On October 11, 1999, however, Bridget was fired. A Greenhill family attorney called her on the phone and announced that her services were no longer needed.
There are two explanations for why Bridget was terminated. Bridget says she was dismissed after one of Regina's two adult sons, Daniel, raped her on a sofa bed while Regina napped in an adjacent bedroom. Soon after this alleged assault, Bridget insists, the second son, Joel, ordered his mother to cut all ties with her nurse.
The Greenhills claim that Bridget used her proximity and influence over Regina to extort valuable gifts. Only after they fired her, they allege, did she file bogus assault and then rape charges against Daniel, who lives in Israel and who had been visiting his mother, in part, to ensure Bridget didn't further exploit her. This is the version of events Aventura police chose to believe.
"She had this gravy train going," relays Aventura Police Chief Tom Ribel. "But what she did was abusive, and someone had to stop it and take control of the family assets. They did her a favor by firing her, because eventually we would have had to arrest her."
Ribel says the evidence against Bridget was overwhelming. She didn't file the rape charges with the Aventura police until months after the alleged incident and only after her eviction from a house owned by Regina, who had been letting her live in it rent-free. Bridget convinced Regina to give her at least $1800 to abort Daniel's unborn child, yet Bridget used the cash instead to pay bills. She claimed to have later miscarried, yet her own doctor confirmed she was never pregnant at all, according to the lead police detective. Bridget, who is 50 years old, lost whatever credibility she had left when she flunked a polygraph test arranged by police.
"There was no rape," Chief Ribel says flatly. "I mean, [Bridget] lied about key elements of the whole thing. She flat-out lied, which has been verified by her doctor's statement, verified by the fact that the money wasn't used for an abortion, verified by the fact she waited five and a half months -- when she found out she wasn't going to get her way -- to report this alleged rape, verified by the fact it would be incredibly stupid of the son to rape somebody on the couch in the mother's living room. It stinks. It never happened."
But in truth the evidence against Bridget is far from damning. The doctor who allegedly refuted the nurse's claim of pregnancy tells New Times she was badly misquoted in the police report. One of the most experienced and credible polygraphers in the United States found glaring problems with Bridget's police-sponsored exam. After voluntarily testing Bridget himself, Warren D. Holmes is convinced of her credibility. "My conclusion is absolutely definitive," Holmes declares. "There's no Mickey Mousing around about it: She was assaulted. The story she tells is the truth."
The police never interviewed Daniel Greenhill about the alleged rape. They never bothered to ask Daniel or his brother Joel what -- if not for the catalyst of an assault or rape -- led to Bridget being fired on the day she was. They never inspected the torn and stained uniform and underwear Bridget was wearing on the day she says she was attacked, even though she claims to have retained this clothing. No one asked Regina why she would give Bridget money for an abortion unless she believed Daniel had actually impregnated her. No detective tried to track down another local doctor, the one Bridget claims was hired by Regina to confirm the pregnancy.
One person to whom the police did speak was Michael Snyder, son of Aventura's mayor and the attorney representing Regina Greenhill and her two sons. Snyder was actively involved in the rape investigation. So instrumental was he in aiding police that Ribel considers him to be the most credible expert regarding Bridget's purported villainy. "Maybe their attorney can enlighten you," the police chief says, promoting an interview.
In fact Snyder's involvement in the case extended well beyond the police investigation. Following several instances in which Regina continued her efforts to support Bridget financially, the attorney sought a restraining order to prevent Bridget from so much as calling Regina, her friend and former employer. Bridget filed her own restraining order against Snyder, telling the court in a sworn statement that he was harassing her to keep quiet about the alleged rape and threatened harm when she refused a cash payoff. Snyder denies both the harassment charge and the payoff claim. "She made up the whole thing," he asserts. "It never happened. The whole thing was conjured up. She absolutely perjured herself. It never happened. It was absolutely made up."Although Bridget's appeal for a permanent restraining order was rejected by the court, she now says one of the central reasons she went to police with her fateful rape allegation is that she could no longer endure Snyder's alleged harassment.Michael Snyder staked his claim on turf conquered by his father, Aventura Mayor Arthur Snyder. For nearly six years, until 1981, Arthur Snyder served as mayor of North Miami Beach. After the mayor left office, the younger Snyder became a familiar face at North Miami Beach City Commission meetings as a lobbyist. When Aventura incorporated in 1995 and his dad was elected to lead the new city, Michael Snyder set up his practice in the Aventura Government Center, a building housing city departments and private offices. Both Snyders are fond of saying, "There are three sides to every story." But when it comes to the tale of Regina and Bridget, Michael Snyder is interested in advancing only one side.
