Debunking Larisa Alexandrovna

Larisa Alexandrovna, a blog journalist, wrote a column shortly after the plane crash in which Larisa claimed that Michael Connell was a source of hers who confided in her that he was about to tell all about Rove crimes and also confided in her that he was being threatened. Larisa is a key source of the conspiracy theory. After I initially doubted her at DemocraticUnderground.com, Larisa has not answered my questions about her claims.

Larisa posts on RawStory.com. She also has her own blog called atlargely.com. Here is Larisa's original column about Connell:

http://www.atlargely.com/2008/12/one-of-my-sources-died-in-a-plane-crash-last-night.html

A problem with Larisa's story

Larisa writes: "I have been to Mr. Connell's home. Mr. Connell has confided that he was being threatened, something that his attorneys also told the judge in the Ohio election fraud case."

Larisa is the only person on the net I have found so far who claims Connell's lawyers asked the court for protection. I questioned Larisa about that at DemocraticUnderground.com here at posts #s 190, 199, 203, & 206.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3653385#3654112

Larisa said we don't know about Connell's lawyers asking for protection because the matter is under court seal. She hinted that she knew about the request because an insider leaked to her.

Recently, Cliff Arnebeck, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit, and who first conveyed the story about the threats to the court, was interviewed on the Peter B. Collins Show. A recording of the interview is a available at http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6769#more-6769. At 10:00 minutes into the interview Arnebeck says, "I felt that had Connell come into the court, that the court would have called the US Attorney, the head of the FBI in Columbus, he would have brought someone from the attorney generals office in, and in the face of the kind of intimidation that was being reported the court would have done everything that could be done to protect him. But in terms of the court taking that kind of action without the person allegedly subject to the intimidation stepping forward, I think that's probably asking too much."

The interviewer then asks, "Did Connell himself acknowledge these threats in any of the hearings? In other words, the hearing the Friday before the general election where the judge compelled him to give his deposition on Monday did the topic of the threats come up at all and did Connell or his attorneys acknowledge them in any way?"

Arnebeck responds by saying Connell and his attorneys did not deny the allegations of threats, but Arnebeck added , "... they certainly didn't say we acknowledge there's been intimidation and would seek to and let's go into chambers and let's hash this out and see what we could do with the court's assistance to protect our client. Nothing like that occured."

The events Arnebeck described in the above paragraph took place in open court on Friday, October 31, 2008 and there is a transcript available. The hearing was over a motion to quash a deposition scheduled for Mr. Connell on Monday. If any questions arose during the deposition on Monday about Mr. Connell being threatened that testimony is sealed. Larisa is right about that part. But Arnebeck says that Connell's lawyers didn't allege threats on the Friday before the testimony and Arnebeck also says that if Connell had come forward there would have been protection, thereby implying that Connell didn't come forward so there was no protection.

Perhaps Larisa just got this detail wrong in her original story. She also wrote that at the time of the crash Connell's plane was headed toward Washington and that the plane was reported to have been running out of gas. The plane was coming from College Park, Maryland. She retracted the Washington claim and also retracted the "out of gas" claim. But since then the two claims have been attributed to a secret source she had at the Akron-Canton airport who had been helping her spy on Connell's movements. Its also been reported that Larisa got the inaccurate information from the help desk at the airport. Lately, she says she got the inaccurate information from FAA investigators. Its possible Larisa just gets details wrong and doesn't want to admit it.

But then why the stories about leaked information and about secret sources at airports? I think she should answer questions before anybody in the Internet believes her when she offers a spectacular tale about Karl Rove and murder plots.