Vito Fossella

Fossella's great-grandfather James A. O'Leary represented Staten Island in Congress from 1935 to 1944.

Vito John Fossella Jr. (born March 9, 1965) is an American politician serving as the Staten Island Borough President since 2022.

One of his uncles, Frank Fossella, was a prominent Staten Island Democrat who was a City Council member in 1985.

His father, Vito John Fossella Sr., served in various appointed positions in the city administrations of Democratic Mayors Ed Koch and Abraham Beame, then became a successful construction engineer.

Fossella, the fourth of seven children, was a basketball player at Monsignor Farrell High School, where he got his first political experience in the student council.

He briefly played violin and percussion with the Christian pop band Sonseed.

He attended Iona College in New Rochelle, then transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in economics in 1987.

At Penn, he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

After college, Fossella worked as a management consultant at the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche.

In 1990, Fossella married Mary Patricia Rowan.

They have three children and live in the Great Kills neighborhood on Staten Island.

In 1990, Fossella changed his voter registration from the Democratic Party to become the family's first Republican.

Under Petrides' guidance, he joined the 1992 re-election campaign of Staten Island Congresswoman Susan Molinari and, in 1993, the mayoral campaign of Rudy Giuliani.

He received a Juris Doctor from the Fordham University School of Law in 1993 and worked as an associate at a medical malpractice defense law firm Schiavetti Begos & Nicholson.

Fossella's political career began in April 1994, when he won a special election to the New York City Council, representing Staten Island's South Shore and Mid-Island section.

He replaced Councilman Alfred C. Cerullo III, who had left to become Commissioner of Consumer Affairs in the Rudy Giuliani administration.

Fossella spent $92,000 in the election, in which he had five opponents.

In November 1994, Fossella was reelected to the remaining three years of Cerullo's term, defeating Democrat Rosemarie Mangano.

A member of the Republican Party, Fossella previously represented the state's 13th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms, from 1997 to 2009 serving as the lone Republican from New York City.

A Staten Island native, Fossella initially took office in 1997 after winning a special election held to replace the resigning Susan Molinari.

"I found myself voting more and more for Republicans," he said in 1997.

"For the most part, my family reacted well. But still, I would love to have been a fly on the wall."

He served on the Council until November 1997.

Fossella's council initiatives included:

In June 1997, Fossella was selected by executive committee of the Staten Island Republican Party as its candidate to run for the Congressional seat being vacated by Representative Susan Molinari.

Fossella won the special election in November 1997, defeating Democratic Assemblyman Eric Vitaliano with 61 percent of the vote.

In November 1998, Fossella won a full term with 68 percent of the vote.

He was reelected in 2000, winning 65 percent of the vote against Democrat Katina M. Johnstone even as Al Gore carried the district.

In 2002, he was reelected with 70 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat Arne M. Mattsson.

In 2004, Fossella faced his first close contest against former state assemblyman and judge Frank J. Barbaro.

Barbaro won the Brooklyn portion of the district by seven points, the first time Fossella had not won that area; Barbaro had represented much of this area in Albany for 23 years.

Fossella also had a daughter out-of-wedlock in 2005 with retired Lt. Col. Laura Fay.

Fossella was a political protégé of Michael J. Petrides, a city school board member and a Staten Island political strategist.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu was the second largest campaign contributor to Fossella in the 2006 campaign cycle and among the largest contributors in the 2008 campaign cycle.

Fossella then attended law school.

After a DUI arrest in Alexandria, Virginia on May 1, 2008, it was discovered that he was living with Laura Fay, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, while Fossella was married.

The two had a child together and lived in Virginia as a married couple while he lived in Staten Island with his wife.

He announced on his official website on May 20 that he had chosen to serve out the remainder of his term, which ended on January 3, 2009, but decided not to run for re-election.

In November 2021, Fosella was elected borough president of Staten Island.

Fossella was born on Staten Island into a Roman Catholic family of Irish and Italian descent.