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Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix

I have been scammed.

I have been in email contact with someone who claims to know someone who knows the dominatrix and has firsthand knowledge of her relationship with Bill Bennett. I now believe that this is a fictitious cover story. Either the dominatrix herself is this anonymous source, or it is her co-conspirator, possibly her boyfriend.

The scam artist is actually not too bright, yet he/she has the street smarts of someone who probably has past experience with conning people.

I should have smelled something wrong when the source started telling me how great looking Leola is. There are some hot babes with muscles, like Fawnia Mondey, but Leola McConnell isn’t one of them.

The source did a good job appealing to my vanity, with statements like “You blog guys are going to be where real news comes from in the future, watch and see.” Buttering me up by telling me what an important contribution I’m making to society. Telling me how courageous I am to cover this story when everyone else is afraid of it. I’m sure that flattery is a classic strategy used by confidence men.

The source has sent me more than thirty emails, often several times a day. I find it hard to believe that a third party source would go through so much effort to get this story publicized simply on account of hating Bill Bennett’s politics. That’s the story the source gave me, I just want Bill Bennett exposed, but don’t hurt the dominatrix, she’s a good person who has only done good for the world.

But finally, what gave away the source is that the emails kept getting whackier.

She knows every “heavy weight lawyer” in DC? Has millions of dollars in art lying around her house? Come on! This just smells too much like bullshit.

And the source got scared that a reporter might contact me. The source wrote:

I’m supposed to believe that every news reporter is a Bennett agent? Or that that journalists really care that Leola gave them the same BDSM garbage as we saw in her emails that I published?

When initially contacted by the source, I requested a phone number and that request was ignored. Finally, on Sunday, I emailed the following to the source:

It is also interesting to note that I received an email from Leola on Sunday and one again today, both of them claiming that she has figured out who my source is. This is obviously in reaction to me expressing doubts about the source’s veracity. Sorry, the trick isn’t working.

After more than 24 hours passed from sending the email asking for a phone number (when normally this source has been emailing me several times a day) I finally received another email from the source. My request for a phone number was completely ignored. The email contained only three short sentenced designed to enhance the illusion that the writer is independent from Leola. Sorry, I no longer buy it.

I’m not the only person who was scammed. As far as I can tell, it’s a true story that reporters from various major publications investigated the story. Presumably they were all contacted by Leola herself, or by someone claiming to be an anonymous source. But presumably, none of them found anything except a loony dominatrix who wouldn’t give them any verifiable evidence that she actually had a BDSM relationship with Mr. Bennett. You’ve read her emails that I posted here on the blog. Would you believe someone like that without some kind of proof other than her say so?

Leola admits in her statement that she didn’t give them anything, which is also what she said in the emails which she sent me that I previously published here. She claims that if only a woman reporter had contacted her, then she would have given her some kind of real story. But it was Leola herself who went out of her way to contact reporters. If she really wanted to contact a woman reporter, she could have easily done so the same way she contacted me and a lot of other reporters. So this is really just some kind of game that she’s playing.

So this explains why there have been rumors that reporters have investigated the story. The rumors are true, they did investigate the story, but they didn’t find anything they could publish.

This is also further evidence that the mysterious source is Leola herself. I’m sure that if the reporters from the newspapers had an independent third party who would have backed up Leola’s story, this would have already been big news. Unless you buy the story that all the reporters are on the Republican payroll. That’s what the source said, and that’s what Leola’s statement says. The same reporters who broke the Bill Bennett gambling story are on the Republican payroll or agents of Bennett? Very unlikely.

Only one reporter who found my blog contacted me. All he would say on the record is that he was contacted by a person who made an allegation, but that the person failed to provide any proof, and that no matter how badly people may dislike Bill Bennett, he doesn’t deserve to have his reputation ruined by this story if it’s not true.

Leola McConnell’s statement that she published clearly lies about her true motives. She writes, “I have played dodge ball with this issue now for over A YEAR and I'm sick of it. It doesn't seem to want to go away. The Calico Cat idiot wrote me and now people accuse me of seeking publicity.”

As far as I can ascertain, this is a lie, she is seeking publicity for some unknown reason. Or maybe the reason is pretty clearly stated in that email from the reporter:

I have no clue why she would publish that email when it so obviously explains her motives.

Once again, all the evidence suggests that it is Leola who has been trying to promote this story, but she has not been successful because she refused to give the reporters any kind of proof or any details about her alleged relationship with Bennett. She was not successful until she discovered the power of blogs. After the Jessica Cutler story got its small moment of fame, she contacted Wonkette, who wouldn’t run with the story, so next she contacted me (under the guise of a helpful informant). And I successfully got out the story. I was her pawn.

Did Leola really have any kind of relationship with Bill Bennett, or is the whole thing made up? Is the real reason she didn’t give any verifiable details to reporters because she didn’t have any to give? I don’t have the answers to these questions. Perhaps the true story will be revealed in the near future.

UPDATE

I made a follow up post about this hoax with additional information. Dominatrix hoax update.

UPDATE 2

This post originally contained a link to a free web page at Tripod.com with Leola's statement, but that web page no longer exists. I saved a copy of it to my hard drive, but I'm not going to republish it because it contains false accusations, and it unfairly included a private email that a reporter sent to her.

posted Tuesday, June 08, 2004