Jerry Navarro’s Silent Struggle Against Mary Ann Mungo Finally Gets A Voice
I am here today to tell the readers of KTF Media Group about the plight of a man who has in these recent days become a good friend. His name is Jerry Navarro, and his story is a sad one. I want to take an opportunity today to let people know how he has suffered over the last decade, while remaining hopeful that a positive solution to his problems may come in the future. Jerry is a victim of a systematic smear campaign designed to deny him access to his children, leave him without meaningful employment and potentially rob him of his very freedom.
Jerry Navarro – trying to live as normal as possible while under Mary Ann’s wrath.
It turned out that the whole thing was true. I, like others before me, had been used by Mary Ann to continually degrade and humiliate her former husband. I made a point of reaching out to Jerry, if only to convey my deep regret for being involved in the situation. It was then that the true scope of Mary Ann’s scheming came to light. Today I would like to reveal Jerry’s side of this sordid tale of deception and treachery. Today I will share with you Jerry’s revelation that Mary Ann and her retinue of lawyers and the DuPage County court system have methodically torn his life to shreds.
The story begins with a trip to the cemetery.
This is a fitting beginning for Jerry’s relationship with Mary Ann, because that relationship has certainly been laid to rest. While their divorce case – specifically post-trial matters that continue to haunt Jerry to this very day – might make a county court house seem more like the final resting place of his marriage, in truth this deceptively auspicious beginning among the tombstones and litters of lilies most aptly defines the ultimate state of things.
Jerry, in a strange twist of fate, had just left court when he arrived at the cemetery. He was coming to terms with a legal matter that he was embroiled in when he decided to visit his deceased father’s grave. He was looking for peace of mind and tranquility as he desperately worked to accept that his freedom would end in thirty days. The man was preparing himself for a jail sentence.
I know this makes Jerry seem less a sympathetic character, because society shuns criminal offenders. Jerry committed a crime, but I wish to point out the offense was non-violent in nature and occurred many years ago. He has learned his lesson. Jerry has not turned to inappropriate behaviors like the ones that caused him and his family so much pain many years ago.
Jerry was distraught, at the end of his rope, praying to his late father and to God for help in accepting his fate. Then along came Mary Ann Mungo – literally. You know they say the Devil can appear as an angel, and that may well be the case here. However, we will get to that in a bit. Mary Ann and Jerry made contact, both feeling an unexplainable attraction to each other. The inexplicably strange nature of their meeting left an impression on Jerry. Recently there had been a sighting of the Virgin Mary in the cemetery, and this did not escape his notice. Mary Ann and Jerry talked a little bit and exchanged phone numbers.
What followed was that rare and wonderful feeling that comes from getting to know a new friend and lover. The next thirty days were a joyous time for both Mary Ann and Jerry.
Mary Ann appeared to have fallen head-over-heels in love with Jerry. Apparently she also looked at the chance meeting as a good omen. As I related, meeting a significant other in a cemetery at a desperate time in one’s life was a far-out experience for Jerry. Perhaps it was a common practice for Mary Ann. Unfortunately, Jerry was mistaken that God answered his prayers. Now he feels more sinister forces may have been in play.
After their thirty day courtship, Jerry turned himself in to the custody of the Department of Corrections. Almost immediately Jerry began receiving strange love letters from Mary Ann. They were of a fevered and all-together fanatical nature, expressing sentiments that he today admits he would normally consider psychotic. However, the rose-colored glasses of love blurred his vision, so he continued to view her as a potential answer to his prayers. He had long wished for a serious relationship, as most of the other relationships in his life had been short and shallow ones. I imagine that a person in prison can easily be sucked in to such thinking, as the exercise of trying to remain hopeful and positive is one of the only ways to deal with the melancholy nature of incarcerated life.
