click here to return to the Calico Cat homepage

Dominatrix hoax update

In my previous post, Calico Cat scammed by the dominatrix, I explained how Leola, who claims to be William Bennett’s dominatrix, scammed me.

* * *

Wonkette posted a link to my previous post: VirtuecratGate: A Hoax!?!. She found out about it so quickly because I sent her an email immediately after posting the account of how I was scammed. Thanks for linking to the post, Wonkette.

Is this a hoax? The manner in which I was contacted seems to be a hoax. A lot of the alleged facts appear to be bogus. But whether or not Leola McConnell had any kind of relationship with Bill Bennett that he would find embarrassing, I have no clue.

* * *

I received an email asking me about the IP addresses of the emails I received. For the sake of full disclosure, the IP addresses are different. All of Leola’s emails come from a cable modem. None of the source’s emails seem to have come from that cable modem. They come from several different IP addresses.

One can read some stuff into this. I think it’s likely that Leola has someone helping her. Because Leola has been doing this scam for over a year, one might hypothesize that initially she might have made the mistake of assuming that people wouldn’t know the difference if she used two different free email accounts (such as Yahoo or Hotmail) from the same computer, but discovered otherwise when someone confronted her with it. So by now, she has had ample opportunity to learn to send emails from different computers.

* * *

You will note that even though I am 99% sure I was scammed, since that last 1% will always be in doubt (hey, maybe she does have a secret stash of million dollar paintings and maybe every reporter is on the Republican payroll), I am keeping the source’s off the record emails off the record. I doubt that the two small quotes I published would give away a real source.

The source has not granted the same courtesy to me, posting the entirety of one of my emails to one of the comments here, including my phone number, and yes I deleted it. You will also note that Leola betrayed that reporter guy by publishing his email in full.

Yes, I was very eager to get the story, after all this is a big story and I would have made a big name for myself if I had broken something here. That’s why I was scammed. I fell for it, or at least wanted very much to believe that it was true.

For now, the anonymous comments are turned off. You can still comment if you have a Blogger account.

* * *

My advice to other bloggers or reporters who might be contacted by these people:

(1) Don’t let them lead you on with false hopes of becoming famous by breaking a big story. They’ve done this to zillions of people already, yet no one has broken a big story. Be suspicious, don’t trust them.

(2) At the very least, don’t have an email discussion with them, insist on talking on the telephone. Any emails from helpful informants that don’t want to talk on the phone should be ignored.

* * *

This is an appeal to the “real reporters” who investigated this story. I suspect that there are a large number of you. Contact me with some information that I can post on the blog so the final mysteries can be cleared up. You will help clear Bill Bennett’s reputation.

The difference between bloggers and reporters is that bloggers cooperate with each other, we share information, we link to each other’s posts.

* * *

There seems to be a discussion of this at the blog Transvigor, which focuses a great deal upon the comparison between Fawnia Mondey and Leola. Lingster says, “Leola is definitely capable of physically dominating a lot of men, Fawnia Mondey might have some trouble with that.”

Leola, if you need a self-esteem boost, go visit Lingster’s blog, he seems to think very highly of your looks. But he doesn’t have a high opinion of your ethics:

I also apologize for the gratuitous link to Fawnia’s website, because it will just create unreasonable expectations in men of what the opposite sex might look like, so this stuff is harmful to both sexes. I urge you instead to check out Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would surely kick Fawnia’s butt on an IQ test. The mind is really a lot sexier than the body.

* * *

There is no Jessica Cutler news today. That story is over. I think the Bill Bennett dominatrix scandal story is nearly over too. Does anyone have any ideas for new scandals?

UPDATE 1

Subsequent to this post, another blogger sent an email to Leola McConnell. She sent back to him the content of the very emails I sent to "Mitch", the source, who is allegedly the brother of a woman who used to live with Leola. Now I am close to 100% person that "Mitch" is not an independent person at all. Otherwise, how else would Leola have his emails? (Oh yes, there's some kind of bogus sounding story about how Leola made him give her the emails.)

UPDATE 2

Leola has been sending me threatening emails. My source in the news media tells me that this is her standard operating procedure.

UPDATE 3

On June 18, 2004 I spoke with Jose Montoya of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. I am not allowed to reveal the details of the conversation, but what he told me doesn't dissuade me from thinking that this story is a hoax.

UPDATE 4

On June 29, 2004 I spoke with another one of the reporters that Leola had been in contact with. That reporter's story is the same story I've heard before. He received emails from someone who claimed to know Leola, he eventually came to the conlusion that the story was fake, and then afterwards Leola sent him threatening emails.

posted Tuesday, June 08, 2004