Glass City Jungle

This is a semi-complicated story for those of you have never looked at an e-mail header before and is one that could involve more than one person with specific motives; but bear with me as I walk you through what I’ve discovered this past week. I received an email from a person using the name “dangelbert23″ that linked an article from the Detroit News, Ohio gaming tests Detroit boosters and included this image:

The email contained no disclaimer which of course made me curious as to who sent this out. So, I pulled up the email headers, the email header showed this was sent or was spoofed as sent from ecampaignconnect.com and also listed “yesonissue3.com” as shown:

Received: from postfix.mail.yesonissue3.com (ecampaignconnect.com [24.199.182.6])

When I emailed “danglebert23″ asking for more information and why there was no disclaimer (as would be required by law if this is connected to a campaign) and I’d like an explanation before I went public with this, I received no response. Which is why this release was not posted on my blog. I tried to find out more about “ecampaignconnect.com” which is also the campaign service that TruthPAC uses, when I googled it, the first thing that came up after the log in page that gives you no contact information, was related to Roger Stone. That may seem like nothing, but for those following the whole Issue 3 issue closely, Stone has been reported as playing some sort of role in the anti-Issue 3 campaign, Columbus Dispatch article link and Stone is well known in political circles as the guy who plays dirty politics, “The undisputed master of the black arts of electioneering” by Scotsman.com is just one of the title’s Stone is proud of.

I next did a “whois” to try to get contact information from ecampaignconnect, their registration is private and there is no contact information on their site, they are affiliated with grasstopconcepts.com, who also has no contact information on their website and has a private domain registration. Grasstopconcepts.com also has ties to Roger Stone according to Site Dossier as well as quite a few other sites as you can see by the list. The simple slam dunk would have been to assume this was related to Stone, but that seemed sloppy from what I know about Stone.

Next I went through every e-mail I have received from everyone connected to Issue 3, both for and against. None of the e-mail headers directly matched the one from “dangerbert23″ though there was one other e-mail that was against Issue 3 that used ecampaignconnect.com, it was from njcasinonews.com. Another interesting thing is which of my e-mail addresses this and the “danglebert23″ one went to, it’s my older e-mail address that TruthPAC uses, all of the ones from Jobs & Growth Committee go to my newer one.

It was then that I found something very interesting, because I searched the name “Sal Martucci” who wrote the article that was sent to me from NJCasnionews, and I found that in May of 2008, Lies, damn lies and the Internet: Web site posts false Atlantic City info was written by Michael Clark for The Press of Atlantic City Media Group. The article is not live online anymore but the cache I found states:

ATLANTIC CITY – Predictions that mayoral candidate Domenic Cappella might cut into Mayor Scott Evans’ support in the resort’s white communities have been affirmed by a new poll just weeks before the Democratic primary for mayor.

The poll, which claims Cappella’s 11-point lead over Evans among white voters leaves former Mayor Lorenzo Langford with a distinct advantage, was conducted by APEX Survey Research of North Tonawanda, NY.

Who are they, you ask? No one, actually.

The company does not exist, except for mentions in a report on NJCasinoNews.com.

Who are they, you ask? No one knows, but the Web site’s consistently inaccurate and potentially damaging postings about resort politics and the casino industry is building a buzz with people thinking the reports are real news. The site, which features reports ranging from federal investigations to the latest spat between Donald Trump and ex-wife Marla Maples, is registered with DomainsbyProxy.com, a company hinging on its guarantee of keeping private the ownership of an Internet domain. Representatives of the site’s Web host, the Kansas-based Abacus America Inc., would not provide any information about the operator Tuesday.

Another entry on the site claims Langford maintains resounding support in the city’s black communities, with 89 percent of black voters supporting

This time the company exists, but the poll does not.

Thomas Eldon, a pollster with the company, recently dismissed any suggestion that the poll came from Schroth Eldon Associates. Eldon said the company has not polled in Atlantic City in years and was last hired by local activist Don Hurley when he ran in a Republican primary against former state Sen. Bill Gormley.

However, when Eldon was reached Tuesday for a follow-up interview he quickly clammed up, saying he could not comment on the poll because of an agreement with a private client. Asked if he was now implying that a poll was conducted, he paused and again said he could not comment.

Hurley, who acknowledged Tuesday that he once hired the firm, said he has visited the NJCasinoNews.com but does not know who operates it. He also said he receives e-mail updates from the Web site, but claims he never signed up to be on the mailing list.

“Some of it seems accurate and some of it seems inaccurate,” said Hurley, who works for Langford’s campaign.

Hurley’s radio-host brother, Harry, also recently posted NJCasinoNews.com’s item about the APEX poll on his own Web page.

Kevin Hall, spokesman for Langford’s campaign, denied any involvement in the site or any knowledge of its existence.

“We would not be participating in any false polling,” said Hall, adding that the campaign has not done any polling.

Cape May hotel owner Curtis Bashaw also renounced the site, which features an advertisement for his new Manhattan condominium project and goes out of its way to compliment the developer in a news item titled, “Bashaw on a roll.”

“I got calls yesterday about this for the first time,” Bashaw said Tuesday. “Our IT people think it’s a bogus site, and we definitely have concerns about someone making it look like we support this.”

The site resembles the intent of past “newspapers” that commonly circulated in the resort around election time, making up stories about various candidates and exaggerating issues and political views.

Along with its inaccurate information, the site’s writers also bear names that are noticeably curious at a second glance. They include Alfred Landon, the unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee in 1936; Sal Martucci, a fictional mafia character in the Laurence Shames novel “Virgin Heat”; and, last but not least, Benjamin Dover (a joke you may remember from grade school to disguise the hidden meaning, bend over).

While aspects of the site may be humorous, those on the other end of the lies are not laughing.

