Key Players, Criminally Convicted, of the Dutchess County Corrupted Paroli Sr., Regime.

February 18, 2000

Poughkeepsie official pleads not guilty to killing
POUGHKEEPSIE: A former town official who admitted involvement in government corruption yesterday pled innocent to killing his lover.

The Associated Press

His face disfigured from a self-inflicted bullet wound, a former town water superintendent appeared in court yesterday to plead innocent in the murder of a fellow worker.
 

The plea from Fred Andros, 60, was followed by a release of court documents in which he admitted to being romantically involved with the victim, 48-year-old Susan Fassett.
The developments were the latest in a sometimes lurid series of revelations involving Town of Poughkeepsie officials. Andros had already pleaded guilty in a long-running federal corruption probe into town government when he was charged last month in the slaying of Fassett, the town personnel director.
 

Andros fired a gun at his chin on Dec. 29, as police appeared at his door.
As Andros stood before a judge yesterday, the lower part of his face remained discolored and shrunken looking. He appeared gaunt in a loose-fitting blue suit and softly said, "Thank you" to the judge as he left.
 

Andros is one of two people charged with second-degree murder in connection with the Oct. 28 killing of Fassett. The married mother of two was shot to death in a church parking lot as she left choir practice.
 

His alleged co-conspirator, Dawn Silvernail of Earlton in Greene County, told police she was coerced by Andros to be the triggerwoman, according to court documents summarizing her statements to police. The confession Silvernail gave police also included allegations that she and Fassett had lesbian encounters facilitated by Andros.
Silvernail's lawyer has said he would challenge the validity of her statement. She has pleaded innocent.
 

A summation of Andros' own statements to authorities give yet another version of events surrounding Fassett's slaying.
 

"I did not kill that woman," Andros told authorities, instead laying blame on Silvernail.
 

In Andros' account, Silvernail believed that Fassett was "singing to the FBI" – an apparent reference to the federal probe that has implicated Andros, local Republican boss William Paroli Sr. and others in an alleged extortion scheme.
 

The newly released documents reveal that law enforcement officials had interviewed Andros within hours of Fassett's death, and many times through the end of 1999.

Andros sometimes changed his answers at different interviews. For instance, after telling authorities he had intercourse once with Fassett a year earlier, he later admitted to a number of encounters with her up to the week she died, according to court papers.
 

Andros told of a lesbian relationship between Fassett and Silvernail. But he denied having a sexual relationship with Silvernail, contradicting her confession.
 

Through his many interviews with police, FBI agents and federal prosecutors, Andros consistently maintained Fassett was a "wonderful" woman whom he felt deeply for.
 

Even after he shot himself, when he could only indicate "yes" by nodding or squeezing a state police investigator's hand, he still expressed feelings for her.
 

In that same hospital interview, police asked him: "Are you sorry about what you did to Susan?" According to court papers, Andros placed an investigator's hand on his chest and "squeezed it very tightly with both hands"
 

Andros still suffers headaches and memory loss and is "somewhat depressed," his lawyer Noel Tepper said outside of court.
 

Andros was remanded to jail without bail.
 

In a related development yesterday, the special commissioner appointed by Gov. George Pataki to oust Paroli from his job as county elections commissioner said he found several instances of misconduct that could warrant Paroli's removal.
 

Austin Campriello, a New York City lawyer, said those instances included a conspiracy with Andros to accept bribes from contractors; the use of a Town of Poughkeepsie employee to perform manual labor at Paroli's home using materials paid for by the town; the billing of the town for electrical work at Paroli's house and for four tires for his car and for Paroli's alleged failure to file financial disclosure statements from 1992-98.
 

Campriello scheduled a hearing for March 3 in Poughkeepsie on the charges.
Paroli has maintained his innocence.

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