Deja Vu, All Over Again: The Defamation of Erin Stewart (4)

The tirelessly moronic attacks on Erin Stewart simply don't end regardless of the evidence to the contrary. I expected no less. Her accusers have no respect for the rule of law or common decency.

In my very first post on the subject, I mentioned many of the consequences that no one seemed to care about.

A couple of days ago the MSM finally caught up a bit.

"House: Former prosecutor, if she says, “I’m gonna pay all this back, I’m sorry, I made a mistake,” what happens?

McGuigan: There have been 13 or 18 of these P-card cases in the state of Connecticut that have been investigated, and none of them have ever ended up in criminal charges."

Oh, btw, they are now walking back from ten years, no nine years, now five years...

"House: And so, as a prosecutor, you look at the report, which covered an eight-year period, what did you see? Did you see a pattern?

McGuigan: First off, I saw an eight-year period, and you’re gonna have to limit it to five years, because that’s what the statute of limitations is. Then you want to look at the aggregate of the total amount of money that you’re talking about, and then try to think about how the defense is going to look at the case and assume that this person, the defendant, is going to take the stand to explain away any sort of mistakes or any of the circumstantial evidence that you have. So there’s a lot of calculations that you have to make. And then also, the other calculation is the most important one, is that you’re going to be talking to a jury of people and this is trial work, and trial work gets right down to your soul. It gets right down to who you are. And so they’ll be talking to these people, and the optics matter. If it looks like a bunch of guys are beating on this mother of two, that’s not optically what you really want. And you might be looking at a not-guilty."

"Erin Stewart has suspended her campaign for governor, saying she “will take accountability for any mistakes, and I intend to make full and complete restitution to the City of New Britain — my home — for anything that I owe.”"

This hopeless exercise in proving criminal intent involves admitting that her home became her office for the Covid time period and could plausibly explain how multiple credit cards being used at Amazon could (like a spell check) inadvertently substitute a City card for a family card in making a purchase. (e.g. She's a new mom, in a national health crisis, suddenly required to use (rent free to the city) her home as a highly impromptu office.
Go prove intent to defraud.
This is worse than a witch hunt. It is a highly organized attempt to disrupt the Republican ticket - election interference on the order of federal crime. When the dust settles we'll see who the criminals are.

The very big problem the Sanchez administration has is that he's orchestrated a political hit on one of the most popular and electable candidates in recent Republican memory. He and is lackey's that include the many MSM lemmings have slandered, libeled, and defamed Stewart to the point that she may as well be cast as the next James Bond villain.

I am no fan of fraud but in this case the City Finance Department apparently never reviewed, questioned or corrected Stewart's use of her P-Card. Under the circumstances, inadvertent misuse of the card could have and maybe should have been given a regular sniff test for problems. 

Given this incident it is clear that the Sanchez administration must on a yearly basis ensure that not a penny of P-Card money is misappropriated and all inconsistencies must be raised as potentially federal offenses.

My other problem with the hysterical accusations leveled against Stewart is that the traditional "red flags" for suspecting fraud include the use of online and big box store shopping. In the days of pre-Covid and before Amazon, Walmart, and a handful of other mega-merchants began to monopolize the lion's share of consumer shopping.

Covid accelerated the tidal wave of shopping online instead of brick and mortar purchases. I've taught computer science to engineers whose skill set was being made obsolete at Electric Boat and I served on a school board for twelve years and listened to teachers claim they needed professional training to learn how to use email or other applications.

The use of credit cards online and under duress was and is for many families a challenge. Kids make purchases without authorization, cards are confused or get switched by an algorithm, and so on. There is plenty of room for reasonable doubt under the circumstances.

And given the nationwide effect of both Covid and online shopping I think a study of P-Card use both statewide and nationally will expose that they contributed to an uptick in what might looks to be fraud at face value but is nothing more than digital culture shock.

The P-Card policies need updating and regular supervisory attention.