The Connecticut Republican Party's Candidate For United States Senate, 2000

From the Associated Press:

Prosecutors played a tape Monday of former Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano as he watched his sons play tee-ball and worked his cell phone, allegedly arranging a meeting with a prostitute and one of her preteen relatives.

"Today's her birthday, you know," the prostitute said.

"It is?" the mayor replied, the last inning of the game audible in the background.

"Yeah, she turned 9 today," the prostitute said.

The recording from July 2001 was one of more than 100 played in Giordano's federal trial Monday, and prosecutors say the call instantly transformed a corruption case into a child sex investigation.

Giordano is accused of using his cell phone to arrange sexual liaisons with the prostitute's daughter and niece. He has pleaded innocent to 18 federal charges that he violated the civil rights of the girls by abusing them, conspired with the prostitute and used his cell phone - an interstate device - to set up sexual liaisons with the children.