It’s been a major loose end in a frightening story about harassment and threats directed at journalists.
Four men have been sentenced to federal prison for carrying out a campaign of terror against New Hampshire Public Radio journalist Lauren Chooljian, her parents and her editor, Dan Barrick. All four appeared to be motivated by Chooljian’s reporting on Eric Spofford, the founder of several addiction treatment centers, who, according to Chooljian’s reporting, had engaged in sexual abuse and harassment.
Yet Spofford denied any involvment and was not charged. He even turned around and sued Chooljian and NHPR for libel, a suit that was dismissed by a New Hampshire state judge.
Now, according to a story by WBUR and posted at NHPR, federal authorities are charging Spofford with orchestrating a conspiracy to vandalize the homes of Chooljian, her parents and Barrick — vandalism that included threatening and offensive graffiti. The story says in part:
Prosecutors say Spofford paid his close friend, Eric Labarge, $20,000 in two installments to vandalize the homes in 2022. Spofford allegedly provided the addresses and specific instructions on what to do. Labarge then found three others to carry out the attacks.
Spofford reportedly lives in Salem, New Hampshire, and in Miami. He was arrested Friday and will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Boston on Monday. According to a press release from the U.S. attorney’s office, Spofford, 40, was indicted by a grand jury on four counts of conspiracy and stalking. If he’s found guilty, he could face a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to $250,000 on each of the four counts.
Two years ago, David Enrich of The New York Times wrote an in-depth story (gift link) about the vandalism directed at Chooljian as well as Spofford’s libel case. I’ve written about Chooljian’s ordeal a number of times, and here’s where you can find previous coverage.
The Colorado angle II
On Wednesday I wrote that NPR and three Colorado public radio operations had sued the Trump administration for attempting to cut off funding despite lacking any authority to do so. What wasn’t clear was why those Colorado stations joined the suit while 243 other member stations sat on the sidelines.
Now Corey Hutchins, who writes the newsletter Inside the News in Colorado, has an explanation:
Colorado First Amendment Attorney Steven D. Zansberg, who is representing the Colorado stations in the lawsuit, told Aspen Public Radio that NPR and its counsel decided to approach a small set of member stations to join.
The reason only three were selected — and all of them in Colorado — “was because it’s easier, obviously, to have a smaller group than a large, unwieldy group,” Zansberg said.
The operations were also attractive plaintiffs because they cover urban, mountain and rural communities, and could be represented by just one lawyer since they are all from the same state.
On Friday, PBS and a member station in Minnesota filed a similar suit against the Trump regime, arguing that Trump’s explicit complaint about PBS’s supposed liberal bias violated a First Amendment ban on viewpoint discrimination.
Brian Stelter of CNN reports that the PBS lawsuit claims Trump’s executive order “makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech.”
Sex and drugs and Elon Musk
In case you don’t have a New York Times subscription, I thought you’d like a gift link to an astonishing story you may have heard about concerning Elon Musk’s heavy drug use and his profligate and multifarious sex life, apparently aimed at having as many children as possible. Here’s a paragraph for the ages:
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
Immediately, liberals and progressives on social media began complaining that the Times should have reported this much earlier, noting that Friday was supposedly Musk’s last day at the White House. But you don’t really think he’s going away, do you? His companies also continue to hold billion-dollar federal contracts, and his drug use could be a violation of those contracts:
As a large government contractor, Mr. Musk’s aerospace firm, SpaceX, must maintain a drug-free work force and administers random drug tests to its employees. But Mr. Musk has received advance warning of the tests, according to people close to the process. SpaceX did not respond to questions about those warnings.
Musk’s sociopathic public behavior has already managed to drive the value of two of his companies, Twitter and Tesla, through the floor. His problems may just be getting started.
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