"I've talked about this with the family," he relates, "and they've said they'll only cooperate if you promise to write a story about how this woman is taking advantage of the elderly." (Snyder declined requests for interviews with Regina and sons Daniel and Joel, but New Times contacted and spoke to them independently.)
"This is a nice lady; I feel for her," Snyder says of Regina. "If this is an article on elderly abuse, they'd be happy to cooperate. They want to see [Bridget] taken off the street. I thought about going to [Florida Attorney General] Bob Butterworth with this one, but in the end we decided not to. The reason we didn't is we didn't want to put [Regina] through any more stress. She's old. She's a stroke victim. We didn't want to put her through any more pain."
Snyder first became involved with the Greenhills in July 1999, at a time when Regina was still so pleased with Bridget that she decided to buy a house and let Bridget live there. After Snyder located a suitable home in North Miami Beach, he drafted a lease stipulating that Bridget could stay there rent-free as long as she was employed by the family.
Bridget stopped working for the Greenhills, of course, on the day she was fired, October 11, 1999. Two days later, at the urging of the vice president of the condominium where Regina lives, Bridget filed assault charges against Daniel Greenhill, claiming that on two occasions he had touched her breasts and groped her against her will. She did not file rape charges at that time. She claims to have withheld this more serious accusation at Regina's request. "It wasn't her fault," Bridget explains. "She didn't want the publicity, for everyone in the building to know. People who live there, they all loved Gina. They still do."
Once Bridget was fired, Snyder began the process of evicting her from the home. His involvement grew more intense in November, when Bridget stepped forward with a major new revelation. "A couple of months after Daniel raped me, I took a pregnancy test," Bridget says. "I bought the test from Walgreens. I know how to operate it. I told Regina the result. She said, "Are you kidding me?' I said, "No.'
"That's when she called somebody she knew," Bridget continues, "a tall, thin doctor with gray hair. He's elderly, Dr. Willaker or Dr. Winoker maybe." Bridget recalls being asked to meet with Regina and the doctor at Regina's apartment in Aventura's Bonavida condominium building. "When I walked in, he was already waiting for me," she says. "He took a blood sample and a urine test. He said I was pregnant. Gina told me I should not have the baby. She gave me the money for an abortion. I paid bills with the money. When I told her what I did, she said it was OK."
According to correspondence between Snyder and Bridget, which Snyder later faxed to the Aventura Police Department, the alleged pregnancy became one of his primary concerns. Bridget claims he knew about the rape and the pregnancy and was trying to cover it up. Snyder counters that he was fighting to get Bridget's medical records in order to reveal the pregnancy as yet another extortion attempt. "I don't think I've ever been able to prove anything she's said," he asserts.
In late November Snyder wrote Bridget a letter demanding she provide the name of the doctor who performed the abortion, even though she has always said she never had one. He also demanded the $4000 that Regina supposedly provided to pay for the procedure. (Bridget insists and has told police that Regina gave her only $1800.)
On the last day of February, Snyder, acting in Regina's name, sued Bridget for eviction from the house. She would be allowed to stay, he wrote to her, only if she proved she was pregnant.
A few days later, Bridget says, she fell on some stairs at home and miscarried. She did not tell Snyder about the miscarriage, and Snyder certainly behaved as if he was unaware of it. He sent Bridget a release from her personal doctor and ordered her to sign the form and return it to his office so he could obtain her medical records. "We will not stop the eviction proceedings until we can verify your pregnancy," he wrote.
