Thursday, March 15, 2012

I smell a rat...

Letten:  Online Posts Came From My Office

I don't buy the story that Heebe's hired writing analyst figured this out.  I think Heebe was tipped off by someone who knew Mencken1951 was Perricone.  Now who would know that?

I'd be interested to revisit Heebe's connections to Nola.com.

Let's review the smoke signals from the TP today:

Guessing commenter's identity is no game: Stephanie Grace


Landfill owner Fred Heebe raises troubling questions in suit implicating federal prosecutor: An editorial

Both Grace and the editors all but outright named Mencken as Perricone.  It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that they knew who he was before the press conference.

What I want to know is how they knew it, when they found out - before or after the charges were brought up by Heebe, and who all within both organizations, TP/NOLA.com knew.

UPDATE:  Obviously I am not a brain surgeon.  I confirmed the TP staff did not know Perricone was Mencken before the press conference.  I was told they speculated but did not know.  All I can say is that those two articles were highly speculative.  Not quite as speculative as I get but for the TP they were pushing the envelope.

I am still curious how Heebe was tipped off to the commenter in the first place.  Brutha's Back speculated that Perricone himself could have been the rat....that would be off the hook.  I'm not saying that's the case...I'm just doing some mental masturbation.



   

24 comments:

bruthas_back said...

Could the rat be periconne himself? he had to have known that posting stuff that was not yet public info would send up red flags.

Jason Brad Berry said...

Wouldn't that be something?

Anonymous said...

Nola.com runs some T-P content but is a third party which posts only selected portions of the Picayune's print edition. Who pays for ads on nola.com and how is their ad placement determined?

Anonymous said...

But why would he do that? Spill your thoughts!

Jason Brad Berry said...

Ad placement is what I though of off the bat. But I don't think that would make sense. I think a person with access to the user accounts and the IP data would make more sense.

I AM SPECULATING.

Why would he do it? Think about it....as you already know, Heebe's tentacle run far and wide, fucking everyone has been paid.

So the scenario BB is suggesting is "What if Heebe paid Perricone to fuck'snu the DOJ's case against him?". You realize the implications this has if Heebe goes to trial? A DOJ asst. attorney was commenting on a news outlet's website about the case he was working on. That could be grounds for a mistrial.

The scenario is that a DOJ attny. purposely blew the case in order to save Heebe's ass from prosecution.

Once again, THIS IS CONJECTURE.

But damn...it's something to thunk on.

Jason Brad Berry said...

tentacles...sic

Anonymous said...

Ad placement was mentioned only to make the point that any news providers that receive ad revenue put themselves in a delicate position that has significant potential for abuse. Payola is a criminal act and we should hope that no local news provider has engaged in the practice.

Jason Brad Berry said...

Who said anything about payola?

whitmergate said...

First ... let me say this without anyone having to misconstrue what I mean to say ..."Fuck Fred Heebe .. he beats up women and bribes people to do his corrupt bidding ... he has no good character to defame, period!"

Secondly ... I, like you Jason, know instinctively that something's not right with this whole staged scenario. On the surface, Perricone's background defies any literary sensibilities that he would choose Mencken as his monicker; however this very same background could define his possibly being a Heebe mole.

What is being lost here is not only Perricone's Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and privacy, but any John Doe's.

What Perricone did may be both unethical and contrary to DoJ policy; what Heebe, his lawyers and/or the Times-Picayune did in outing the identity of Mencken1951 is illegal.

And the most pressing question as far as I'm concerned is: Who, and by what means available, was able to state with certainty, that Sal Perricone, and he alone, used the handle Henry L. Mencken1951 ?

Much more on this later.

Jason Brad Berry said...

so mysterious

Jules B. said...

The safest bet is that Fred registered that commenting account with a somewhat giveaway e-mail address (like fperrico@aol.com or whatever)

Some folks at the Times-Pic and more at NOLA.com would be able to see that address, allowing them to make a fairly informed guess without having absolute proof. No "IP address" wizardry necessary.

Now, when you are talking about a human bribe engine like Heebe, I suppose it'd be naive to say he couldn't have purchased that info from the inside... but if he was tipped off, I have to believe it came from the Times-Picayune side of the fence. The newspaper and its employees are connected to local power figures in many ways, whereas NOLA.com is a tiny, high-tech bubble that does the site's tech aspects and ad sales, and they're more closely linked to their New Jersey parent company than they are to the Times-Pic.

Prior to this Perricone story breaking, I'd bet most of NOLA.com's staffers and sales folks couldn't have told you who Heebe even was.

