Just when it seemed the Jim McGreevey scandal — governor's gay affair with a top aide, nasty divorce court hearings, child custody spats — couldn't get any more tawdry, it does.
Now they're feuding over whether they engaged in sexual threesomes with his former driver, each firing off statements that contradict the other.
By MARCUS BARAM
NEW YORK, March 17, 2008
McGreevey's now estranged wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, heatedly denied to ABCNews.com today the latest allegation — that she took part in numerous threesomes that included McGreevey and his driver, Ted Pedersen.
Read her full statement to ABCNews.com Matos McGreevey also rejected the claim by Pedersen, that she was aware that her husband was gay when she married him.
Yet the former governor confirms that the menages-a-trois did happen.
"This happened, this happened in the past, and now, we need to move on with our lives," he wrote in a statement e-mailed by his lawyer. "For all of our sakes, particularly our daughter, we need to close this chapter and look toward the future. This was referenced in an earlier draft of my book, and I had it removed. I still hope Dina and I can resolve our issues privately."
Pedersen claimed over the weekend that he has filed a sworn deposition as part of the McGreevey's brawling divorce proceedings that the three of them frequently engaged in what they called "Friday Night Specials." They occurred before and after her wedding, he claims, but stopped before McGreevey became governor.
The allegation prompted a furious denial from Matos McGreevey, who said Pedersen's claims were "completely false."
In an e-mail to ABCNews.com, she claimed that McGreevey had set up Pedersen, one of his "cronies," to spread the tale because her former husband "cannot stand it when I am receiving attention in the media rather than him."
Matos McGreevey was interviewed by numerous media outlets in recent days for her perspective on the sex scandal involving New York's disgraced ex-governor, Eliot Spitzer.
She allleged to ABCNews.com that her former husband had "arranged jobs for Pedersen" since his time in office, and that McGreevey and his new domestic partner Mark O'Donnell "funded Pedersen's vacation to China, along with Jim, O'Donnell and other members of Jim's inner circle." The trip occurred in August 2007.
"This was obviously payback time for Pedersen," Matos McGreevey wrote in her e-mail to ABCNews.com.
Pedersen told the Newark Star-Ledger that he had sex with Matos McGreevey while her husband watched at the couple's condo in Woodridge, N.J. The sex often took place after dinner at a local T.G.I. Friday's, he said.
The one-time driver said that Matos McGreevey's claim that she didn't know her husband was gay when she married him was false.
Pedersen, 29, who lives with his longtime girlfriend, claims that he never knew the former governor was gay.
"In hindsight there might have been light interest [in me] but it didn't seem like he was gay. It did enhance their sexual relationship having me be a part of it," he told the paper.
The former driver says he made the same allegations in a sworn deposition after he was subpoenaed by Matos McGreevey in her divorce procedings. She has always maintained that she did not know McGreevey was gay and claims that McGreevey married her to advance his political career.
Matos McGreevey would not respond to follow-up questions.
Stephen Haller, Jim McGreevey's lawyer, wouldn't comment on Pedersen's claims, but did confirm that Pedersen has submitted a sworn deposition to the court.
Ex- New Jersey Governor and Wife were Swingers
Jim McGreevey's and estranged wife, Dina Matos McGreevey
Theodore Pedersen's claims, as reported in the Newark Star Ledger on March 16, are completely false and were prompted by Jim McGreevey. This all has to do with the publicity I have received since Governor Spitzer resigned. Jim has enlisted one of his cronies in trying to distinguish that situation from his own, and to discredit me in the media. He cannot stand it when I am receiving attention in the media rather than him.
The falsity of that claim is made clear on the very first page of Jim's book, just as his description of our relationship in his book stands in stark contrast to Pedersen's false allegations.
Jim again became the focus of the media's attention, just one day after my book was released by announcing his intention to become an Episcopalian priest.