Bridget never signed the form. Snyder evicted her from the house. Even after Bridget turned over the keys, Snyder continued to press for her medical records.
On March 21 Snyder summoned Bridget to his office. She arrived accompanied by Regina, having been driven over together in a car operated by Regina's current nurse. While Regina waited in the lobby, Snyder again ordered Bridget to authorize access to her medical history. "He was forcing me to give him my medical records," Bridget remembers. "He wanted to know what the doctors were treating me for. He wanted to see what was in the files, what was written up. That's my personal stuff. Maybe I would have given it to him if he wasn't so pushy. He's very bossy. He had a form out ready for me to sign. I just broke down and started crying."
Bridget left Snyder's office without signing the release. As she and Regina exited the building, they ran into an Aventura police officer. "I stopped and spoke to him, and he told me: "Don't sign that form,'" Bridget recalls. "If Snyder would leave me alone, it would be different. But he started this whole thing back up when he said he wants to see me in his office."
This incident, Bridget says, is what finally prompted her to tell the Aventura Police Department that Daniel Greenhill had raped her.Doubtful as they were, the police were duty-bound to investigate the rape allegation. The detective assigned to the case was James Cumbie, the same man who five months earlier had investigated Daniel's allegation that Bridget was exploiting Regina. Cumbie again met with Regina at the Bonavida. But whereas in October she was effusive in her praise of her former nurse, this time Regina told Cumbie a completely different story. Another difference between the two interviews: Attorney Michael Snyder was present during this second session.
Regina told Detective Cumbie she first learned of the rape claim in November, not on October 10, the day Bridget says the assault occurred. According to Regina, Bridget also asked for and received $4000 to pay for an abortion, not the $1800 Bridget claimed. In the months that followed the alleged rape, Regina said, Bridget routinely visited the Bonavida seeking food and money. Regina added that she wanted Bridget evicted from her house.
Cumbie never interviewed Daniel, who had returned to his home in Israel five months earlier. He did not interview any of Regina's friends or neighbors, nor did he attempt to locate or contact the doctor Bridget says administered the pregnancy test. According to Chief Tom Ribel, Cumbie didn't do any of this because he wasn't actually investigating Daniel.
"She approached us as a victim, in reaction to the boys -- for lack of a better term -- trying to get her out of their mother's life," Ribel said. "They knew what she was doing. I think the history of the case predates her alleged rape. The precipitating incident is not the allegation of rape. That is a defense technique."
Even though Bridget claimed she was the victim of a first-degree felony that carries the possibility of life in prison, and even though Cumbie technically was investigating this allegation, Aventura police essentially were still treating her as a suspect. Cumbie spent a month on the case before requesting it be closed owing to Bridget's poor credibility. He predicated his recommendation on two primary pieces of evidence: a statement from Bridget's doctor and a polygraph test given to Bridget. New Times, however, has determined that both pieces of evidence are seriously flawed.
Bridget receives her medical care from a clinic at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. Although she can be seen by any physician working the clinic at the time, most of her care has been provided by Dr. Kathryn Lotspeich. Detective Cumbie, in his report, noted that he conducted a telephone interview with Lotspeich this past April 2. The doctor advised "that she did see Ms. Garcia some five months ago and that Ms. Garcia told her she was pregnant. The doctor performed a blood-level test, which showed negative results indicating Ms. Garcia was not pregnant.
"At this time," Cumbie continued, "the hospital has no record of treating Ms. Garcia for pregnancy or sexual assault and there is no witness or physical evidence to show a sexual battery occurred.... Ms. Garcia's doctor states that Ms. Garcia was not pregnant when she first examined her."
