dean can be a very convincing liar.”

  Jeane asked to take a picture of him. He agreed, but excused himself first to don a fresh shirt. Jeane asked, “How do you fe
el now about what Dean has done?”

  “I can’t forgive him. He tortured this woman’s family for ten months. I cannot imagine the anguish they went through. But maybe I might be able to give the family some comfort to know that she probably wasn’t in pain when she died.”

  Before they left, David told them about his annual Christmas party and got their phone numbers so he could invite them to the next one.

  FOR MONTHS, THE PRODUCERS OF 48 HOURS MYSTERY NEGOTIated with Dean’s attorneys for an interview. Finally, access was granted. Harold Dow and his crew flew to Costa Rica. They entered the crumbling, derelict building that housed prisoners in San Jose and immediately realized that conditions here were far more rustic than in any New York prison.

  Dean started the conversation with complaints. His voice sounded whiny, but the expression on his face appeared arrogant. “The truth is, I’m very unhappy with my physical health at this point. It’s no secret I’m HIV positive. I have been here for six months without any treatment, any medical treatment of my HIV condition. I think I’ve lost eleven kilos, which is about twenty-two pounds.”

  Dow’s face bore the countenance of a placid pool. As a practiced interviewer and listener, he knew when it was in his best interest to conceal—or to reveal—any judgmental feelings toward his subject. He asked Dean why he continued to fight extradition when he faced such miserable living conditions.

  Before answering, Dean darted his eyes sideways to his attorney, Nuria Mataritta Martinez. Then, in a seeming contradiction of his previous complaints, Dean said, “I like Costa Rica and I’m doing everything that I can with my attorney and in my legal powers to stay here in this country. I wish to spend the rest of my life here in Costa Rica.”

  Dean’s new lawyer stood on the sidelines during the interview, interrupting whenever she did not want Dean to answer. She clearly harbored doubts about the wisdom of allowing CBS to speak with her client, and she tried to terminate the interview many times before she succeeded.