Jim has had a close relationship with Pedersen since his days as Mayor of Woodbridge, and arranged jobs for Pedersen from that time through his years as Governor and beyond. They have continued their close relationship since Jim left office. Most recently, in August 2007, Jim and his partner, Mark O'Donnell, funded Pedersen's vacation to China, along with Jim, O'Donnell, and other members of Jim's inner circle.
This was obviously payback time for Pedersen.
Dina Matos McGreevey's statement to ABCNews.com: Denies she's a swinger
This is not the first time. Jim started with a false claim, made shortly before my book was published, that I knew he was gay when we were married.
Dina Matos Denies She Had Group Sex While Married To New Jersey Governor
By TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, April 22nd 2007, 9:52 AM
Dina Matos McGreevey glares at Jim during his famous 'I am a gay American' speech.
In her new tell-all, Dina paints former N.J. gov as a self-absorbed liar she often didn't trust.
The McGreeveys with baby Jacqueline
The sex was good.
But that's the only nice thing Dina Matos McGreevey has to say about her sham of a marriage to gay former Gov. Jim McGreevey.
In her new memoir, "Silent Partner," the former first lady of New Jersey portrays her ex-husband as a self-absorbed liar who never gave a genuine apology and tried to strong-arm her during divorce negotiations.
She oozes bitterness recounting how he ruined her life by bedding another man and how he insisted she smile brightly during his notorious "I am a gay American" resignation speech.
"You have to pull yourself together," he sternly told her before the 2004 announcement that shocked the nation. "You have to be Jackie Kennedy today."
The 290-page book obtained by the Daily News comes out May 1, just as the warring exes are in the throes of a nasty custody battle over their daughter, Jacqueline.
Former Gov. James E. McGreevey said he cannot afford Dina Matos McGreevey's appetite for cooks, chauffeurs, groundskeepers and other luxuries she enjoyed as the first lady of New Jersey, according to court papers released Thursday.
With the exception of his brief time when he was governor and lived in the governor's mansion, McGreevey said he has led a modest life, living in apartments.
Matos McGreevey is demanding $4,000 a month until the court sets a final amount. Matos McGreevey told the courts this week that she makes $82,000 a year but needs $11,162 a month to meet her expenses.
"Not only does she view Drumthwacket as an entitlement but she believes that she must be kept in that lifestyle. A lifestyle that was artificial at best, funded by the state of New Jersey and one that I could never afford and now cannot afford," McGreevey said.
McGreevey projects his 2007 income to be $118,000.
The couple is embroiled in a bitter divorce with custody of their 6-year-old daughter Jacqueline and alimony being at the center of their dispute. They married in 2000. McGreevey was elected governor in 2001. He resigned in disgrace in August 2004 after if was revealed he put his lover on the payroll as homeland security adviser. He later admitted to the affair calling himself a "gay American."
Dina Matos McGreevey, who is in the midst of a bitter divorce from the former governor, has charged in court papers that his comments calling her homophobic harmed the sales of her recently released memoir.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The estranged wife of former Gov. James E. McGreevey claims that his accusations of homophobia have hurt her book sales. He blames her taste in clothing.
Description
In August 2004, Governor James E. McGreevey of New Jersey made history when he stepped before microphones, declared "My truth is that I am a gay American," and announced his resignation. The story made international headlines--but what led to that moment was a human and political drama more complex and fascinating than anyone knew. Now, in this extraordinarily candid memoir, McGreevey shares his story of a life of ambition, moral compromise, and redemption.
From childhood, McGreevey lived a kind of idealized American life. The son of working-class Irish Catholic parents, named for an uncle who died at Iwo Jima, he strove to exceed expectations in everything he did, meeting each new challenge as though his "future rode on every move." As a young man he was tempted by the priesthood, yet it was another calling--politics--that he found irresistible. Plunging early into the dangerous waters of New Jersey politics, he won three elections by the age of thirty-six, and soon thereafter nearly toppled the state's popular governor, Christie Todd Whitman, in a photo-finish election. Four years later, he won the governorship by a landslide.
