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Attorney: Accused Abusers Are The Victims

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: March 17, 2009

Updated: 03/17/2009 08:46 pm

Tai-Ling Gigliotti

BROOKSVILLE - The couple accused of abusing a teenage boy and keeping him confined to a bathroom in their Spring Hill home are actually the victims in the case, their attorney said Tuesday.

Tai-Ling Gigliotti is an adoptive parent who tried her best and suffered abuse at the hands of the now-16-year-old boy, defense attorney John Feiner said as he stood outside of a Hernando County courtroom.

Feiner is representing Gigliotti and her live-in boyfriend, Anton Angelo, who had his first court appearance this morning. Both Gigliotti and Angelo are charged with aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment.

The allegations made by the boy are untrue, Feiner said.

"He was a violent young man who caused injuries to Mrs. Gigliotti," Feiner said of the boy. "She was frightened of him, though she took good, long care of him. She did her best as an adoptive parent, and he violated her trust."

Photos of the injuries that the boy inflicted on Gigliotti will be presented in the couple's defense, Feiner said. He refused to elaborate, saying he did not want to try the case in the "one-sided press."

Gigliotti, the 50-year-old widow of a classical clarinetist, pleaded not guilty at her first appearance last week. Angelo, 45, entered the same plea Tuesday. His next court appearance is slated for July 10.

Feiner's account of the events at the Florida ranch home on Whitemarsh Street is distinctly different than that of the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.

Angelo and Gigliotti are accused of beating the boy with a plank of wood and a short section of garden hose.

"The daily duties" of locking the boy in the bathroom was shared by Angelo and Gigliotti, arrest affidavits state. He was put in the bathroom every time the couple left the house. The bathroom window was covered with plywood.

The 16-year-old managed to escape last month and flee to a neighbor's house for help. A deputy said he found the boy covered in bruises and cuts.

The teen told the deputy that he was made to strip down while Gigliotti bound his hands with packing tape and beat him with a 3-foot length of wood and a short section of water hose, according to an affidavit.

Hernando County Sheriff Richard Nugent, who has called the details of the case "barbaric," said the boy had recently been beaten because Gigliotti accused the teen of taking the keys to her Mercedes-Benz.

The boy came from Taiwan when he was 4. Gigliotti, who told investigators she was the teen's aunt, also came from Taiwan, but it's unclear when she came to the United States or took custody of the boy. Because of Taiwanese culture, the boy was submissive to adults and blamed himself for the beatings, Nugent said.

After Angelo's court appearance Tuesday, Gigliotti pulled up in front of the county government center in a gold Mercedes SUV and stared at television reporters from behind a large pair of sunglasses. Angelo got in the back seat and Feiner climbed in the front, and they drove away.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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