In addition to the letters from Mary Ann, new letters appeared from someone named ‘Queenie’. These letters were filled with even more bewildering content, like “well I’m sure my mom told you how I have been acting! I know you must be upset with me that I stayed out all night and worried her to death…” Queenie was Mary Ann’s dog. Obviously, Queenie is not the true author of the dozens of letters signed by Queenie, leaving Mary Ann as the real author. Jerry told me that this strange habit of writing to him as the dog managed to shake his opinion of Mary Ann’s sanity. Even his friends in prison and the guards expressed their doubts that Mary Ann was entirely stable after hearing about the escapades of Queenie.
Among the hundreds of letters that Mary Ann sent to Jerry in prison, she expressed her love for Jerry, her desire to marry him and raise a family with him. In a desperate act of insecurity, Mary Ann wrote that she was scheduled to have a nose job while Jerry was in prison, probably so he would be more attracted to her. Mary Ann literally blew off her family for Thanksgiving that year so she could have that time to recover from her cosmetic nose surgery – all to impress a man that was serving prison time that she met in a cemetery and only dated for one month.
In her letters Mary Ann constantly obsessed over thoughts of having “beautiful brown-eyed gifts from Heaven.” She wrote Jerry about her dreams of having children with him when he came home. Her obsession with building a family brought her to court not only Jerry, but his relatives as well. In a desperate attempt to cement her tenuous relationship with the incarcerated Jerry, Mary Ann made a point of getting close to his now late mother (God rest her soul). Mary Ann had all the bases covered – her nose job, the relationship with Jerry’s mom, her ever-elaborating the wedding plans and the intentions to have children. All she needed now was Jerry to come home.
Finally, Mary Ann’s wish came true. Jerry returned from prison. Now all of her machinations would go in to effect. However, Jerry was having cold feet. The neurotic behavior that Mary Ann exhibited while Jerry was away was beginning to cause him to think twice about taking a bite from the apple. It did not help that, during preparations for matrimony, a marriage councilor sincerely advised Jerry that he should not under any circumstances wed his bride-to-be, citing that she seemed unstable.
A great deal of Jerry’s hesitation came when he repeatedly witnessed Mary Ann’s propensity towards being superficial, which offended him deeply. Perhaps the greatest example of this childish insistence that everything be her way is how she rejected Jerry’s initial engagement ring. Jerry thought it would be a sentimental gesture to give Mary Ann his grandmother’s engagement ring, a modest gem, but one that held great emotional significance. Mary Ann lashed out violently, citing that she wanted – even required – a bigger diamond. His family’s willingness to offer Mary Ann one of their most precious heirlooms meant nothing to her.
Mary Ann had done her homework, though. Her careful manipulation of Jerry’s mother over those months made the older woman a staunch advocate for this ill-conceived marriage. Jerry’s mother was very generous with her feelings for Mary Ann and insisted that Jerry remain committed to his plans to wed. Above and beyond this Jerry had come to know Mary Ann’s immediate family and had grown fond of them. He saw all the positive attributes that were embodied in her mother and father and secretly hoped that married life might shake Mary Ann out of the vanities of the single life.
As soon as Mary Ann and Jerry were married his role as a second class citizen came into light. On their honeymoon it quickly became evident that Mary Ann expected Jerry to be little more than a slave to her whims. Now that the deal was sealed – all the deceptions could be dropped. The true Mary Ann, the selfish woman that Jerry had seen in the glimpses of self-possession and greed that periodically slipped through her façade of good-will, finally came to center stage. This Mary Ann cared little for Jerry aside from the veneer of respectability and the potential for children that come from a high-society marriage.
As a wedding gift, Mary Ann’s father wanted to build the new bride and groom a beautiful home. Jerry was not as eager as some new grooms would be to accept such a gift. Jerry wanted to buy his own home. However, Mary Ann knew that Jerry could not afford the kind of home she felt entitled to. This was just another instance in which Mary Ann began to disregard Jerry’s feelings. During the construction of the home, Jerry felt as if he was unworthy of making any of the major decisions in decoration or design. He was overruled whenever he did try to voice his opinion. The entire project was all about Mary Ann and her dreams.
