A Mom's Sting Operation

by Matt Kelley · 2008-11-29 10:09:00 UTC
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The New York Times today has the fascinating story of a mother's quest to clear her son of a murder he says he didn't commit. John Giuca was convicted in 2005 of a murder in New York. His mom, believing her son to be wrongfully convicted, decided he needed a new trial in order to show the truth, and she didn't bet on getting that chance through appeals. She decided to take matters into her own hands.

At 46, Doreen Giuliano reinvented herself. She dyed her hair blond and tanned at a salon. She left her white seven-bedroom, colonial-style house for a spare basement apartment three miles away. She took on a new name, and for about a year, she said, she rode her bicycle around her new neighborhood, trying to attract the gaze of a young man whom she badly wanted to get close to.

Having assumed the role of a 30-year-old research analyst from California who wore six-inch heels and push-up bras, she set out to meet a man named Jason Allo, a contractor who lived in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He was a juror in her son’s trial.

She succeeded, becoming friendly with Allo. And her hunch to focus on him was right - he had known some witnesses in the trial and had not admitted them during voir dire. She taped his statements and Giuca's lawyers plan to file for a new trial this week.

Read the full story here - it's a good spy tale for a Saturday afternoon.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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