Investigator Joseph Culligan tells me "It was never really about Florida. Ann Coulter must have been laughing about that the whole time." Culligan is talking about the story he helped break in Rush & Molloy's column today in the New York Daily News, Ann Coulter Addresses Voting Issue.
Remember the Ann Coulter "Voter Fraud Felony" story from 2006? Breathless headlines accused Coulter of giving an incorrect address and voted in the wrong precinct. Because so much attention was being paid to the Florida story, it seems that a much bigger, more obvious and easily provable voter discrepancy was overlooked; Ann Coulter appears to have voted twice in the state of Connecticut while living in the state of New York.
That would seem to be a violation of Connecticut law and unlike the Florida allegations, Culligan points out, this isn't a precinct difference - it's an entirely different state with different state and local elections.
Oddly, much of this information was available and even reported in The Daily News during the initial kerfluffle about Coulter's Florida voting address. Nobody seems to have pursued the case or filed a complaint with the state Connecticut. Culligan, an investigator with over 25 years of experience, went a step further.
First, he established that Coulter had claimed her parent's address in New Canaan, CT as her own on voting records. Then he contacted Connecticut to confirm the law. Culligan posted on his website WebOfDeception.com an email from Connecticut staff attorney Ted Bromley that states "It is not enough to claim a relative's house where you may visit. The address must be your residence and the place you live and call home.."
The Rush & Molloy article shows that Coulter's response to these serious allegations is no response at all. She doesn't deny that she lived in New York during the period in question Instead, Coulter launches into her shtick of insulting Culligan and Bromley and then portraying herself as a victim. She refers to Culligan as a 'stalker' and in a passage that makes one question Coulter's grip on reality, says about Culligan and Bromley ' Tell them both thanks for the flowers and also to please stop killing my pets.'
Coulter's 'poor me' routine is particularly ironic given her well publicized attacks on 9/11 widows, single mothers, and women voters. Her pattern of vicious verbal assaults on women may be topped by another aspect of Coulter's victim / attack dog duality - she's taken actions that could actually put abused women in Florida into jeopardy of real physical harm.
In 1999, the state of Florida began a program called 'Address Confidentiality For Victims Of Domestic Violence'. The goal of the program was straightforward; to help keep the whereabouts of victims a secret from their abusers. One aspect of the program allowed victims to redact their names from public records. Another allowed them to use a central 'drop box' address to recieve mail. A p.o. box was established for the program and any mail sent to it would sorted and sent on the program's participants.
During his investigation Culligan discovered Ann Coulter, now a Florida resident, was using this shared p.o. box address. The reasons Coulter uses the address are unknown.
Obviously many celebrities have problems with real life stalkers and Coulter sells books by making provocative statements about all sorts of people. However, the Florida law seems to indicate that the program is for the use of victims of domestic violence only; people the victim has a relationship with, not 'celebrity stalkers'. Again, the reasons Coulter is using this drop box address aren't clear.
What is clear is that Coulter herself is the one who revealed the address publicly. She listed the address herself - though not it's purpose - in a work related and publiclyy accessible database that Culligan was able to access easily. Through standard investigative techniques, Culligan then found a number of other people associated with that same address. After tracking some of those people down, he found out that they were part of the Florida Confidentiality program.
Culligan, who authored the book When in Doubt, Check Him Out: A Woman's Survival Guide told me he was disturbed that a deliberately controversial celebrity like Coulter with the means to protect her own privacy would use a system meant to protect those who don't have the means and then use that supposedly anonymous drop box address for business purposes.
Culligan says that women he spoke to who are part of that program are both outraged and worried for their own safety. He told me, "Some of them are missing limbs from the abuse they've suffered. They don't want anyone to be able to track them down and having high profile Ann Coulter using the same drop box they are for her public business potentially puts them at risk."
Culligan notes that the fact that he was able to track these supposedly anonymous women down through his investigation of Coulter means the anonymity of the entire Florida program is threatened.
Will Republican Governor Charlie Crist act quickly to solve the dangerous situation that GOP hearthrob Coulter and the state of Florida seems to have put these women in? Will anyone file a complaint in Connecticut? Ann Coulter loves controversy but she may end up here with much more than she can handle.
Lee Stranahan blogs at LeeStranahan.com. Without irony. Lee did a 15-minute interview with Joseph Culligan about the Coulter Voter Fraud on BlogTalkRadio