New information has emerged in the joint WMR/Justice Integrity Project investigation of the "Maria" case. As we previously reported, Katie Johnson alleged in federal law suits that Donald Trump and his friend, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, raped her, when she was 13, and a 12-year old girl -- only identified as "Maria" -- in New York in 1994. Our investigation discovered that in March 1993, Maria, 11 years of age at the time, was abducted from Waterbury, Connecticut. Eventually, Maria ended up at "parties" at Epstein's midtown Manhattan townhouse residence where underage girls were sexually assaulted by Trump and Epstein. We previously reported that Maria's kidnappers were involved in a child trafficking ring that provided abductees to wealthy individuals like Trump and Epstein in Manhattan.
Our new information is that Maria was reported missing by her mother to the Waterbury Police on March 20, 1993, at 11:30 pm. However, Maria was actually abducted the previous day, March 19. Maria was last seen on March 19 by a young girl in the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood. The girl said she saw Maria talking to a man who turned out to be a Colombian national known by the nickname of "Papito," which means "little daddy" in English. The man claimed that, while he once lived in Maria's neighborhood, he was not in Waterbury at the time of the alleged conversation with Maria but rather, was in New York "with his family."
The Waterbury Police Department missing person report states that Maria was last seen outside of Nash's Pizza, a corner eatery located in the neighborhood where she lived with her mother and step-father.
We previously reported on the case of Waterbury Mayor Phil Giordano, an aspiring national Republican leader who ran in 2000 for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Joseph Lieberman, who was concurrently running for vice president. Giordano also had GOP vice presidential ambitions. Giordano was arrested in 2001 and charged with the repeated sexual assault of two female minors, ages 8 and 10. Some of the assaults took place in the mayor's office, others occurred in his official car. Through a local prostitute with a drug habit, Giordano would arrange trysts with the hooker's daughter and niece on days when the mayor knew they were not in school. Curiously, Maria also experienced high absenteeism from her Chase Elementary School in Waterbury: 49 days in 1992 and 20 days in 1993, up until her abduction in March of that year. At the time of Maria's abduction, Giordano was a state representative.
As is the case today, in 1993 Waterbury had a major problem with drugs, particularly in the Puerto Rican community. We have discovered that the investigation of Maria's abduction involved members of the Waterbury Police Narcotics Unit. Detectives with both the Youth Division and Narcotics Unit were interested in cash loans for the purchase of drugs that involved adult individuals in Maria's circle of relatives and family friends. Furthermore, there was a ransom demand apparently made by Maria's kidnappers with two separate figures mentioned: $1960 and $2000. The ransom information was passed to police by the vice-principal of Wallace Middle School in Waterbury. The vice-principal obtained the information from students at the school who knew Maria's family.
Officially, the case of Maria has seen no new leads. However, Katie Johnson's law suits
against Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, which mentioned Maria as an alleged underage rape victim of both men, has lit a raging fire under what has been a very cold case. And as one curiosity, on December 19, 2017, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) [pictured, left, in his 2008 DUI arrest mugshot] was the lone "no" vote in the House of Representatives on an anti-human trafficking bill that had unanimously passed the Senate in September 2017. Gaetz has emerged as the chief congressional tormentor of Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been alerted by anti-trafficking activists to the Katie Johnson/Maria story. To reward Gaetz, Trump has invited the first-term congressman to accompany him on Air Force One to Florida this coming weekend.