Landon School Scandal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jeff please address the issues of multiple posters working together with each other tho achieve the same goal. They have their talking points that originate from the same source. They may be posting from different IPs/ locations, but it is still sock puppeting nevertheless.

Also, the fact that through detective work you have identified several paid sources means nothing. Several different individuals may have chosen to post anonymously through these paid re-routing services because they felt what they had to say was important, but they felt threatened.

Ok, PP, I'm totally confused here. You're saying that multiple individuals independently took it upon themselves to pay professional comment posters (I'm still amused/appalled that this job exists) to post comments on DCUM because they felt threatened? What exactly is the threat? That Jeff would say multiple anonymous posters from DC/MD/VA seem to share the same view? If they are separate individuals, they shouldn't share an IP address so I don't see why their comments would draw any attention from the admin. I'm not trying to be snarky here, I'm actually curious as to what perceived threat would result in the paid commenters acting as agents for several individuals.

And am I understanding correctly that speculation is that someone acting on behalf of the plaintiff has sunk some money into having these paid commenters sprinkle pro-plaintiff or anti-Landon comments essentially on any forums/articles related to this lawsuit? What is the goal with that? Is the idea that online comments have enough influence over public opinion that Landon would panic about the bad chatter and settle? That seems really unlikely to me, but I am neither a lawyer nor a PR person. Folks that are, does this actually seem like a plausible outcome? If that isn't the goal here, can someone explain it to me? This is all kind of fascinating in a trainwrecky way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And am I understanding correctly that speculation is that someone acting on behalf of the plaintiff has sunk some money into having these paid commenters sprinkle pro-plaintiff or anti-Landon comments essentially on any forums/articles related to this lawsuit? What is the goal with that? Is the idea that online comments have enough influence over public opinion that Landon would panic about the bad chatter and settle? That seems really unlikely to me, but I am neither a lawyer nor a PR person. Folks that are, does this actually seem like a plausible outcome?

Yes, that actually happens, quite a bit. It's not uncommon at all for businesses to pay for people to post positive PR online. Although I'm sure it's happened before, I've never heard of lawyers/litigants doing it, probably because it violates the Code of Professional Responsibility and might even be illegal tampering.

[Anonymous]

Thanks 8:58 - I had some vague notion of positive social media blitzes being common, but I don't think it ever occurred to me that negative social media blitzes would be a paid service. I checked out the facebook page Jeff linked to, and the guy posted the following:

"Please do me a favor to save one of my jobs...please post a comment on one of these blogs or on all eight?

1- http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Landon-School-Faces-2-Million-Lawsuit-156038235.html

2 - http://www.gazette.net/article/20120531/NEWS/705319780/1124/former-ceo-alleges-discrimination-in-lawsuit-against-landon-school&template=gazette

3 - http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/05/31/elite-private-school-accused-of-culture-of-discrimination/

4 - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/landon-school-employee-alleges-culture-of-discrimination-against-hispanics-in-2-million-lawsuit-155785295.html

5 - http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/30/4526208/landon-school-employee-alleges.html

6 - http://www.marketwatch.com/story/landon-school-employee-alleges-culture-of-discrimination-against-hispanics-in-2-million-lawsuit-2012-05-30

7 - http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/732122

8 - http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/207031/158/Accusations-Of-Discrimination-At-Landon-School"

This just doesn't seem very sophisticated to me. You pay someone to recruit their facebook friends to comment on posts for you.

[Anonymous]

It sure seems to be the case that someone with an interest in the Tim Harrison case is engaged in a deceptive social media campaign.   Because the person orchestrating this campaign against Landon was actually paying others to make posts, it stands to reason that those orchestrating the campaign had a financial interest in the case.  In seems that only Mr. Harrision and his law firm The Employment Law Group fit that description.   I wonder if they are aware of the 2010 case in which  Raphael Golb was convicted on 30 of 31 counts, including identity theft, criminal impersonation, and aggravated harassment, for using multiple sock puppet accounts to attack and impersonate historians he perceived as rivals of his father.  Golb, a lawyer, was disbarred and sentenced to six months in prison.

http://deadseascrollstrial.blogspot.com/

Because it looks like they are involved here, I'd hope The Employment Law Group would clarify their role or lack of a role in the "post for hire" scandal   IF they are NOT involved, I would hope that The Employment Law Group would denounce the sock puppeting effort.

[Anonymous]

So funny that we think our posts on DCUM matter at all in this fight.............those of you who are posting lengthy replies must either have nothing better to do or must have a big dog in this fight.
Jeff , where are you?

[Anonymous]

PP - I think this thread has evolved into a thread that applies directly to use (or misuse) of DCUM and similar forums.

I agree that posts on the underlying case have little or no impact. But Jeff has done a service to the DCUM community by exposing this concerted effort.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:
This actually is a more interesting story than the discrimination law suit.

