A Gaithersburg man being held in Aruba in connection with the disappearance of his traveling companion had been having financial difficulties in the months before he vacationed on the Caribbean island, according to court documents.
Gary Giordano, 50, had asked a judge in January to lower his child support payments, citing recent financial distress, and had filed and later dropped an $11.5 million lawsuit against a company based on what the company contended were forged documents.
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Court records also indicate Mr. Giordano, who runs the temporary staffing business Leverage LLC out of his home, filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit on behalf of his company in January 2010 against another staffing company, claiming he was owed money for placing an employee at federal home mortgage lender Freddie Mac in 2007.
But the defendant company in the case contended that Mr. Giordano forged a signature to fraudulently produce the contract that he later sued the company over.
An executive with the defendant company said in court papers that Mr. Giordano’s girlfriend at the time — who was also a friend of the executive’s wife — had told him that “Gary asked her if she could get a copy of my signature.”
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Thomas Murphy, the lawyer who represented the Virginia staffing company that Mr. Giordano sued, said he was shocked at the audacity of the lawsuit.
“I’ve been a lawyer for 37 years, and I’ve never seen anyone who had the gall to create, prepare and forge such a document,” he said. “This guy is living large in a big house and has a big mortgage and a nice car, but claims in filings that he is basically broke.”
The case proceeded to trial this year, but Mr. Giordano dropped it March 24, according to court records. It was the same day the woman involved in the case was scheduled to testify, Mr. Murphy said.
By that time, she and Mr. Giordano had split and she had filed a protective order against him in February 2010 charging that he videotaped them having sex and posted the images on the Internet, according to court records.
A motion filed on behalf of Leverage that had tried to prevent the woman from testifying as a witness in the case was denied.