Los Angeles Public Relations » ed donovan

Michaele Salahi crashes

Latest News — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:27:58 +0000

Have you ever wanted to know how to crash a State dinner at The White House?

Well just ask Tareq and Michaele Salahi, two of “The Real Housewives of DC” reality show cast.

The party crashing, even making the Secret Service look into their own security procedures, after the two entered the State Dinner on Tuesday night at the White House. The pair even posing with Vice President Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for pictures that were later posted on Facebook. It also appears that they were surrounded by Washington’s elite without even being invited.

The couple never were at risk to President Barack Obama as they were put through the same security screening for weapons as the other 300 + guests, who were there to honour Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A representative for the Secret Service Ed Donovan, said that the service has learnt about the breach on Wednesday from a media outlet inquiry about the Salahi’s attending and subsequent boasts about being there. Donovan also confirmed the identities of the Salahi’s.

On the Facebook page it shows the Salahi’s either alone or posing at the event with Vice President Joe Biden, White House Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel along with Adrian Fenty the Washington Mayor, Katie Couric, Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif and also marines dressed in their blues.

No other details such as how long they were in attendance, or if they had been contacted by the Secret Service were released by Donovan.

Donovan said that the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility would be reviewing what occurred. It seemed that the two had failed to be checked, to see if they were on the guest list at one of the checkpoints.

Donovan continued to point out “It’s important to note that they went through all the security screenings – the magnetometer screening – just like all the other guests did,” he said. He also noted that security details were on with others under Secret Service protection including Obama.

Esther Reed

Latest News — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:30:06 +0000

Esther Reed a former Extension student was sentenced to four years in prison by a Federal court, earlier this year. She used mental illness as an excuse to steal up to six identities.

She attended Harvard between 2002 and 2005 sporadically according to the New York Post. She used the identities to forge her way into Extension School at Columbia and California State University, Fullerton. Reed was at the time labeled as a scheming manipulative criminal by the federal judge according to the Associated Press.

Her crime was unravelled when she applied for a job in Manhattan in 2006, using one of her persona’s Brook Henson, a woman who had been missing since 1999 in South Carolina. In 2007 she was indicted in Greenville S.C. for charges of fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft, the Crimson was told in an interview with Ed Donovan a secret Service spokesman.

Reed was put on the Secret Service’s Most Wanted List in 2007, Donovan said as they investigate major cases of fraud, while also defending key government figures.

Natalie M. Bowman ’99 who later graduated from Columbia Medical School was also a target of Reed who attempted to adopt her identity.

Her defence of mental illness which was said to be caused by the 1998 death of her mother, was backed by her attorney’s Ann Fitz.

Fitz said : “She felt like there was no other choice but to try and hide herself and live her life through somebody else’s identity,” Fitz was also disappointed at the final verdict claiming it dismissed mental illness as a “creative argument.”

But her scams were seen as an effort to support herself after she left home in 1999, said Walt Wilkins a prosecutor and U.S. attorney for the district of South Carolina. Wilkins said that Reed also put herself in social situations despite her defence of “social anxiety disorders.”

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the nation and now also internationally thanks to the Internet.