The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words (12 page)

When I stood before the grand jury in Florida, I had eight indictments against me. The grand jury charged everyone named in the case, and the government then figured out whom it wanted to make deals with. The prosecutors decided that they wanted to make a deal with me.

Although I was deathly afraid of going to prison, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to make a deal, either. I knew that I was innocent of the eight counts against me, but my attorney kept telling me that going to trial was not a good idea. I was considered an accessory, and if I pleaded innocent, they could try me on each count separately. Every count would get its own trial, and I would have to prove my innocence on each one. If I was found guilty, each of the counts was punishable by up to nineteen years in prison.

Behind the scenes, my attorney conferred with one of the prosecutors, Theresa Van Vliet, and learned that they wanted me to plead guilty to kidnapping and extortion, the least of all the charges. For my cooperation, they would suggest to the judge that I receive probation.
Kidnapping? How could I kidnap a grown man? Extortion? Will that be on my permanent record?
I had so many questions, and I felt that everything I had been taught about telling the truth and everything that I believed in was not applicable here. The case was more about circumstances and timing—I just happened to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time. My attorney kept trying to get it through my thick skull that regardless of whatever I had or hadn’t done, I was there and being charged for the crimes. To the powers that be, I was guilty by association. Nobody wanted to know what I had or hadn’t done. What they really wanted to know was what I was willing to take responsibility for. However, I kept saying I hadn’t done anything, and that I was innocent.

My attorney assured me that it was virtually unheard-of to get probation based on charges as serious as the ones I was facing. Also, the deal I was offered couldn’t have been worked out without the cooperation of prosecutor Van Vliet and the belief that she had in me. She clearly took a leap of faith on my credibility and ability to bounce back while facing extreme adversity, and I wasn’t going to let her down. I wasn’t going to let myself down, either.

I decided that my best option was to take the plea agreement.

While I was awaiting my court case, I hung out quite a bit with a friend of mine named John Uribe. He would stop by my house mostly late at night, and we would have many long talks until the sun came up. I first met Kevin Maher through John.

I didn’t know this at the time, but while I was out on bail and my trial was pending, John began to get paranoid about my flipping on him. His mind raced with thoughts that I was
going to do something underhanded, such as rat him out to the authorities. Doing something like that had never crossed my mind, but John wasn’t thinking clearly. His paranoia was a result of his excessive use of cocaine. In an attempt to make himself feel more secure, John phoned Kevin in New Jersey and asked him to come down to Miami to check me out.

I wasn’t aware of the intricacies of John and Kevin’s business and personal relationship back then. I found out later that Kevin was using John to find criminals for the DEA to lock up. Kevin would make frequent trips down to Miami, then return with new information for his DEA contacts in New York City. I find it rather ironic that John called Kevin down to Miami to make sure I wasn’t a rat, and in the end Kevin locked John up.

Kevin drove down to Miami in his Porsche, all the way from New Jersey, to the Mayfair nightclub, where I was hanging out in the VIP room. Contrary to previous reports, that evening I was
not
wearing leather hot pants with my leg over a chair with no underwear. I was actually dressed quite tastefully in a long, fitted, ruffled Spanish dress.

Kevin stuck out like a sore thumb as soon as he walked into the trendy Latin nightclub. While I fit in with my dark, tanned skin and long, curly hair, he was quite the opposite: a pale-skinned, Irish American guy with bright blue eyes.

Kevin saw me from across the room and approached me with a stoic seriousness. “Where’s John?”

“Who are you?” I responded.

“I’m Kevin. Kevin Maher. I’m from New Jersey and John called me.”

“Well, then you have his phone number,” I answered bluntly.

“Don’t be a smart-ass with me. I know who you are . . . Beverly.”

“Oh, you’re smart, too,” I shot back, and began to turn away. “Everybody in here knows who I am. Did you ask the doorman my name? Anyway, I don’t really want to talk to you.”

Kevin walked away and came back up to me a bit later that night. That time, he was severely pissed off. John had gotten the keys to Kevin’s Porsche from the valet and taken off with it. Even though Kevin had rubbed me the wrong way when I first met him, for some reason at that moment I felt bad for him. Since he appeared to be a cop, I knew that nobody at the club was going to help him get his car back, so I decided to lend a hand.

I told Kevin that I would go down to the valet with him and help look into the problem. He seemed to appreciate my offer, and when we got into the elevator to go down to the valet, he looked at me rather funny. Not ha-ha funny, but as if he were going to lean over and kiss me. I was dead right. We began kissing, and although it seemed strange, I went with it.

When we got to the lobby, I told Kevin not to tell John what had just happened between us. I wasn’t involved with John romantically, but I didn’t know exactly why Kevin was in
Miami, and somehow things didn’t seem to add up. John and Kevin clearly didn’t march to the same drummer, and I strongly suspected that there was more to their involvement than met the eye.

Once we got to the valet, Kevin called up John on his car phone and told him to return his car immediately. Kevin was screaming at John, but John didn’t come back with the car. After a couple of hours went by, I began to feel even worse for Kevin.

As we waited for John to return from his joyride with Kevin’s Porsche, hopefully in one piece, we opened up to each other. Finally, he hit me with it: “I’m with the FBI,” Kevin said quietly.
I knew he was a cop,
I thought.