The tip-off to Heebe (if it occurred) wouldn't be in exchange for something like ad buys; it would be done strictly on a personal level, by someone who likes to do a favor for a powerful potential friend.

Note again that I have absolutely no knowledge suggesting that might be the case. We may never know until Heebe's next "supporters list" is made public record and there's a masthead name on it...

Jason Brad Berry said...

Or....here's another scenario. Maybe the tip came from someone within DOJ or a former employee from DOJ who knew Perricone was doing it. That's certainly another possibility.

whitmergate said...

Whatever the possibilities are, I still demand that the DoJ appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate 'the who that outed' and 'how it was done' all in violation of Perricone's Constitutional and Civil Rights.

My demand is not a defense of Perricone's choice to comment, but rather a defense of all John Does right to remain anonymous.

That there are legal consequences for breeching someone's privacy who comments on a blog using a
fictitious monicker is as equally important to the legal consequences a commenter may subject themselves too when defaming a person online.

Jason Brad Berry said...

WG, that is exactly why I am asking the question. If someone inside NOLA.com cooperated with Team Heebe or actually tipped them off as to the identity of Mencken, they broke the law. They violated Perricone's civil rights and the Nola.com contract for commenters.

Anyone who is running a blog knows that it's not that difficult to track IP addresses and get a general idea where comments are coming from. Especially if they are coming from a government entity.

Anonymous said...

It is interesting who told Team Heebe about Mr. Dubiety. But, dear dambala, nobody interfered with Mr. Dubiety's civil rights by doing so - even if it were someone within the company which runs Nola.com or more appropriately the company which runs the forum. There is no right to privacy here - not in any way, except in the heads of those who think there is.

M Styborski said...

You know, I really thought HL was just Dambala slumming… :)

Jason Brad Berry said...

Dear Anonymous,

From the NOLA.com privacy agreement:

http://www.advance.net/advancedigitalUserAgreementPP/#privacy

I. We reserve the right to identify you from your Registration Information and/or to merge or co-mingle anonymous or non-personally identifiable data about you, your offline and online behavior, and/or your computer, mobile or other device (including its geographic location), with your Registration Information and/or other personally identifiable data for any lawful business purpose.

"non-personally Identifiable....for lawful business purpose."

If someone within NOLA identified him by checking IP addresses per the timing on the comments, then gave that information to team Heebe....NOLA broke the terms of their own contract and Mr. Periconne, as stupid as he is, could sue the living shit out of them.

On another note, having read that privacy agreement I dont know why anyone in their right mind would agree to it especially a lawyer.

M Styborski said...

OK, I've been interwebzless for the last week, but… some thoughts:

So far Sal Perricone has been linked to four screen names: campstblue, legacyusa, dramatis personae and Henry L. Mencken1951. (Apparently created in that order from 2007 to last week) Dramatis and legacy are both dead accounts and profiles can no longer be viewed, but their comments still show up in a search. campst and HLM are still active.

Campst has no followers, but HLM has a dozen, three of which have absolutely no activity on NOLA other than following HLM and no one else. One of those followers' profiles links to a FB page and has a Real Name but the other two are simply screen names with no other info. Guessing one or both of those was created just to troll HLM's comments, but why not on campst? Well, possibly because campst didn't comment on Heebe, but if that's so, then why connect the account to SP?

As for thirteen-dollar words like "redoubt", it appears 116 times at NOLA. Ignoring articles about the Perricone story, those dealing with Alaska's Mount Redoubt and repeated returns there are about 20 appearances of the word. Of these, legacy uses it four times, HLM twice, campst once, TP staff writers five times, (once by James Gill, go figure,) twice by an the AP and once each by three other commenters whose prose lacks the panache and unique spalling of HLM, et al.

While the "redoubt" angle is a very thin thread to follow, that's what the FBI does for a living. Incredible deduction? Yes, but not entirely impossible. If Heebe's trolls started following HLM, noticed the repetition of "redoubt" and that it occurred in the legal docs and proceeded from there, I could believe that. Desperate men dangling from perilous heights will clutch at the most tenuous of straws. (Certainly someone has said that at some point. If not, then there's my entry for Bartlett's.)

Still… I looked through about half of the campst comments and never saw a reference to Heebe, so how did that account get linked to SP? Reading them the style is similar, but I don't believe he admitted his actions to Letten for anything other than the HLM comments. About the only way to connect the dots between HLM, Sal Perricone and campstblue would be by matching IP addresses or some other sign-up data like an e-mail. It's not much, but it's enough to make one wonder…

Jason Brad Berry said...

Verdee Intervesting......

M Styborski said...

Too tired to slog through NOLA again, but I think I transposed HLM and legacy's usages of redoubt. HLM used it more, I'm pretty sure.

