Can Al and Jeanine Pirro's Marriage Be Saved? -- New York Magazine

Can This Marriage Be Saved?

And yet her decision seemed, publicly at least, like a compromise, and not a happy one. She had trouble affirming her love for Al. This past summer, she told the Post that she loved her family. She pointedly avoided saying she loved her husband, even when asked directly. Perhaps it was the astute political move to distance herself from Al. Still, one colleague recalls that it was about then that she again wondered about divorcing Al, maybe when the campaign is through.

Whatever the motive, Jeanine’s careful parsing of the love question disturbed Al. “You’re reading in the paper that your spouse was asked whether she loves you or not, and she says, ‘I love my family.’ How would you feel?” Al asks me.

“Shitty,” I say.

“Yeah, I mean, certainly it’s hurtful.”

“What do you say to her about that?”

“Nothing,” he says.

For Al, it’s a depressing turn. “I’m sure that in some measure she blames me,” Al says. “I think we blame each other.”

“What would you say if I asked if you loved her?” I ask.

Al pauses for a few seconds. “I would say that’s my personal business.”

Al’s attorney, whose office is across the hall, shoves open the door to Al’s office. “Is everything all right?” he asks. “It’s been two fucking hours.”

Al’s back is to the door. He barely turns. “We’re good,” he says quietly. His lawyer departs.

These days, Al is trying to cope, trying to walk into meetings as if the newspapers on every client’s desk don’t shout his name. Once he’d described himself as a “power broker” and “a friend of the governor.” Now he’s retrenching. He’s shutting down his lobbying business at the end of the year. Al says the business never really recovered from the tax conviction. “Lobbyists carry juice. They provide access. They fix things. Does a convicted felon still fix things?” he asks. Even Al’s traditional route to power, his ability to raise money, has been compromised. “Do the politicians want to accept a check from a convicted felon?” he wonders.

Al admires Jeanine. “She’s extremely bright, articulate, very personable,” he says. And yet he seems to want another type of wife. Al isn’t getting a lot of understanding at home.

“Anytime you have two professionals who are similar in personality in that they are type A, there are voids, and one of the places that does occur is in the home,” Al tells me. “So yes, it is difficult in that it is a constant challenge to keep communication going.” Lately, the wife of a lawyer who defended Al at his tax trial, a family friend for years, has been named in the tabloids as “the other woman.” Lisa Santangelo is 35 and attractive, with long dark hair, like Jeanine used to have.

Al denies that they are having an affair. “You guys are just friends?” I ask.

“Best of friends,” he says. “There is no sexual relationship.”

“So you don’t cheat,” I say.

Al pauses. “What do you mean by ‘Do you cheat’? You talking about going out? Or you talking about sexually?”

“Sexually.”

“No. No. No. There’s no harm in having a female friend. I think there’s a difference between being charming and holding yourself out as being available.”

“You don’t do the latter?”

“I don’t think I do,” he says, “but if that’s what people say, you know, who am I to say? I don’t see myself that way.” Al says he wants other things from female companionship. “You need to have someone tell you that you’re smart or you’re good-looking or you made a good business decision,” he says. “I think Jeanine needs that. I need that. Everyone needs that.” Al’s not getting that at home. “Do I think that I would like to have more attention at home?” he asks. “Yeah. And, you know, if you’re not going to get attention at home, I think you really need to make some decisions about your future.”

And yet, even if Al isn’t cheating, his behavior is provocative, especially with a wife running for attorney general. Speeding may be unintentional—“You’re not paying a lot of attention to the speed limit,” says Al—but spending time with Santangelo has been intentional. They’ve been alone on Al’s boat. They’ve been seen together at the Westchester Country Club. Clearly, Jeanine was provoked. In the summer of 2005, she had Al followed. She spoke with Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and onetime nominee to head Homeland Security who was, at the time, embroiled in his own professional and personal scandals. “Bernie’s a friend,” Jeanine says by way of justification. She urged Kerik to bug her husband’s boat. That conversation was recorded by federal investigators examining Kerik. Now the government is said to be investigating Jeanine. Portions of Jeanine’s conversations with Kerik were leaked to WNBC, a leak targeted for maximum political damage.