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Court Records Reveal Tumultuous Home Life

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON

sthompson@tampatrib.com

Published: February 28, 2009

On Sept. 30, 2004, Debra Graziano asked for a restraining order against her husband Edward, accusing him of putting a carving knife to her throat.

In her petition, she said he also told her if she ever sought alimony, "He'd hunt me down like a ... dog, put a bullet in my head, then his own."

A judge agreed to issue a restraining order for two years. In a matter of weeks, however, Debra was asking that it be dismissed. She wanted Edward home so he could spend Christmas with his family.

It is not an unusual pattern: an allegation of violence followed by a reconciliation that does an end run around the judicial system. It emerges again and again in some 18 court files on the Graziano family.

Their troubled marriage came to a head Thursday when Edward, 52, was arrested on a charge of trying to have Debra killed.

The solicitation-for-murder charge came after Edward held several meetings with an undercover Pinellas County sheriff's detective posing as a go-between for a hit man Edward wanted to hire to kill his wife, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said.

Debra is a guardian for her son, John Graziano, the Iraq war veteran who was left in a semi-conscious state after a car wreck with Nick Bollea. She and her family are suing the Bollea family: Nick, his mother Linda Bollea and Linda's estranged husband Terry, who is better known as wrestler Hulk Hogan.

The Graziano family thinks the Bolleas are liable for John's injuries and are seeking millions of dollars. Lawyers involved in the lawsuit have said Edward stood to gain financially as a result of Debra's death, either because he would become the family guardian or because he would get a greater share of any award or settlement.

Edward and Debra Graziano can't even agree on when they got married. She says it was in 1991, he says it was in 1993, according to a divorce action that was eventually dismissed. They have three children: Christin, 25; Michael, 20; and John, 24.

Actions Go Back To 2004

Debra filed her first request for a restraining order in Pinellas County on Jan. 20, 2004, and said she was staying in a shelter for abused women.

She also said he hit their son Michael, then 15, as he was trying to learn how to drive; that after she picked him up at a bar, he threw up in their home and told her to clean up the vomit; that he had punched her in the head in front of their daughter; and that he told her he wished she had breast cancer as a friend of hers did.

Her request was denied.

The next month, she filed for divorce and the couple reached a temporary separation agreement that was to last a year.

The case was set for a final hearing, but Edward didn't want to continue with his proposal in which she would cede her share in the property to him, and Debra didn't show up.

On Sept. 29, 2004, it was son John who was asking for a domestic violence injunction against his father. John, then 19, said in his petition his father had tried busting his bedroom door in, then broke the windshield and a passenger window in John's car.

The next day, Debra filed a restraining order, too, and apologized for her history of inaction.

"Please your honor I know I have been wrong in the past not to make police reports but I didn't want to ruin his chances for employment," she said.

Her own situation was also on her mind.

"I have $344, two kids, a car with a brake line about to go," she wrote. "Myself and my children have nowhere to go."

He Got Order Against Wife

John's restraining order against his father was granted for a one-year period, but just days before Christmas, John asked that it be dismissed because, he said, his father had gone through anger-management classes.

Debra's was granted, too, but she asked that it be dropped because of the holidays.

Records show that between the time mother and son won their restraining orders - and the time they asked that they be dismissed - Edward did not stay out of trouble.

With the injunctions still in effect, Edward, on Oct. 4, 2004, called the family's Curlew Road home 75 to 100 times, threatening Debra, and went over there drunk, court records state. He was charged with aggravated stalking, violating a restraining order and with burglary, but all but the felony stalking charge were dismissed. Edward pleaded guilty to misdemeanor stalking and was sentenced to a year in jail.

Then after the holidays, Edward filed a petition for a restraining order against Debra. He said that on Jan. 7, 2005, she threatened to contact his out-of-state probation officer and have him put in jail. He said Debra also threatened to slit his throat and cut off his penis while he slept.

Edward won his petition, but 18 days after he won the restraining order, he successfully asked that it be dismissed because "we would like to go to counseling and this injunction makes that very difficult," he wrote.

On June 21, 2007, according to civil and criminal court records, Edward struck his wife. He also spat at a law enforcement officer investigating the incident. He was arrested and charged with tampering with a witness.

The next day, Debra filed another request for a restraining order.

She got her restraining order - but then successfully asked that it be dismissed so her husband could go to his daughter's wedding, court records show.

On Probation At Last Arrest

The tampering with a witness charged was dismissed and prosecutors replaced it with two other charges - felony battery and battery on a law enforcement officer. Edward was being held at the Pinellas County Jail when his son John was in the Aug. 26, 2007, car wreck with Nick Bollea.

Edward eventually pleaded guilty to the two charges and was sentenced to 36 months of probation.

He was still on probation when he was arrested Thursday on the solicitation-to-commit murder charge. At his first appearance Friday, Edward said he had no car, no home and couldn't afford a lawyer.

Initially he was being held without bail, but Friday it was set at $200,000.

WFLA Reporter Mark Douglas contributed to this report. Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336.

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