Throughout his adult life, however, Jim McGreevey had been forced to suppress a fundamental truth about himself: that he was gay. He knew at once that the only clear path to his dreams was to live a straight life, and so he split in two, accepting the traditional role of family man while denying his deepest emotions. And he discovered, to his surprise, that becoming a political player demanded ethical shortcuts that became as corrosive as living in the closet. In the cutthroat culture of political bosses, backroom deals, and the insidious practiceknown as "pay-to-play," he writes, "political compromises came easy to me because I'd learned how to keep a part of myself innocent of them." His policy triumphs as governor were tempered by scandal, as the transgressions of his staff came back to haunt him. Yet only when a former lover threatened to expose him did he finally confront his divided soul, and find the authentic self that had always eluded him.
More than a coming-out memoir, "The Confession" is the story of one man's quest to repair the rift between his public and private selves, at a time in our culture when the personal and political have become tangled like frayed electric cables. Teeming with larger-than-life characters, written with honesty, grace, and rare insight into what it means to negotiate the minefields of American public life, it may be among the most honest political memoirs ever written.
I'm not homophobic
"Silent Partner" is Dina's answer to Jim's autobiography, "The Confession."
His tome was a kiss-and-tell project, filled with steamy details about his hookups with his Israeli-born Homeland Security chief, Golan Cipel, and others.
His ex-wife's story is more prudish, though she does reveal early on that the Democrat wasn't a dud in the sack. In fact, she insists, "the sex was good."
ould say yes.
The disclosure is meant to bolster her claim that she was completely oblivious to her husband's secret life - even though she'd heard the occasional whisper.
She was so convinced he was straight, she writes, that her only fear was that he might still be involved with his ex-wife, Kari, who lived in British Columbia with their young daughter, Morag.
McGreevey was separated but not yet divorced when he met Dina Matos, a hospital administrator, at a New Jersey political function.
They dated for three years before he proposed - and before he popped the question he cowardly asked a friend to make sure she w
He gave her the ring on a trip to Montreal, a trip she says she almost didn't make because she was upset McGreevey had enlisted one of his handsome young staffers to drive them.
The early days of the marriage were hectic, with McGreevey - the mayor of Woodbridge - campaigning for governor.
Things got even busier when Dina became pregnant, news that didn't initially thrill her husband, she writes.
"Now?" he callously asked her when she told him the news. "This isn't exactly great timing."
Matos McGreevey was on bed rest for much of her pregnancy, and it was while she was in the hospital that he says his affair with Golan Cipel began.
She believed the marriage was solid. Her only nagging worry, she writes, was Jim's secretiveness about his calls and visits to Kari and Morag.
Golan Cipel has accused Jim McGreevey (r) of sexual harassment
Visit Golan Cipel official site- click here !
He also called her book "poorly written" and "dull" and derided as "unbelievable" her assertion that she didn't know he was gay, according to a story posted online by The Star-Ledger of Newark.
The letter was sent as Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy considered whether Matos McGreevey can claim that her former husband libeled and defamed her when he called her homophobic.
But in a letter to a family court judge, McGreevey blamed his wife's May 1 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, citing "her awful appearance" in "an inappropriate and ill-fitting ballgown with a plunging neckline."
Jim & Dina
during happier times
Dina makes the rounds to sell her book
She knew Cipel only as a controversial figure in the administration who was blasted as too inexperienced for his position.
According to Dina, she learned the truth about their relationship on Aug. 9, 2004, when the governor summoned her back to Drumthwacket, their official residence in Princeton.
"I want to tell you that what I'm about to say has nothing to do with you," he said.
Then he told her he was being blackmailed by Cipel, who was demanding $50 million and threatening a sexual harassment suit.
"I had a relationship with him," he said.
"Not sexual ... but sexual."
Two days later, Dina writes, he went further, using a certain three-letter word for the first time: "I think I might be gay."
