Family gets ‘contact visit’ with jailed Romanian immigrant educated in Valley

By Denise Dick

BOARDMAN — Family members of a Romanian immigrant jailed since December believe he will be on a plane today bound for his native country.

But during the first visit between Virgil Ciprian “Chip” Gilea and his family when they weren’t separated by glass, family members didn’t say goodbye.

“We didn’t say goodbye because maybe he won’t be” on a plane, said Minerva, Chip’s mother. “Maybe something is going to happen.”

Minerva, Chip’s father, Virgil; sister, Bianca; and fiance, Cindy Zaborsky, made the roughly three-hour trip Saturday for the first “contact visit” with Chip since his Dec. 27, 2007, arrest.

“I kissed his hand and I hugged him, and we all stayed together,” Minerva said.

There were tears.

The family put more money into Chip’s account at the jail so he’ll have money when he arrives in Romania.

“He says he’s ready,” Minerva said of her only son.

He doesn’t want to leave the United States, but he doesn’t want to stay in jail either.

“He’s an educated guy,” his mother said. “He wants to do something. He doesn’t want to be there in jail.”

Virgil and Minerva came to the U.S. from Romania in 1990. In 1994, Chip, then 15, and Bianca, then 12, joined them.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.