This statement is only partially accurate. At New Times' request, Bridget granted Dr. Lotspeich permission to discuss her patient's complete medical history. Contacted at Mount Sinai, where she is a third-year resident from the University of Miami's School of Medicine, Lotspeich was read the relevant paragraphs from the police report. "That's not what I said at all," she replied. "Bridget didn't speak to me until after the whole issue of the pregnancy had been resolved."
Scrolling through Bridget's medical records, which are stored on a computer, Lotspeich noted that Bridget, during a March 8 visit to the clinic, reported she had been raped. That was two weeks before she filed rape charges with the Aventura police. At that time Bridget told the attending physician, who was not Lotspeich, that she had already miscarried. She complained of severe depression, crying spells, and an inability to sleep. "She was treated for sexual assault," Lotspeich said, meaning she was referred by the attending physician to a case manager at the hospital and to the Rape Crisis Treatment Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Lotspeich next saw Bridget on March 16. "I've been seeing her for years. She's my patient," Lotspeich explained. "If she goes into the clinic on a day when I'm not there, she sees someone else. When I saw her that day, she was very apologetic. She thought I would be mad that she had told someone else [about the alleged rape] before she told me.
"She was still depressed, but she was sleeping better," Lotspeich added. "I ordered the pregnancy test primarily to check for sexually transmitted diseases. The test confirmed she wasn't pregnant, which was consistent with what Bridget was saying."
Lotspeich remained confused about the police report. "I can't pick it apart," she said. "I can only tell you what [Bridget] told me. The whole thing in the report stating she was not pregnant shortly after the time of the rape was not right. I only did a pregnancy test about four months after she was [allegedly] raped."
Although Lotspeich did tell Cumbie there is no proof on file at Mount Sinai that Bridget was ever pregnant, she also told New Times it's not unheard of for a woman to miscarry without hospitalization, even if she's more than 20 weeks pregnant, as Bridget claimed to be. And despite a lack of solid evidence, Lotspeich believes Bridget's behavior is consistent with that of a rape victim.
"She was my patient before all this happened," Lotspeich said. "She was always a very timid and introverted person. There was a real change in her after it all happened. Something happened to her, I think; something transpired that changed this person. She became much more tremulous in her speech. She was very -- I mean, she looked like someone who looked shaken up. She really looked like something bad had happened to her."Even after filing the rape charges, Bridget maintained a relationship with Regina. They talked regularly on the telephone. Sometimes she'd go over to Regina's condo to share a dinner of Bridget's favorite Chinese food. "We'd just talk," Bridget recalled. "We'd talk about everything. Anything. She likes the company, you know."
Michael Snyder tried to put a stop to the visits. "The petitioner wants the respondent to stay away from her and to leave her alone," he wrote to the court in requesting a restraining order that would prohibit Bridget from ever contacting Regina again. (Because he filed the request on behalf of Regina, she is the petitioner; Bridget is the respondent.) "The petitioner wants the respondent to stop going to her house to harass her and to stop calling her.... The petitioner wants the respondent to stop trying to contact her by any means. The petitioner states the respondent has been calling her and going to her house constantly in the past.... The petitioner is in fear of her safety and is seeking the protection and the intervention of the court."
Although the rape investigation was still open, Snyder subpoenaed Detective Cumbie to appear in court for a hearing on the restraining order. On April 18 Circuit Court Judge Raphael Steinhardt issued a permanent injunction protecting Regina from Bridget. (Cumbie ended up not testifying at the hearing.) If the nurse ever tries to contact Regina again, via telephone or in person, she faces the possibility of arrest.
When Snyder first spoke to New Times about Bridget Garcia, he almost immediately referred to a key piece of evidence Cumbie had generated. "You know she failed a lie detector test, don't you?" Snyder asked. This exam, which Bridget did fail, was one of the main reasons Aventura Police Chief Tom Ribel was so certain Bridget was extorting money from Regina and lying about being sexually assaulted by Daniel Greenhill. In fact the chief was confident enough in his belief to suggest New Times conduct a corroborating test. "You guys could probably spend a couple of hundred dollars to get your own [polygraph] test done," he recommended, "then you'd feel a whole lot more certain, too."