Agreed!

[Anonymous]

I believe that in Mr. Harrison's brief tenure at Landon, he certainly became aware of Landon's deep concern about negative publicity about the school. The Huguely case was in the news frequently in the past year, and almost every time, media reports mentioned he attended Landon. I'm sure any parent with children at a private school can understand why Landon would be particularly sensitive about negative press at this time. I think Mr. Harrison's agents have made a concerted effort to post as many anti-Landon comments as possible, not to influence the readers of such comments in particular, but rather to improve the odds of negative remarks popping up on Google searches about the school. In that regard, they have been very successful.

Mr. Harrison has personally sought out press coverage, via his law firm's press release, but also in granting interviews to multiple outlets. He even provided a photo of himself and his wife to AOL. It is interesting to note that in that interview he mentions that five weeks AFTER he was effectively terminated, he notified the school of his observations of discriminatory behavior. It hard to see how an employer is retaliating against a "whistle blower" when the whistle wasn't blown until after he was fired. It is also interesting to me that the Hispanic employees that have provided affidavits to Mr. Harrison's lawyers speak very little English and learned about the alleged ethnic epithets from Mr. Harrison's assistant, who is bilingual and acted as translator. The Hispanic employees who are fluent in English have not supported his lawsuit.

It is my guess that Mr. Harrison's contract was not renewed for cause, and he thought a threat to go to the press with newly discovered allegations of mistreatment might result in a hasty settlement. Since the school apparently refused to do so, Mr. Harrison and his lawyers are trying everything, including paying phony posters, to keep anti-Landon sentiment in the media and on the internet. Surely if he truly cared about the treatment of Landon grounds and maintenance employees, he would not be trying to bankrupt the school with a two million dollar pay-out to the fired Chief Financial Officer.

It's trainwrecky alright; although I suspect ultimately more for Mr. Harrison than the school.

[Anonymous]

This all sounds a bit paranoid to me. A lot of people do not like Landon. Period and end of sentence...the SAT scam as well as the GH mess are just 2 reasons.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:This all sounds a bit paranoid to me. A lot of people do not like Landon. Period and end of sentence...the SAT scam as well as the GH mess are just 2 reasons.

What exactly seems paranoid? I think I've provided pretty good evidence that people are being paid to post anti-Landon comments on multiple sites. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, it's not paranoid seeing as the guy that offers the comments-for-pay is trying to get other people on facebook to post similar comments to "save" his "job." I don't presume to know who is paying Morales to post comments, but he's publicly admitting that someone is.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all sounds a bit paranoid to me. A lot of people do not like Landon. Period and end of sentence...the SAT scam as well as the GH mess are just 2 reasons.

What exactly seems paranoid? I think I've provided pretty good evidence that people are being paid to post anti-Landon comments on multiple sites. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

Where do you sign up to get the money to post? Given what we all pay for private school tuition, a few extra bucks this summer can help make the vacation a bit easier to handle!

Thanks!

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Where do you sign up to get the money to post? Given what we all pay for private school tuition, a few extra bucks this summer can help make the vacation a bit easier to handle!

Thanks!

Just go to Fiverr.com and open an account. One of our paid trolls, pinkcherrypie, will even write something on her breasts for $5:

http://fiverr.com/pinkcherrypie

So, you don't have to limit yourself to web comments.

[Anonymous]

I expect that, in the end, the real loser will be the employment law group that is representing Mr Harrison. Harrison may not work at a school again, but he'll still have his CPA license. Landon has been embarrassed, but they'll be vindicated. But a lawyer's reputation is his stock in trade and TELG is going to be embarrassed. Recall what happened to the prosecutor that tried to hang false charges on the Duke lax players? One of those kids was from a Landon family.

[Anonymous]

It’s funny how the press release tries to spin this one other “minor issue”

--- Harrison also hired a consultant to examine the executive salaries at Landon to ensure that they were in compliance with IRS "excess benefit rules" for tax-exempt organizations, like schools. The consultant was shocked when he estimated that the headmaster's total yearly compensation package was $800,000 -- 50 percent to 70 percent higher than that of headmasters at other similarly situated schools. He said that he thought Armstrong was one of the top 10 highest compensated headmasters in the country. -----


Okay, let’s see if I’ve got this right -- the guy hires a consultant to see if his boss is overpaid (presumably without notifying the boss) and then is “shocked” absolutely “shocked” to learn that the boss has turned on him when the boss finds out. I suppose we’ll find out if this was something Mr. Harrison was assigned to do or if he just did a little sleuthing on his own, but its hard to believe that the boss wouldn’t be told if the salary review was simply to ensure that they were in compliance with IRS "excess benefit rules." This might well be a failed power grab – but I doubt Harrison was acting alone. Very juicy.