She didn't learn he was certain he was gay - "a gay American" - until she read a draft of his speech a few hours before he delivered it.
"You have to smile," he reportedly reminded her on the way to the announcement.
"And if reporters ask you why you're here, you should tell them, 'I'm here because he's my husband and I love him.'
"And if the reporters ask you what you think of gay marriage, you should say, 'I'm sensitive to the issue.'"
"Make sure you smile a little more when I ask for forgiveness and thank you for bringing joy to my life," he added.
Matos McGreevey writes that she was particularly stung by a passage in the speech where he mentioned his love for his first wife but not his love for her.
And it went downhill from there.
In the succeeding days, she recalls, the lame-duck pol was cranky and self-pitying and never said he was sorry to her until she complained to friends.
Even then, it wasn't heartfelt.
"For the record, I apologize," he said in a flat voice.
With her marriage all but over and Jim's resignation date looming, Dina had to find a new place to live.
She wanted to buy a house in a good school district, but her soon-to-be-ex was pleading poverty.
He said he had no savings, even though he made six figures as governor and had secretly sold his home in Woodbridge, refusing to tell Dina the price, she claims.
He began playing hardball, cajoling her to buy an apartment instead of a house, refusing to give her cash for a downpayment unless she agreed to a quick divorce settlement, according to the book.
At one point, he asked her to co-write a book with him because an agent had told him they could get a $500,000 advance if they authored one together, she writes.
She says he also demanded she move out of Drumthwacket before his official resignation date because staying until the last minute would make her "look like white trash."
"Don't you have any dignity or self-respect?" he reportedly said. "Jackie Kennedy wouldn't do that."
"Jackie Kennedy's husband wouldn't resign without making sure that his wife and daughter had a place to live," she spat back.
The lowest point, she writes, came when she discovered a pile of papers on the kitchen table that proved upon closer inspection to be a draft of "The Confession."
In it, McGreevey said that he had married Dina for "political gain." And he described his seduction of Cipel, saying it was "an exhilarating night."
In the preface, Matos McGreevey said she decided to write her own book because she was tired of all the speculation about whether she and Jim had a marriage of convenience.
"Enough is enough," she writes. "I want to tell my own story."
The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state's new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.
In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.
In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.
As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.
He said members of his Albany legislative staff often used the same hotel when they visit the city.
"This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point," Paterson conceded in his first interview Saturday. "But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on."
In a second interview with Paterson and his wife Monday, only hours after he was sworn in to replace scandal-scarred Eliot Spitzer, Michelle Paterson confirmed her husband's account.
"Like most marriages, you go through certain difficult periods," Michelle Paterson said. "What's important is for your kids to see you worked them out."
The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about the difficulties in their marriage in response to a variety of rumors about Paterson's personal life that have been circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days.
They spoke in the governor's office even as scores of friends, family members and political supporters were celebrating in the corridors of the Capitol his ascension to the state's highest post.
Given the call-girl scandal that erupted last week and forced Spitzer's stunning resignation, Paterson conceded that top government officials are bound to come under closer scrutiny for their personal actions.
The governor flatly denied what he called a "sporadic rumor in Albany that I had a love child" by another woman. "That's just not true," he said.
"Don't you think he'd take care of a child if he'd had one?" Michelle Paterson said, in obvious disgust over that persistent rumor.
The romantic relationship he did have, Paterson said, lasted until sometime in 2001. He did not identify the former girlfriend.
Asked if he had stayed with anyone else since 2001 at the same West Side hotel, Paterson said, "From time to time I used to take Michelle to that hotel."
New N.Y. Governor and Wife Admits to having other lovers for Sex !
The new Governor and wife admits to having lovers . . .
Former Aide Claims Threesome with McGreeveys
March 17, 2008 -- A former driver and aide to former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey yesterday made the bombshell claim that Dina Matos McGreevey must have always known her husband was gay - because he was the other man in bed with them.