“Just stop!” I insisted. “I don’t want to know anything about what you’re doing. I have my own problems right now.”

“Yeah, John told me you were arrested and that you’re out on bail. He’s paranoid that you’re going to get him locked up.”

“What?!” I was stunned. “I’m not trying to have John locked up. I’m done with my case. Finished. And I don’t want to go back. Not ever.”

Kevin said he could help me.

“How can you help me? I’m already done with my case.” I told Kevin that in just a few weeks I was going to go before the judge to be sentenced. I had already pleaded guilty to extortion and was getting a plea bargain, which included probation.

“I’ll
make sure
that you get probation,” Kevin insisted.

“You don’t have to make sure. I’ve already done it all through my attorney. Please don’t interfere with this.”

He looked me in the eye and said, “I just want to keep you safe.”

When Kevin said that, I melted instantly. I hadn’t heard a man offer to keep me safe in a long time. I was insecure, upset, anxious, and scared. For a brief moment after he offered me safety, the darkness then surrounding my life became a bit lighter. Kevin wasn’t my type; I had previously dated tall, dark, and handsome Latino men, and he was short, pale, and not the best-looking guy. However, he said those magic words at a time in my life when they mattered. At that moment, our connection grew deeper, and for me this went far beyond the physical.

“I don’t want your help right now,” I responded softly. “But when I’m done with my case, it would be nice to know that somebody’s there for me, because one thing’s for sure—I have to get out of Miami when this is all over.”

He took a deep breath and said, “I’m in love with you.”

What?
I wondered how this man could already be in love with me when we had just met. I didn’t even know him, and he certainly didn’t know me. But when you’re young, in trouble, and fighting for your life, you don’t question things that feel positive, and it felt good and reassuring to hear. I was to learn in time that Kevin’s love wasn’t really love at all—it was an obsession. My problem was that I didn’t know it at that moment. How could I have known?

In November of 1986, I entered court to hear my sentence. My lawyer told me that while it looked good, courts don’t have to accept plea agreements. They can reject them if they so choose. I held my breath and prayed. Prosecutor Van Vliet walked over to the defense side of the table and told Judge Eugene Spellman that she was going to recommend probation and gave all the reasons why. When she was finished, Judge Spellman asked me to stand up.

The judge lowered his glasses down on his nose and looked directly into my eyes. Before he sentenced me, he wanted to inform me that in the seventeen years he had sat on the bench, he had never had a prosecutor recommend probation for charges as serious as mine. Not ever. Judge Spellman let me know unequivocally that if I messed up and landed back in court, I should not look for help from Van Vliet, and he would specially request to be assigned my case and would put me away, personally.

Then Judge Spellman gave me my sentence: five years’ probation.

Contrary to various reports, I never ratted anyone out. As part of my plea bargain, I was prepared to testify truthfully about the events that unfolded. However, the other people named in the case made plea bargains for themselves and never went to trial. My testimony was never required. I didn’t rat my boyfriend out, either. Jorge paid for my defense, so when people accuse me of betraying him, it makes no sense whatsoever. If the arrest hadn’t happened the way it happened and I had been
involved with somebody else at the time, I really could have gone downhill. It was actually a gift that I had received my wake-up call when I did and had supportive people in my life, and I don’t have any regrets.

My attorney, Norman Elliott Kent, recently reflected on my arrest, trial, and subsequent rehabilitation that brought me to the positive state of my present life:

Danielle met the demanding requirements for pretrial release, including significant drug rehabilitation counseling, which requires a lot of energy. She undertook the difficult task of accepting responsibility for her own actions, and she wanted to do whatever was necessary to remain a free woman and change her life. Danielle was rewarded for her efforts by the prosecutor when she was recommended for probation. None of these things that she is achieving now as a television star would be possible today had she not taken those ameliorative and rehabilitative measures back then. If Danielle did not take these kinds of brave steps, instead of starring on a television show, she might be just getting out of prison and in a halfway house. Only her willingness to change in the past made her future possible. If you want to be better tomorrow, the time to start is today.

One of the conditions for my probation was that it had to be served outside of Miami. The prosecutor and my attorney spoke at great length about how unsafe and unhealthy it would
be for me to stay there any longer, and the judge agreed and wanted an address where I would be relocating within three days of my sentencing. I had no family or any real friends outside of Miami and had no idea where I was going to move, so my attorney requested an extension while I put the pieces of my potential new life together. I quickly began to drift back into my old bad habits, going out to clubs and partying all night. I wasn’t drinking or doing drugs; instead, I was getting high on what I loved the most—dancing. I finally had my freedom back and wanted to celebrate on the dance floor. I also wanted to reclaim the carefree feeling that I had enjoyed in Miami before everything went sour.

My attorney caught wind that I was resorting to my old ways. Miami may seem large, but in my circles word traveled fast. One night, one of the club owners who was a friend of my attorney suggested that I should leave Miami because he’d hate to see me get into trouble again. It didn’t take me more than a moment to realize that he was right.

It was hard leaving Miami behind, but it was time. So that’s exactly what I did.

ONE STEP FORWARD, TEN STEPS BACK