BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
23 june 2011
Even a councilman turns to 'nannygate'
Source: www.chron.com - Chron.com - USA
USA - FLORIDA - "The nanny did it!" seems to be a popular defense these days
Last year, when a San Antonio man was found bound with a necktie and his throat slashed, he blamed the nanny for an apparent game of bondage that went too far.
In the ongoing Florida trial of Casey Anthony, a mother charged with suffocating her 2-year-old daughter with duct tape in 2008, Anthony's brother has testified that his sister told him the nanny ran off with the toddler when she disapproved of Anthony's parenting.
In that case, "Zanny" the nanny fought back. After she began receiving threats, she sued for defamation of character.
Now comes Houston City Councilman Al Hoang, who wasn't above invoking the nanny defense last week when he was accused of falsifying signatures to change a street name in a bid to get votes. When a reporter asked who the nanny was, Hoang said she didn't work for him anymore, and he couldn't remember her name.
After the uproar - well, mostly, uproarious laughter and head-shaking disbelief - that followed the comment, Hoang tried to backpedal, telling the Chronicle he didn't know if any signatures were in fact forged and he never "placed blame on my former personal assistant." He explained that he simply saying the nanny was the last person to handle the petition before it was turned into the city, "not that she maliciously forged that petition."
But the councilman seemed perfectly willing to leave the nanny's involvement open to suggestion a day earlier in his classic exchange with Channel 11 reporter Jeremy Rogalski's I-Team. Hoang said someone else involved in gathering signatures gave the petition to his nanny, not him.
"Your nanny?" the reporter asked.
"My nanny," Hoang replied.
"Your nanny did it?" the reporter asked.
"I don't know for sure," the councilman responded.
Anyone who has been following the short and unhappy political career of first-term Councilman Hoang is probably becoming less surprised, and less amused, by the shenanigans that have occupied his time in office.
A list of weird things Problems began with early questions about whether he lived in District F, which he was running to represent. After his 2009 election, there were criticisms that comments posted to his City Hall Web site were anti-gay. In May of last year, he threatened not to run for re-election after he felt dishonored when he wasn't allowed to speak at a public event. He got the mic only after claiming to speak for the mayor, which he was not authorized to do.
Last summer, he sued to evict a nonprofit that served the elderly because its name was too similar to the main organization housed in the building. Infighting within the Vietnamese Community and public squabbles with opponents never seem to cease.
Nannygate presents the most serious allegations yet. Mayor Annise Parker announced Friday that she determined "enough of a problem with the situation and enough potential that some of those signatures were forged" that she initiated an OIG investigation.
Hoang and several other members of his neighborhood Home Owners Association are being sued for allegedly forging signatures on a petition to change the name of Turtlewood Drive, on which he lives, to Little Saigon Drive.
Hoang submitted the petition to the city's Planning and Development Department but suggests he was just doing a favor for constituents. Hoang also submitted a letter to the department's director, Marlene Gafrick, requesting the change.
A curious defense But David Tang, an attorney representing the homeowners who feel their votes and their identities were stolen via their signatures, says the petition wasn't all that was fudged.
Hoang claimed in the March 28 letter to the planning director he was submitting it at the request of the HOA's board of directors. But one of the board members, Hoat Nguyen, an alleged co-conspirator in the signature scandal, swore in a deposition earlier this month that "I did not authorize him to write this letter for me."
It's also curious why Hoang didn't bring up the nanny defense sooner, say, in a lengthy personal email he sent in April responding to a resident questioning the authenticity of the signatures. Hoang doesn't mention the nanny at all and instead refers the complainant to Hoat Nguyen and other HOA leaders later named in the lawsuit.
Showed the letter in a deposition, Hoat Nguyen claimed it too was false, that Hoang had lied about Nguyen's role in obtaining the signatures, and that, as a result, he no longer trusted the councilman.
Nanny or no nanny, I'll bet the people of District F are in the same spot now.