I've seen and heard comments about how much a former FBI agent costs to hire, and considering James Fitz's resumé, I'm thinking it's a tidy shitload! Aside from being a tech advisor for Criminal Minds on CBS, the guy's a linguistic profiling beast! ( http://criminalminds.wikia.com/wiki/James_R._Fitzgerald )

And one more random thought for shites and googles… Heebe's pop sat in a 5th district judicial Barcalounger for twenty years and was the judge who issued a temporary restraining order against Jim Garrison when he was railroading Clay Shaw for the JFK assassination. One of Garrison's assistant DAs was Charles Ward. And Jim Ward is Heebe's runnin' podnuh… Wonder if there's a familial connection between the two, and if so, how much do Fred and Jim know about who really pulled the strings back in '63… :)

M Styborski said...

Oh, wow… I wondered where this sentiment was coming from…

""It almost makes the entire process tainted. It makes us wonder if we have to start over," said Raymond Burkart attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police. "It's just unfathomable you would have that from someone with so much experience and in such a manner as to destroy something that's so fragile and delicate right now." "

Perricone was a member of the team that indicted NOPD Deputy Chf Antoine Saacks and Maj Raymond Burkart on bankruptcy fraud charges.
Saacks was convicted and served two years, Burkart struck a plea deal for one count of civil contempt and an 18-month suspension from practicing in bankruptcy court.

Then the feces hit the fan when SP and RB got into a nanny-nanny-boo-boo contest ending with the a federal arrest and subsequent NOPD suspension for RB for being a dick…

http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=bdihfj&searchTerm=eDdN.EEda.aadj.eafh&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW

Man, I LOVE this town!!

OK, I sleep now, I promise!

bruthas_back said...

Heebe was going to be named the U.S. Attorney before it was uncovered that he was(is) a woman beater. It would be interesting to know if he has pull or influence inside of that office. Maybe he has a mole(s) inside the office feeding him info and they tipped him off to Perricone.

It would also be interesting to know how Heebe came to be the choice for U.S Attorney in the first place. I always thought that U.S atts. worked their way up the food chain and came from within the office. I thought that Heebe was just a behind the scenes mover and shaker. But i guess if your as corrupt as Heebe seems to be it might be wise to want to be the U.S atty. for the district you do all your dirt in.

whitmergate said...

I am praying that Heebe will continue to litigate his defamation lawsuit ... I mean, I'm really praying !

whitmergate said...

bruthas ... your timing is serendipitous ... and this is for you...

Two woman accuse New Orleans U.S. attorney nominee of abuse
By DOUG SIMPSON
http://jacksonville.com/apnews/stories/020202/D7HCSCEO1.html

Forget about your credit card, here are some priceless quotes:

"These allegations are lies. They are outrageous lies. We're going to proceed. There will be no surrender," Fred Heebe said Thursday...”
______
Butler and Gov. Mike Foster both said the FBI has investigated the allegations.

"All of these allegations are not new," Foster, a Heebe supporter, said during his Thursday afternoon radio show.

He said there was a conspiracy of people he would not identify who do not want Heebe in the federal prosecutor's post, "because he's an extremely honest guy.”
______
Butler said the allegations were the result of an effort by Heebe's political enemies to keep him out of office. He named tugboat magnate Robert Guidry, whose son ran unsuccessfully against a relative of Heebe's for the Jefferson Parish Council.

Guidry's lawyer, Arthur "Buddy" Lemann, called Butler's allegation "a lie."
______
Heebe is the son of U.S. District Judge Frederick J.R. Heebe and is strongly supported for the post by Foster. Heebe is now married to Jennifer Sneed, a state representative.

President Bush announced Nov. 1 that he planned to nominate Heebe for the post. A nomination normally would be quickly sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee for review, but Heebe's has been delayed.
______

LET’S REVIEW SHALL WE ... "These allegations are lies. They are outrageous lies.” ... “There will be no surrender” ... "because he's an extremely honest guy.” ... Guidry's lawyer, Arthur "Buddy" Lemann, called Butler's allegation "a lie." ... “Heebe is the son of U.S. District Judge Frederick J.R. Heebe and is strongly supported for the post by Foster.” ... “President Bush announced Nov. 1 that he planned to nominate Heebe for the post.”

WELL Fred Heebe, Jr. did not become US Attorney for the EDLA ... Jim Letten did ... and I suggest that events presented themselves for Heebe to “GET BACK” on Letten ... and hopefully confuse, spin and pervert the Justice system to allow him to walk away from his massive criminal conspiracy to have River Birch be awarded a landfill MONOPOLY !