NCJ - The final Salzman tally?

The final Salzman tally?
Fake letter campaign was more extensive than previously known
by HANK SIMS AND HELEN SANDERSON

Political consultant Richard Salzman may have used as many as 11 names of real and imaginary Humboldt County citizens in a years-long letter-writing campaign to local newspapers, according to police reports detailing the Trinidad Police Department's investigation of the case.

Among the other details given in the reports: that Salzman began sending letters-to-the-editor to area newspapers under false names as early as February 2002, that he appears to have disposed of one of his computers shortly after the details of his letter-writing activities hit the press, and that two Trinidad residents gave Salzman permission to open an e-mail account and send letters under their names.

The reports on the investigation were obtained by the Journal through a request under the California Public Records Act.

The TPD's investigation of the affair began in September, shortly after the Journal revealed that Salzman -- formerly the head of District Attorney Paul Gallegos' campaign committee and a visible political presence in any number of progressive causes -- had written a series of letters to this and other newspapers under fake names ("Web of lies," Sept. 1, 2005). On the heels of that story, the Eureka Reporter filed a complaint with TPD Chief Ken Thrailkill, who investigated the matter as a potential case of felony identity theft.

In the weeks that followed, Thrailkill obtained a search warrant and seized computers and other items -- including a file folder containing clipped-out letters published by area newspapers -- from Salzman's home. He also subpoenaed records from a number of Internet-related companies, including Yahoo!, Cox and InReach Internet.

The case was dropped in late December, after a prosecutor with the state Attorney General's office wrote Thrailkill that he did not believe Salzman could be convicted on the charges.

Citing advice from his attorney, Salzman declined to comment when reached at his home Friday.

In addition to the three names used by Salzman already reported in this newspaper -- R. Trent Williams, R. Johnson and Dick Wyatt -- the police reports cite eight other names that investigators believed he also used. They include two apparently fictitious people, Sara Salzman and George Foster; one deceased person, Eureka resident Patrice Sanderson; and five other individuals in the community: Jill Szczygiel, Jereme Stinespring, Claire Courtney, Marie Maloney and Naomi Steinberg. Some of these suspected names came from clip files taken during the search of Salzman's home, while others appeared after a computer forensic task force examined the contents of seized computers.

The reports indicate that Thrailkill contacted Szczygiel, a Trinidad resident, shortly after he found letters written under her name and that of her housemate, Stinespring, in Salzman's file cabinet. Szczygiel told Thrailkill that she gave Salzman permission to open an e-mail account under her name and Stinespring's, and to send letters to the editor under those names, according to the reports. Szczygiel said that Salzman had always e-mailed her the contents of a proposed letter for her approval before mailing it off to a newspaper.

The names of Claire Courtney, Marie Maloney and Naomi Steinberg were found on an old computer that apparently hadn't been used since September 2004. According to the forensic team's report, the computer's hard drive contained a letter to the Times-Standard dated May 12, 2003, and signed with Courtney's name. Other letters, written to "unknown newspapers," were signed with Maloney's and Steinberg's names. The report did not contain any other information that would shed light on whether Salzman had written and sent the letters to the newspapers himself.

Reached Monday, Courtney declined to comment on whether or not she had allowed Salzman to use her name.

"Any invasion of my privacy is a Constitutional invasion, and I don't have anything to say to anyone interested in this kind of journalism," she said.

Steinberg did not return a phone call seeking comment. A person answering the phone at Marie Maloney's phone number said that she had moved out of town.

The computer forensics report also notes that there appears to be a gap in the two computers that had been seized from Salzman's home, with the older one not used since September 2004 and the newer one used only after September 11, 2005. Recovered correspondence on the newer machine shows that on Sept. 11, 2005 -- shortly after the first story on the matter had appeared in the Journal, and immediately after it became public that Thraillkill was investigating the case -- Salzman wrote a supporter asking him to help find a new computer to buy or rent as soon as possible.

No computer or computers used by Salzman between September 2004 and September 2005 were found during the search.

As for the letters written under the names listed above, they run the gamut of topics Salzman had previously been identified with: support for Eureka Councilmember Chris Kerrigan and derision of his then-opponent, Rex Bohn; support for the Arcata City Council's various anti-war resolutions and scorn for Eureka businessman Rob Arkley, owner of the Eureka Reporter. In a letter in the Times-Standard dated Aug. 2, 2005, writer "George Foster" called into the tactics of the semi-anonymous group HELP, which is associated with Arkley and is critical of county land-use planning.
"Unless they are willing to be identified, they should not be given the respect of a legitimate organization and certainly not that of a community group," wrote "Foster."

The statement closely echoes a guest opinion piece Salzman later published in the Times-Standard on Dec. 17, 2004, under his own name. The piece, entitled "Taxpayers League should disclose finances," took that group to task for not disclosing who had funded their successful campaign against Measure L, a one-cent sales tax hike on the previous November's ballot.

"Whoever funded the campaign to defeat the funding for these services should come forward to take responsibility," Salzman wrote. "We believe that all citizens who seek to legitimately affect our political discourse should identify themselves openly."

The TPD investigation included two trips to the San Francisco Bay Area to deliver the impounded Salzman computers to the task force. In addition, the department ended up paying $220 each for three requests for computer records maintained by Yahoo!, the company that Salzman used to register e-mail accounts under the names of R. Trent Williams, Dick Wyatt, Jill Szczygiel and perhaps others.

Thrailkill said last week that his early estimate of time spent on the investigation -- 20 hours, as reported by the Times-Standard -- was simply an off-the-cuff, spot-of-the-moment guess, and conceded that the actual figure could be higher. However, he said, the case was approached simply as a matter of law enforcement, not politics.
"This case was handled just like any other investigation that is handled during the course of our daily casework," he said. "Yes, some trips had to be made to the Bay Area to deliver the forensic information and to do some interviews, but that's part of what we do."

In recent weeks, Salzman has reemerged from the months of silence that followed the publication of the Journal's original story. Earlier this month, he penned a guest editorial decrying the proposed Home Depot development in Eureka. He is serving as a publicist for the Westhaven Center for the Arts.

Related:
the North Coast Journal - Web of Lies - Richard Salzman and other email phonies
From the Publisher: An apology
Rhonda Meehan's letter
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/090105/cover0901.html#Rhonda
Letters from "R. Trent Williams" printed by the Journal
Glossary of terms
Another Salzman alias?
Salzman exposed: Local newspapers reveal real names of letter writers
Supervisor Geist wants apology from Salzman
Police begin investigation into fake letters allegedly sent by Salzman
Editor files criminal complaint
Search warrant served in Salzman case
Salzman investigation forwarded on to state Office of the Attorney General
Trinidad police investigate Salzman
The final Salzman tally?