The results of the polygraph are included in the Aventura police case file. New Times took a copy of these results to noted polygrapher Warren D. Holmes. When questioned about the reliability of lie detector tests, Holmes often stresses that a polygraph machine is only a tool, and its results are only as reliable as the operator of that tool.
With 45 years of experience grappling with the truth, Holmes is widely considered one of the most reliable polygraphers in Florida, if not the United States. He has tested more than 68,000 people, most at his modest office on Flagler Street in Little Havana. The FBI and the CIA have invited him to teach his interrogation techniques at their academies. He has worked on more than 1000 homicide investigations and has examined individuals associated with Watergate, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Using his lie detector machine as a tool, Holmes helped exonerate Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee, two innocent men incarcerated on Florida's death row.
The Aventura polygraph was administered by Rolando Baldomero of Miami Polygraph Associates. Baldomero declined to discuss the examination with New Times. "I'm sorry," he said. "That would be confidential." Holmes, flipping through the Florida Polygraph Association's membership directory, noted that Baldomero has three years of professional experience and is not a member of the American Polygraph Association. (Holmes is a lifetime member.)
Bridget remembered that Baldomero, after a couple of false starts, completed his test, though he never told her the final results, which are included in the police report: "It is the opinion of this examiner that the polygrams in above test showed strong and consistent unresolved responses to the following relevant questions: #5, #7, #10, and #11. The chart tracings were consistent with those of an untruthful person."
On question number nine, Baldomero asked Bridget if Dr. Lotspeich gave her a due date for the birth of her baby. Bridget answered no, and there was no indication she was lying. Of the 11 questions asked, this was the only one that concerned the pregnancy. Yet in the final police report, Detective Cumbie summarized the polygraph exam in one sentence: "She showed deception on several questions on the subject of being pregnant."
Examiner Holmes was disturbed by Baldomero's conclusion that Bridget had for all intents and purposes lied on questions five, seven, ten, and eleven. "Yet," Holmes said, "he does not have her lying on question two, which was: "Do you intend to answer my questions truthfully?' She said yes with no indication of deception to that question. That's the whole issue. He could have ended the test right there. That's the only question that had to be asked."
Holmes continued, "He has her being deceptive to [question] five when she says she was sexually assaulted by Daniel. Yet he has her telling the truth on number six, when she says she has never teased a man for sexual purposes. On seven she's supposedly lying when she said Daniel didn't have sex with her prior to October of 1999. He's inferring that this is an ongoing thing. Now on eight -- "Did you ever consider having sex with Daniel?' -- she said no and there is no indication that she lied to that, according to Baldomero. Yet how could she be telling the truth to eight and be lying to seven?"
Even after questioning Baldomero's exam, Holmes remained far from convinced that Bridget was telling the truth. "Sometimes the police can screw up and still catch the right guy," he quipped. "There are just too many problems with her story. Why did she take the gifts? Why did she wait so long to report the rape? It just doesn't add up." Largely to satisfy his own curiosity, Holmes agreed to test Bridget the next day, without charge.
On Friday, July 14, Holmes escorted Bridget into an eight-by-ten-foot room down a hallway from his office. Bridget says her pretest interview with Baldomero lasted only a few minutes and consisted solely of him reciting the questions he intended to ask her during her test. By contrast Holmes interrogated the nurse for more than two hours before he even hooked her up to his polygraph machine.
During his preinterview Holmes asked Bridget what kind of work she performed in the Virgin Islands. (Typist.) He asked her if she has a police record. (No.) He asked her how she landed the job with Regina and what kind of car she drove before Regina bought her a new one. (Hyundai Accent.) He asked her questions about Regina's banking habits, jewelry, and the medications the elderly woman is taking, if any. (Coumadin, for her heart.) He asked her what was the most expensive present ever given to her before she worked for Regina. (A gold chain.) He asked her about her relationship with Joel Greenhill in Atlanta. He asked her whether she still menstruated. (Yes.)
