VALLETTA, Malta - Vito Fossella's illicit romance with the mother of his love child was a whirlwind affair that began on a rocky Mediterranean island and blossomed among the ancient ruins of Spain.
Malta - a tough, craggy speck of rock in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea - is known for its battles and knights, not its beaches and sunsets.
But when Vito Fossella arrived here on a military jet five years ago, the married congressman found love.
Fossella and a married Air Force colonel, then named Laura Shoaf, were part of a taxpayer-funded congressional junket that hopscotched across Europe, visiting five countries in 10 days. They stopped in Poland and Luxembourg before touching down in Malta on Dec. 6, 2002.
Traveling with then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the delegation was supposed to be studying foreign affairs. Somewhere amid Malta's limestone outcroppings and crashing waves, Vito and Laura were first noticed eying each other.
A photograph snapped of Fossella and his love at a bar in Malta shows them standing side by side, smiling gleefully.
"They were spending a lot of time together, and they had just met," a source who traveled with them said. ". . . . All of a sudden, they were inseparable."
The source said their attraction was obvious, and they soon become more daring, sneaking off together in the after-hours and skipping official functions when the delegation moved on to Italy and finally Portugal.
The trip forever changed their lives and encouraged the brash behavior that finally was exposed when Fossella was arrested for drunken driving near Fay's Virginia home a little more than a week ago.
In the summer of 2003, the pair jetted off to Europe, again as part of a congressional delegation. This time, they spent 10 days traveling to the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain. Once again, taxpayers picked up the tab.
It was in Granada, Spain, the last stop of the trip, that the lovers began flaunting their affair, sources said.
Several top congressional officials first noticed the couple snuggling and kissing there, according to a source who was on the trip, once again led by Hastert.
"We had a weekend in Granada at the end of the trip," the source said. "That's when people began to notice Vito and Laura acting very affectionately.
"They showed up late together for a tour of the [Moorish fortress of] Alhambra, and they were walking together," the source said.
Word about the affair spread, and Republican officials soon became concerned, fearing it would be exposed, sources said.
Shortly after the second trip, Fossella's girlfriend was reassigned from being Air Force legislative liaison to an intelligence desk job at the Pentagon. She wouldn't be accompanying Hastert on any more junkets.She split from her husband, Guy Shoaf, the day after Christmas in 2003 - about five months after cozying up in public with Fossella in Spain. It was her second divorce. They had no children.
She changed her name to Laura Fay and gave birth to Fossella's secret love child, raising the girl in a townhouse in Alexandria, Va., where Fossella was a regular visitor. Their daughter, Natalie, is now 3.
Fossella repeatedly lied to Fay, telling her he had separated from his wife, Mary Pat, his former high school sweetheart and the mother of his three children in Staten Island, a source said.
Fay only realized the extent of his deception when he confessed to fathering a love child last week, but made no mention of leaving his wife.
Malta is not an obvious place for a love affair to flourish. Not unlike Staten Island, it tends to be a conservative place.
It's a predominantly Catholic country where churches are the biggest monuments, more than half the populace attends Mass on Sunday and divorce is illegal.
Crowds of tourists mill through the narrow streets of the old city of Valletta, snapping photos of landmarks - including the Auberge de Castille, where then-Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami greeted Fossella and Fay's delegation in 2002.
The rocky hills are studded with military relics, and while other spots on the island have their share of ocean vistas and quiet lagoons, no one would call its capital city sexy.
"I don't think it's the kind of place you would come to for romance," said Vivian O'Boyle, a British tourist visiting Malta with her her husband, Paddy. "It's more for history."
alisberg@nydailynews.com