Jerry Navarro and Mary Ann Mungo and the kids pose in front of their wedding gift from the now late Frank Mungo. This photo reminds me of a scene from the movie Mommie Dearest, when Faye Dunaway, who portrayed Joan Crawford, came out in front of her home on Christmas Eve to wish her fans Merry Christmas. Everything looked rosy on the outside, but behind the closed doors it was Hell.
Now I will touch on the greatest disappointment Jerry had with the whole miserable debacle that was his failed marriage. Like most people, Jerry deeply wanted to have children. The driving motivation to have and raise a family kept him in this obviously doomed relationship for far longer than was healthy, but who among us cannot sympathize with his predicament? Yet again Jerry desperately hoped that a new stage in her life, namely motherhood, might shake Mary Ann out of her self-absorption. Sadly, he could not have been more wrong. To this very day Mary Ann uses the children as pawns in a coldly-calculating, endless war to not only take away Jerry’s time and money, but also his ability to know and raise his own flesh and blood.
Even in the days before their first child was born, Mary Ann showed no interest in putting the well-being and comfort of her child above her own. During her first pregnancy, Mary Ann refused to quit smoking cigarettes. Jerry was extremely worried about the potential health risks associated with smoking during pregnancy. When the pregnancy ended early and the child was born sick and underweight, Mary Ann decided that she was traveling too far to visit the hospital where her gravely ill child was staying. She insisted the sick baby be moved closer to her home. This change of hospitals constituted only a 15 minute difference in travel time.
Jerry was obviously greatly distraught over all of this. He began to insist that the child’s concerns come first. A great deal of pressure was mounting and Mary Ann made her first threat that if their marriage did not work out, she would use her father’s wealth to make sure Jerry would not be in his new child’s life. Once again we see the Devil emerge, and Jerry began to realize that Mary Ann would never, ever change.
It was in these days that it became clear the marriage would not last. The level of abuse ratcheted up. Jerry was controlled, emotionally abused and neglected. Once Mary Ann received her two gifts from Heaven, her feelings for Jerry became non-existent. In fact, she started to mistreat him more and more. Before long, Jerry discovered that Mary Ann was not being faithful to him. This marked the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Despite his deepest wishes to remain a husband to his wife and a full-time father to his children, Jerry filed for a divorce. Mary Ann was appalled that Jerry would leave her. She threatened that he will pay for the rest of his life and she will see him in jail, the one promise she evidently wants to keep. This was the second husband that left Mary Ann. The first one purportedly left her while on their honeymoon in Hawaii.
This is where Jerry’s descent into his own personal hell began. As miserable as life had been with Mary Ann, her continual torment of him would continue from afar. She made good on her repeated threats and utilized her family’s considerable wealth to lay waste to Jerry’s life. While he had pushed for joint custody of their children, Mary Ann would have none of it. Because a pre-trial agreement for custody could not be reached, Mary Ann was inexplicably given full custody.
Since their divorce several years ago, Jerry has been dragged in to court numerous times for financial reasons. Mary Ann apparently needs as much money as she can get her little hands on. When she is not conspiring with Chicago Outfit members like Rudy Fratto to earn extra money, she is torturing her ex-husband for whatever small amount of money he can raise. Mary Ann has wasted millions of dollars on gambling, fashion, vacations and aiding an array of criminal male companions. Mary Ann is living on a rich inheritance that is likely to last if she lives to 100. It seems Mary Ann chooses to use her wealth to keep her ex-husband in a compromised situation.
Through the use of lawyers and other proxies Mary Ann’s complex web of intrigue and manipulation has involved many others. Sadly, I am to be counted among those duped into unwittingly aiding Mary Ann in her quest to torture her former husband.
A couple of years ago I was at one of my office sites when Mary Ann wanted my assistant to help her make some phone calls. As a friend, I saw no problem with it. I introduced my assistant to Mary Ann via phone. What I later learned was Mary Ann and my assistant made a few different ‘conference’ calls together that were supposedly practical jokes. Shockingly enough, these calls were made to Jerry Navarro’s property owner, employer and doctor. Mary Ann was instructing my assistant to defame Jerry, which cost him his job and almost cost him his place of residence. The call to the doctor was an attempt to verify a hospitalization. More despicably, Mary Ann used Jerry’s unemployment status (which was purportedly caused by her via the practical joke) to press the issue in court that she was not receiving the appropriate amount of child support. In short, she was working to have Jerry thrown in prison.