Finally Holmes had Bridget tell him in explicit detail the entire story of the assaults and the rape. When asked why she didn't immediately report anything to the police, Bridget told Holmes: "Because of Gina. I didn't want to leave her. She didn't do anything to me, you know? It's him."
Holmes asked Bridget if she would make up a story about being pregnant just to look better to the police. "Gina knows," Bridget replied. "It was Gina who paid a doctor to draw my blood and get a urine test. She told me she has a good old friend from when her husband was alive who is a doctor. When I went over there, the doctor was waiting for me. He drew my blood and he took a urine sample. She wanted to make sure that I was really pregnant."
After the lengthy preinterview, Holmes hooked up Bridget to his polygraph. She sat motionless as he read the six questions he intended to ask. Then he administered the test.
1. Did you ever voluntarily commit any sexual act with Daniel Greenhill? Answer: No.
2. Did Daniel Greenhill rip your blouse off your body? Answer: Yes.
3. Did Daniel Greenhill force you down on a couch in his mother's condominium? Answer: Yes.
4. Did Daniel Greenhill, against your will, place his penis in your vagina? Answer: Yes.
5. Did Daniel Greenhill tell you that if he had his police license he would slash your throat? Answer: Yes.
6. Are you now lying in any way about what Daniel Greenhill did to you? Answer: No.
When the test was finished, Holmes unhooked the wire that he'd affixed to Bridget's chest. He unstrapped the Velcro blood pressure cuff he'd wrapped around her arm. The two exited the polygraph room and walked back to Holmes' wood-paneled office. The examiner asked Bridget to take a seat in the hallway as he closed his office door. He plopped down in his office chair, worn out from the exam.
"Whatever I said yesterday, I take back," he reported, running his fingers through his thinning hair. "This woman is definitely telling the truth. Absolutely. I don't have any doubts.
"Everything is explainable," he continued. "There was a bond struck between these two women that is so intense that to this date Bridget is willing to almost sacrifice everything to protect the woman. There is no doubt there was a genuine bonding between two human beings there. It wasn't because she was surreptitiously trying to inveigle her way into this woman's life."
Holmes got up from his chair, walked over to his office door, and called Bridget in to clarify something he'd neglected to cover in the exam. "When you made the initial report to the police, you said you were assaulted. Why didn't you tell them that he actually raped you?" he asked.
"Because of Gina," Bridget responded softly. "I didn't want to hurt Regina."Daniel disputes Holmes' findings. "I cannot accept those results!" he bellows over the telephone from his home in Israel. "I don't know who this so-called lie detector is. He sounds very, very phony to me. And if the police arranged for her to have a lie detector test, I'm sure they did it properly. He claims to be an expert. I have to wonder what he's going to gain from it. It's also possible that Bridget has gotten to him. My point to you is you'd better cover yourself.
"Bridget is simply a pathological liar," he adds emphatically. "I repeat, she is a pathological liar. I warn you as a reporter not to trust one damned thing she says. If Bridget tries to find fault with the first test and intends to use this test in her support, then it's time for us to crush Bridget. We'll go after her."
Bridget claims that Michael Snyder has already tried to crush her. On May 8 Bridget secured a temporary restraining order protecting her from, in her words, Snyder's "bizarre behavior." Although she did not employ an attorney when she filed her petition for the restraining order, her complaint is full of legalese courtesy of the courthouse clerk who helped her complete the paperwork. Bridget is the petitioner and Snyder is the respondent.
"While placing his finger close to the petitioner's face, the respondent stated to the petitioner: "Listen, I'm a very powerful man and I can wipe you off the face of the earth.' The respondent was angry because the petitioner did not accept a check from the respondent that was an attempt to keep the petitioner quiet about the rape.... The respondent also threatened the petitioner by stating that "my father is the mayor of Aventura and I just have to snap my finger and anything can happen to you.'"
Bridget's attempt to have the temporary injunction made permanent was dismissed on May 23, the judge having decided there was insufficient evidence to believe Snyder was a threat. By then the police investigation of her rape charges had already concluded. She was never informed that her allegation was deemed unfounded.