The Division of Gaming Enforcement went to the extraordinary measure this week of formally asking the site to correct an entry that claims the division’s director, Josh Lichtblau, has stressed the need to consider the economic repercussions of not allowing a deal between MGM Mirage and Pansy Ho.

The division is currently investigating whether Asian billionaire Stanley Ho, long suspected of having ties to organized crime, will have any influence over daughter Pansy Ho’s joint venture with MGM for a Macau casino.

“In addition to never speaking to Sal Martucci or anyone associated with NJ CASINO NEWS, I have never ‘argued’ that economic repercussions in Atlantic City weigh into any decision-making by the Division of Gaming Enforcement,” Lichtblau wrote in a news release this week. “I would hope that you would correct the recent posting.”

Bashaw also said he has contacted his attorneys to identify the site’s owners and assess options for getting his unauthorized advertisement removed from the page.

TruthPAC and Ohio Jobs & Growth Committee told me informally via email they do not know who “dangelbert23″ is, and neither side was aware of NJCasinoNews or the prior problems with that particular online “news site” — There is also another group out there that is in opposition of Issue 3 “The Committee Against the Wrong Plan” who have Thomas A. Rankin as their treasurer, Rankin in 2006 was the Treasurer for the group “Vote Yes on Issue 3″ – that is more commonly known as “Learn & Earn”. The domain name for “OhioCasinoIssue” is listed to Paul Werth of Paul Werth Associates, they appear to be in the anti-3 side because of Horse racing. Paul Werth was involved with the older Issue 3 (Learn & Earn) and he was replaced by Michael R. Caputo the Forrest Gump of global politics who is now working for TruthPAC and Roger Stone was also involved back then and FieldWorks was on the opposite side as some of those now against Issue 3; FieldWorks was the source of problems and questions related to Learn and Earn. I know after that paragraph, even I needed to take a breath, I could write volumes on the histories of those involved in the past three casino issues as far as who supported what, when.

So who is behind this? Which group is responsible for “danglebert23″ and is there a connection to NJCasinoNews? Both sides have what the Associated Press reported quoted, “bad characters who behave badly for pay”. There have been low points to this campaign, the image of a police officer holding a billy club over the head of a minister (Link) is the current lowest, in my opinion. FieldWorks was recently dropped from the pro-Issue side 3 according to the Dispatch but FieldWorks was defended when it was used for Learn and Earn…

Without the NJCasinoNews part of this, it’d be easy to just pass off the “danglebert23″ as nothing, knowing that questions were raised about polls before from the same polling company is a red flag for me, I realize they have done valid polls but the lack of information on the poll and the fact that the media reported the polling data as accurate without providing any of the data is bothersome. The various connections to Stone are also red flags and what makes this even harder for me personally, is I don’t support Issue 3. Yet, I can’t have condemned some of the same behavior from Learn and Earn and pretend it’s okay if it’s being done just because those doing it are on the same side of an issue as I am.

Many people have been fooled by the NJCasinoNews website and the fictitious writer “Sal Martucci” – he and a questionable article are even listed as evidence in a bankruptcy case that involves Donald Trump and the story about Stanley Ho Hung-Sun was automatically believed by some as evidenced by the InTheLobby link. It’s also clear one of those mentioned in Michael Clark’s article, Harry Hurley, not only linked the fake APEX polling information but is a fan of Roger Stone’s “Stone Zone”, it’s linked on his talk show page. It’s also known that Stone has used pollster Robert Schroth in the past, in fact it’s felt that Roger Stone destroyed the Reform Party and helped put Bush in the White House with the help of polling done by Schroth, according to the Village Voice. It also is fairly easy to guess that “dangelbert23″ is a spoof of “Dan Gilbert” of Rock Ventures, could it be from the same group who has “Benjamin Dover” writing for them? Possible…

Since I started looking into this, there is another group that is claimed to have been created to oppose Issue 3, it is not openly connected to TruthPAC, but it is using the same ecampaignconnect.com client, it’s being called “Families Against Issue 3″ and is also connected to Grasstopconcepts.com. I’ve emailed the group asking for clarification, using the email that was included in the press release, this is what happened:

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

familiesagainstissue3@gmail.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
Account disabled

Their press release was then not posted.

I’d like to be able to say I have concrete evidence that “danglebert23″ and NJCasinoNews are connected, an email to Roger Stone has not been responded to and after an initial e-mail from Michael Clark where he said he had more information on NJCasinoNews, he has not responded back with exactly what that is. What I do know is that when you bring in someone like Roger Stone, there is an automatic assumption that things are going to get dirty, which has also been true in the past three casino issues, there have been those on both sides that were not exactly honest. That written? There are a lot of connections to Stone…

What should you do when it comes to Issue 3? If you share the constitutional concerns, or are against gambling period, it’s an easy decision for you, if you are basing your decision on other factors? Millions are being spent, so as the tv and the radio and the rest of the media coverage continues, don’t forget the motivations on both sides. Penn National Gaming and Rock Ventures want this to pass because they will profit from it. MTR Gaming Group does not want this to pass because they will not profit from it and some of those in the Horse Racing industry fear Issue 3 will harm them financially. Your decision will have to based on do you think this is the best deal for Toledo (or other parts of Ohio) or do you think we can do better.

Updated 2:51 p.m. I received another release from the “Families Against Issue 3″ group, this time with a different email address, sent out by Tim Suereth. When I emailed him and asked him the relationship with TruthPAC considering the use of ecampaignconnect.com, he stated there was communication with them and other anti-3 groups, that they had used ecampaignconnect upon the recommendation of TruthPAC. Sureth has also been linked to Roger Stone, according to the Village Voice but the actual group, “Families Against Issue 3″ appears to be a real group and not a fake as the two other groups are.