I became aware that my assistant was involved in this deplorable set of circumstances after my old corporation, NPI Franklin Organization, was sued by Jerry. However, I was not exactly sure of what happened until a short time later. My later knowledge of the true nature of this matter compelled me to seek out and speak with Jerry, if only to offer my sincerest apology. The only solace I could offer Jerry was the fact that my assistant is willing to come forward and testify to the truth of the manipulation. Jerry is grateful that at least one of Mary Ann’s plots might finally blow up in her face.
It was only after meeting Jerry that I learned the true extent of Mary Ann’s nefarious machinations. Jerry informed me that he has been dealing with a number of similar acts of sabotage by Mary Ann since he filed for divorce. According to Jerry, one plot involved Mary Ann calling on a favor from Illinois State Senator Jimmy DeLeo, through his mistress Grace, to sabotage a liquor license that Jerry was depending on. I can personally attest to the validity of this statement, as Mary Ann confirmed this to me.
Jerry and his family have long been in the restaurant business, and it was through this profession that Jerry planned to rebuild his shattered life and do his part to support his children. Mary Ann could not have that happen, as it would rob her of valuable leverage in the court system. So she destroyed his business, and in the process managed to ruin some long-standing relationships Jerry had with his financial backers.
While my assistant’s offer to testify is sincere, I now have reason to question how effective this testimony may be. According to Jerry, the DuPage County court system is an Old Boys network. If you are wealthy and have attorneys that are wired in, the court will lean in your favor nine out of ten times. According to an order of the court that I have read, I would have to agree with Jerry. The Honorable George Sotos, a DuPage County Judge, cheated Jerry of due process by ordering him to refrain from working in the restaurant industry – the only industry that he truly knows. Such order made Jerry’s chances of finding a job he is qualified for near impossible.
Even after all these terrible twists and turns, for Jerry the worst punishment is being denied access to his children. These two beautiful children have no idea what their father has gone through over the years, and the sad truth is they may never really know. Mary Ann has spent the last decade beating into their heads that their father is a dead-beat criminal, a man not deserving respect. This is by far the cruelest deception of them all, because it denies these innocent children a loving father. I wonder how Mary Ann could hate Jerry so much that, even after all this time, she would continue to exact this fantastically malicious torture upon him. Whatever conflict they have between them, I would have hoped that Mary Ann could set it aside when it came to the well-fare of her own offspring. Apparently I was mistaken.
But it is not too late. When talking to Jerry about the horrors of his past with Mary Ann, he made very clear to me his main motivation for speaking about this whole mess is to try to reach some kind of clarity over the fate of his children. He is not a perfect man, his list of sins is surely as long as any of ours, but that is not a reason for his children to be excised from his life. Jerry feels his children have not been given the chance to truly know him, and that cuts him deeper than any threat of incarceration.
What greater legacy can a man have that his own children? That such a legacy might be destroyed simply out of spite is too much for Jerry to bear. While he wants to let the world know how he has been slighted in Mary Ann’s grand drama, it is not revenge he is looking for, rather a renewed relationship with his son and daughter. So today he is reaching out through me, in the desperate hope that telling his story might bring the right people around. Today he is reaching out to his children to tell them he loves them, has always loved them, and that the bitter conflict between their parents reflects in no way upon them. He wants his son and daughter to know he loves them dearly and hopes that, in time, they might come to share that love with him.
Jerry’s story is a sad one, to be certain. However, this does not need to be the final chapter. To all my readers, I ask you to carry Jerry’s tale out into the world and help this poor man have the relationship with his children he so rightly deserves. Perhaps through word of mouth we can help right this terrible wrong and reunite Jerry with those he misses the most.
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