The Advocate
Richard Blassberg

A Simple “Yes”, or “No”

Lately we’ve been seeing and hearing a lot from Mrs. Pirro in daily newspapers and on television. Up until last week she would have had us believe that her top priority, was to protect her family, specifically her children, from the glaring lights and the stress of a political campaign: an admirable intention if indeed genuine. However, last week we began to see and hear from her daughter Christine, known to her friends and family as Kiki.

Christine Pirro is now an adult, over 21 years of age, and apparently has made the conscious decision to get personally involved in her mother’s campaign. We understand that she told a group of 200 supporters of her mother, at a fundraiser last week, that Jeanine is a “great role model.” The question that needs to be asked, once again, of her mother is, “Where was your daughter Christine on the afternoon of April 23, 2002, as Robert Viscome, Jr. lay dying on your neighbor’s patio while two dozen of his, and Christine’s friends were
busy cleaning up drug and alcohol paraphernalia?”


The people of Westchester have never been given a satisfactory answer, other than your comment, Mrs.
Pirro, at the Reel Java Coffee and Video Shop in West Harrison, in July of that year, in which you said, in response to the question of whether Christine was present, “She wasn’t there when the assault
happened.”

The people of Westchester, the friends, family and loved ones of Rob Viscome, Jr., to this day, have never understood how some two dozen youths walked away from that incident without so much as Community Service
for letting Rob Viscome die, for their conscious decision not to call for emergency help, but instead, to clean up
evidence of drug and alcohol use. We’re still waiting for your answer, Mrs. Pirro; or, better yet, for Christine’s account, now that you have brought her actively into your campaign as a spokesperson for you. We’re waiting for an answer – a simple yes or no.

Now that Christine Pirro, daughter of Jeanine and Al Pirro has reached the age of majority, and has made the decision, as an adult, to speak out in public about the conduct and character of her mother, we must now expand
the inquiry previously directed to former District Attorney Pirro alone, to both of them. We must now expand the inquiry that has been directed for more than four years regarding her daughter’s whereabouts to the daughter
herself. After all, who knows better than she where she was and what she and her friends did, or did not do on that fateful and tragic afternoon as their friend Robert Viscome, Jr., lay dying, and unattended on the patio of her
neighbor’s, the Porzio’s, house.

When asked in July of 2002 the same question, Jeanine Pirro, caught off-guard, responded, “she wasn’t there
when the assault happened.” But, when asked a week later to clarify and simply state whether, or not her daughter was at the Porzio residence at any time while Robert Viscome lay injured and unattended, she then responded with a letter from her attorney, David Boies, threatening a defamation action. Imagine, the chief law enforcement officer of Westchester County, a person subject to the highest possible scrutiny for their
conduct in office, threatening a journalist with a defamation suit for asking the whereabouts of her daughter at the time her friend was dying because his friends refused to summon emergency medical assistance, for fear authorities would find alcohol and drug use evidence?

So now we seek the best evidence, as we say in law, a statement from the person in question. Tell us, Christine,
were you, or were you not at the Porzio residence, at any time, on the afternoon of April 23, 2002 as your friend, Robert Viscome, Jr., lay dying and unattended, and twenty or more youngsters, who you know, went about destroying evidence of alcohol and other abuse Please, tell us where you were, Christine, because you speak of your mother as a great role model. But, from where we stand, and from what we know to be true, she would appear to be a role model whose lesson has been that it’s not important to conduct yourself lawfully, nor to be accountable for your behavior, but merely to not get caught. If that is the lesson, if that is what this role model, your mother, has taught, it has had, and it will continue to have, tragic consequences in your life, and the lives of all your friends, who have been prevented from coming to grips with what they did, and did not do, on that day. The guilt has already severely affected their lives and the lives of those who love them.