In an explosive interview with The Post, the McGreeveys' self-professed man in the middle, Teddy Pedersen, gave explicit details of three-way sex romps that he claimed to have had with the now-divorcing duo, starting during their courtship and continuing into the marriage.
Pedersen - who said he had already spilled the beans on the ménage a trois arrangement under oath in a deposition for the couple's divorce battle - hinted that he thinks his presence was required to get Jim's motor running for Dina.
Matos McGreevey's basic argument in her divorce war with the former gov is that he covered up his homosexuality and tricked her into a loveless marriage. She said today that the stories of sexual trysts were "completely false."
But McGreevey confirmed the accounts. "This happened, this happened in the past, and now we need to move on with our lives," he said in an email to the Associated Press.
Pedersen - who is named in Matos McGreevey's court papers - agreed to talk about the alleged unconventional relationship after Dina sounded off to the media last week about Eliot Spitzer's sex scandal.
"It's frustrating to hear her call Gov. Spitzer a hypocrite while she's out there being as dishonest as anyone could be about her own life," said Pedersen, 29.
"She's framed herself as a victim - yet she was a willing participant. She had complete control over what happened in her relationship," he said. "She was there, she knew what was happening, she made the moves. We all did. It's disgusting to watch her play the victim card."
The trio's trysts started after Pedersen was hired as a campaign driver when McGreevey was mayor of Woodbridge, NJ, the former chauffeur said.
"We called it the Friday Night Special," Pedersen said. The "intense" escapades, he said, usually began with a "couple of drinks" at a local T.G.I. Friday's and culminated in "a hard-core consensual sex orgy" between the three of them at McGreevey's Woodbridge condo.
He said the action also spilled over to out-of-town business trips, during which Pedersen, a handsome, clean-cut Rutgers grad, would share a single hotel suite with Jim and Dina - right under the noses of other McGreevey staffers.
The threesomes began in the late 1990s, while Dina and Jim were dating, continued after their October 2000 marriage, and had ended by the time McGreevey was elected governor in November 2001, Pedersen said. "He liked watching me, and she would watch me while she was [performing sex acts] with Jim," Pedersen said. "In my opinion, me being a part of their sexual relationship enhanced it for both of them."
Pedersen, who lives with his girlfriend of several years, said he revealed the sexual shenanigans during the couple's divorce proceedings only because Dina's camp subpoenaed him. The former driver said he believes that Dina subpoenaed him as an end-run around her estranged hubby, to see what he would say if he was called on by McGreevey's side. Pedersen said he believes that Dina never expected him to talk about their trysts.
"I would have kept my mouth shut about this forever, but she subpoenaed me, and now it's all going to come out at trial," Pedersen said. He added he expects to be called as one of the first witnesses at the trial.
Details of the lust triangle have been quashed once before, according to a source at now-disbanded Regan Books, which published McGreevey's 2006 memoir, "The Confession."
"There was a coy and gentle reference to a third person, but McGreevey took it out because he thought it was unnecessarily harmful," the insider said.
Pedersen said the threesome started as an "idea" he and McGreevey tossed around during the aide's long hours behind the wheel for the Woodbridge politician.
"We developed a good relationship - we were colleagues, but we were friends," Pedersen said, adding that once Dina and Jim's romance bloomed, she was often in the car with them headed to political events.
"There was a level of comfort that evolved into, eventually, hints of pushing it into this sexual realm," Pedersen said.
"Jim and I thought we could see if she would go for it - beyond just the hints in conversation.
"So one night, we came in. I went down to the basement bathroom, and when I came up, to my shock, she was basically undressed and on the loveseat with Jim. So I sat on the couch and watched and eventually joined in.
"And that's how it got going," he said. "We came up with this nice little formula for making it work."
Sometimes, the trio took their show on the road, he said. On business trips - including to the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City - they shared one room, leaving others in the entourage baffled, he said.
"It became almost laughable - I would never have my own hotel room," Pedersen said. "Everyone thought that this was weird, but we'd just brush it off."
