Grant Crowell and “Chrissypiss”

Those of you who read the articles on the Daily Herald website may have noticed an alias “Chrissypiss”. The person behind those posts, in case its not obvious, is not affiliated with this blog.

The tactics employed (along with the misspellings of elected officials names) appear to be the work of Grant Crowell.

Mr. Crowell has used tactics that are considered unethical (and some uses of them are actually illegal) in order to obtain information about who is behind this website, so that he can fulfill some hero-fantasy that he has.

Posting as under a pseudonym similar to mine is not the first fraudulent action that Mr Crowell has engaged in. Previously, he created multiple email addresses that were “one-off” from myself and of Village President Bill Sarto.

In communications where he pretended to be Village President Sarto — using email address “ws1114” instead of “wrs1114” — Mr Crowell contacted the husband of a member of the Audit & Finance Commission. In that fraudulent email communication, Mr. Crowell’s IP address was found as the “X-Originating-IP” in the headers of a third email address he used to provide a “gotcha” message to Sarto. Mr. Crowell, posting under his own name, has also republished to other venues the information that he alleges he discovered about the identity of the person behind this blog. All of which is false.

As an added twist to this … the email sent saying “It was just a matter of time before we unmasked your anonymous blogger…”, “He’s committed libel and you’ve supported him” and “You can bet we’ll have an attorney to sue you both”, was signed “Sonia Fueller, Fox Valley Citizens for Legal Immigration”.

Despite being told to cease and desist from any further naming of the innocent resident to whom Mr. Crowell falsely represented himself, he has continued … as he has alluded to even in comments as recently as today.

A few months later, an email exchange employing a similar tactic was sent to resident Paul Calusinski, asking Calusinski to read a statement at the Village Board meeting that was supposed to have come from me. That exchange used an email address of “cvilecan” instead of cvillecan”. Fortunately, that attempt was thwarted before the statement was read to the Board.

Mr. Crowell’s own failed attempts to get the People of Carpentersville and the Village Board to fall down and worship him, his failed attempts to get community involvement and action against the corruption in Village government, and his latest failed attempt to discover the author of this blog all serve as motive.

Action Report: May 21, 2008

Good morning, Carpentersville!

I want to start off today by addressing comments out there that seek to impugn what’s written on this blog as “love letters to Sarto”. Is that the best they can do to try to smear this site? Readers know that this site is filled with a large volume of information — much of it corroborated, whether by the media, Board meeting minutes, or other sources. None of it refuted.

Heck, most of it ended up being admitted to by the parties to the transgressions.

Why hasn’t it been refuted? Because they can’t. Every thing that has been reported on this site is true and backed up by facts.

Readers know this. They see it. It’s the reason why there are not refuting comments (only the occasion sling of mud from some of the usual suspects that you’ve come to know.) If the information on this website were not true, they would be showing the evidence against it; even more people would be commenting here showing these things to be wrong. (And its not for lack of traffic … the last 30 days have had approximately 7,000 views by nearly 4,000 unique visitors. By next week, traffic since mid-July 2007 will have topped 60,000. )

That they have not refuted the information is good reason to believe that they can not.

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”
— Thomas Jefferson

That is truly what Carpentersville is facing. Meetings of this “elite”, albeit self-proclaimed, had been occurring in Village meeting rooms … and they continue to occur, at private residences … and even the “gang of five” (as they have now so been dubbed) meeting at restaurants together.

The “elite” conspire to smear those who would call them out for their actions … like they have tried with this site, and with Sarto, and with others — the latest being Nate Spain, who has done much good and is reportedly well-regarded by those on the Fire Pension Board.

After Spain objected to the continued presence of Paul Humpfer on the Board (and the Audit & Finance Commission), since Humpfer had been convicted of domestic battery, the “small elite” began a smear campaign against Spain, even spreading lies and misinformation about him. As they do to any residents who wish to speak out — as they did initially to Sherry Dobson and Mike Sievertson, until they backed down.

This is a regime of intimidation and threats, as folks should see is becoming clearer and clearer. That is the reasoning behind the citation issued to Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, as well.

Unable to find anything else that will “stick” to Sarto, they have now turned to calling out his “rants” and “lectures”. It would be easy for Sarto to simply shut up and take that angle away from them. But, I believe that would be doing precisely what they want him to do: be quiet, so their illegal and unethical behavior can fade back into the shadows.

I’ve been thinking on some of the comments that have appeared on some news sites from those opposing Sarto’s “rants” and “lectures”, specifically on the crimes of Paul Humpfer. There are some that just seem a bit foolish. Specifically, it is those that say things like “I don’t condone what Paul Humpfer did but…” and then go on to throw mud at Sarto for being persistent in his condemnation of Humpfer’s crimes.

I have no doubt that Sarto has heard from many who have told him they support what he’s doing and can’t understand why Humpfer — now a convicted criminal — is still on the Board. I don’t doubt it because I have heard the very same, without exception. Unfortunately, because of the intimidation and fear (mixed with some personal insecurity about not being a “good public speaker” or writer) these people don’t want to come to Board meetings to speak out about their outrage. They ask others to do it for them. And still nothing gets done about the problems.

One comment said: I am outraged with the actions of Trustee Humpher. I stated earlier, his actions are indefensible. But you [Sarto] just do not get the fact that your [Sarto’s] actions are equally damaging to Carpentersville. Stop. Get back to business.

In other words, Paul Humpfer’s criminal acts are “indefensible” and worthy of “outrage”, but nothing should be done about them. The Board should just go about business as usual, as though nothing happened.

I completely disagree with the commenter’s assessment. If anything, Sarto’s “rants” and “lectures” should provide some hope that Carpentersville is not really the bastion of criminal activity and government corruption that the presence of Humpfer (and Sigwalt and the “elite”) have said it is (especially when they pass an ordinance that says that domestic battery is acceptable behavior.)

In fact, I would venture to say that the “gang of five” have hurled Carpentersville into achieving that very reputation.