Three months ago Bridget moved into a modest house located in a primarily black neighborhood in north Miami-Dade County. Her phone number is not listed, and her address is not included in public documents relating to her case. She is not trying to generate support for her officially discredited version of events. After initially, if reluctantly, cooperating with New Times, she recently asked that this article not be written.
"I just want to disappear," she says quietly. She is sitting at her dining room table, wearily recounting yet again the chronology of her history with Regina. She is tired of telling the story. While she talks she absently fiddles with the diamond ring Regina gave her, pulling it off her leathery finger and then slipping it back on. "That's what I'd really like to do," she continues, "disappear. I remember I told that to Gina several times, and she stopped me. I said, "I just want to go somewhere and never come back.' She said, "Honey, don't do that. I need you here with me. We have to stick together, you know?'"
To finance her move after being evicted, Bridget sold the Infiniti G20 Regina bought for her. She still has the ring, of course, along with a handful of Regina's mail. Included in the pile is a check from Regina for $1000 that Bridget never cashed. She also saved the clothes she was wearing on the day of the alleged attack. They are stored in a gray plastic bag that crinkles as she removes a simple ivory blouse, then a pair of white polyester pants. The blouse appears torn at the neck. The pants remain soiled with the blood from Daniel's alleged attack. Also inside the bag is the pair of panties she says she was wearing. She told Detective Cumbie about the clothes, she says, but he never asked to see them.
"Detective Cumbie visited me when I lived [in Miami Beach immediately following her eviction]," she recalls. "I told him I could even describe Daniel's private parts. I told him, but he never asked me to do so. So I just dropped it. I don't care what anyone says; Daniel and I know it happened. And Gina knows it happened."
Bridget never obtained a lawyer. She never filed a civil lawsuit and says she has no plan to do so. "I'm not suing Gina, oh no," she elaborates. "If I was suing Gina, I would have sued her from the 11th of October. If I wanted Gina's money, Gina would have given it all to me, all of it. She wanted me to be her trustee. I had the opportunity several times; several times she asked me. That's what got me angry. I didn't take her money, and yet they say that's all I wanted."
Bridget recently accepted a new position as an overnight nurse for a couple living in a Miami Beach mansion. She quit after two nights, though, saying she woke up screaming both times she stayed at the house. "I imagined Daniel standing over me," she recalls. (Dr. Lotspeich believes Bridget is suffering from so much stress she is unable to work.) Bridget is interviewing for other jobs and will land one eventually, she says.
Even today, in spite of everything that has happened, she continues to mourn her separation from Regina. "She hasn't done anything to me," Bridget says. "I don't think she protected Daniel. She was protecting herself from all of this that happened. I still love her. Maybe I love her too much."
One of the main arguments Aventura Police Chief Tom Ribel levels against Bridget's veracity is the five-month delay between filing the assault charges and filing the rape charges. Only after she was evicted from her rent-free house, he notes, did she come forward with the most serious allegations.
In fact Bridget reported the rape much earlier.
When she filed the assault charges on October 13, the Aventura police referred her to the state attorney's office. She followed their instructions, visiting the prosecutor's office on October 18, one day before Daniel returned to Israel. Bridget filled out a one-page complaint sheet, still on file at the intake office. In response to the query "What kind of complaint is this?" she checked the box indicating "battery." Sexual assault and rape are not listed among the choices on the form.
At the bottom of the sheet is a closing question: "What would you like to see happen as a result of this complaint?" Bridget scribbled three words, which she hoped to see applied to Daniel Greenhill.
"Go to jail," she wrote in blocky print.
Bridget says she told a man working at the intake window that she had been raped. After a brief interview, the clerk told her the state attorney would not take up her case. "He said Daniel was going back to Israel, so there was nothing they could do," Bridget recalls. "Then in my heart I just said, Forget everything. I gave up.
Read part 1 of this story.
