The heartbroken wife of disgraced Staten Island Rep. Vito Fossella yesterday broke her silence over the scandal that has rocked her family, saying she had "no idea" of his secret life and has struggled as she's watched her world "unravel."
"This has been a very painful time for my family and I," Mary Pat Fossella wrote in an e-mail to The Post after word broke of her husband's decision not to seek re-election in the wake of revelations he had fathered a child with another woman.
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She made clear her main concern is protecting her two sons, 10 and 12, and daughter, 4.
"I have known Vito since I was 16 years old, and this is not what I envisioned for him and my family," she wrote.
"I had no idea of this world he was living.
"I am very saddened by how the world I was living unraveled before my eyes and everyone else's," she added.
"My focus will continue to be on [my] three children, as it has been, as I have always maintained a very private life."
It was the first statement from Mary Pat about her ordeal since her husband's drunken-driving arrest on May 1 led to the exposure of his affair with a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, Laura Fay, and the child they had together.
Mrs. Fossella, 42, has always been low-key and avoided the spotlight, rarely speaking publicly.
She has not been seen with her 43-year-old husband since a press conference on May 2 about the arrest, and several family friends had described her as being unsure of her future with the man who was her high-school sweetheart.
Appearing pained at times but holding her head high, Mary Pat has gone for drives with neighbors, attended her godchild's First Communion, and attended her son's ballgames.
The congressman, meanwhile, has not said anything publicly about his personal life.
In his statement announcing he would not run for a sixth term this fall, Fossella said he wanted to "concentrate on healing the wounds that I have caused to my wife and family."
Fossella, after announcing his long-awaited decision about his political future, was on Capitol Hill yesterday with his dad.
Long Island Rep. Pete King, his closest friend in Congress and the main public face of Fossella's supporters, said, "Vito did the right thing for is family, his district and himself. He's been an outstanding congressman."