Pedersen's presence wasn't always welcomed by Matos McGreevey.
In her 2007 memoir, "Silent Partner," she recounted her fury when he showed up, bags packed, to drive Jim and Dina to Montreal for the Valentine's Day weekend in 2000 during which McGreevey proposed to her. Matos McGreevey - who described Pedersen as "a handsome college student . . . one of a crowd of guys in their 20s who always seemed to be around" - said she wasn't happy when McGreevey told her the young buck was taking them to Canada.
"Was he kidding?" Dina wrote. "I'd really been looking forward to this weekend together. The two of us, not the three of us.
"I dug my heels in," she continued, recounting that she told McGreevey, "If Teddy is going, I'm not."
Said Pedersen, who wound up not making the trip, "I think she knew he was gonna propose, and she knew if I went, there was going to be a threesome. She had the decency to say, 'Let's make this sort of special' and just the two of them."
But the strange relationship continued even after the McGreeveys wed in October 2000, Pedersen said. The Friday Night Special, he claimed, was replaced by a more subdued Saturday-morning routine.
"I'd go to the condo, and usually they'd still be in bed," Pedersen said. "I'd sometimes go up, sit on the edge of the bed, rub Dina's legs through the comforter and go from there. Saturdays were a lot more low-key. Things hit their peak before the marriage. Afterward, there was this sort of soft landing, and it eventually tapered off and ended."
Asked why it stopped, Pedersen said, "In my mind, I figured, 'Dina's married. She doesn't have to play into it anymore.'
"She sealed the deal, she got what she wanted, the nice life, the governor's mansion, and she would do everything in her power to keep it."
Neither Dina nor Jim McGreevey returned calls for comment. Lawyers for both said, "No comment."
In her memoirs, Dina insists she never knew McGreevey was gay.
"Not only would I not knowingly have married a gay man, but I would never have allowed a gay man to father my child," she said. The former couple has a 6-year-old daughter, Jacqueline.
A former Democratic Party official who knows the couple said he "always suspected something" was going on between Jim McGreevey and Pedersen. But as for the reputed threesome with Dina?
"That's a complete shock," the source said. "To be honest, I don't believe it. She's not the smartest woman in the world, but I don't think she's that stupid."
Jim McGreevey resigned as governor in 2004 after admitting he was gay and being accused of hiring a boyfriend, Golan Cipel, as his homeland-security adviser. The adviser has said he was sexually harassment.
Jim McGreevey filed for divorce last year. He and Dina are due back in divorce court Thursday.
We called it the Friday Night Special," Pedersen said. The "intense" end-of-the-work-week escapades, he said, usually began with a "couple of drinks" at a local T.G.I. Fridays and culminated in "a hard-core consensual sex orgy" among the three of them at McGreevey's Woodbridge condo...
"He liked watching me, and she would watch me while she was [performing sex acts] with Jim," noted Pedersen. "In my opinion, me being a part of their sexual relationship enhanced it for both of them."
Pedersen said the threesome started as an “idea” he and McGreevey tossed around during the aide’s long hours behind the wheel for the Woodbridge politician.
“We developed a good relationship - we were colleagues, but we were friends,” Pedersen said, adding that once Dina and Jim’s romance bloomed, she was often in the car with them headed to political events.
“There was a level of comfort that evolved into, eventually, hints of pushing it into this sexual realm,” Pedersen said.
“Jim and I thought we could see if she would go for it - beyond just the hints in conversation.
“So one night, we came in. I went down to the basement bathroom, and when I came up, to my shock, she was basically undressed and on the loveseat with Jim. So I sat on the couch and watched and eventually joined in.
“I’d go to the condo, and usually they’d still be in bed,” Pedersen said. “I’d sometimes go up, sit on the edge of the bed, rub Dina’s legs through the comforter and go from there. Saturdays were a lot more low-key. Things hit their peak before the marriage. Afterward, there was this sort of soft landing, and it eventually tapered off and ended.”
