Saturday, June 23, 2012

Dear God. There was more out there.


I told you so.

Here.

Now here are some details of a brand-new, court-released stash of a former Iowa school superintendent's naughty
(and quite public, as it turns out) emails can be found here. A sampling from the Des Moines Register:
The 115 emails, sent from March 13 to May 8, were released Friday afternoon to The Des Moines Register and other media that had requested them under the state’s open records law.

The discovery of the personal exchanges, 43 of which dealt with sex, came to light after open records requests seeking information about Sebring’s sudden exit from the Des Moines district. Some emails were released May 29; Sebring sought an injunction blocking the release of the additional emails.

Sending personal emails or sexually explicit materials on school equipment violates Des Moines district policies.

District Judge Robert Hanson’s ruling on Friday said that Sebring’s argument that “purely personal communications” aren’t matters of public interest “indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of what the public interest is.”

Hanson also refused a request by Sebring’s former lover, who is married and is in the military, to shield his name from being disclosed. The man had sought protection under a portion of Iowa law that Hanson said was intended to protect whistle-blowing communications from outsiders with state government.

“First, common sense dictates that communications that should not have been occurring in the first place — personal communications using the school district’s computer equipment and email system, in violation of written school district policy — would not be protected from disclosure,” the judge ruled.

(snip)

Sebring had been in line to become the leader of the Omaha school district, Nebraska’s largest district. However, she resigned from that job on June 2 after the emails surfaced.

Of the 115 emails released Friday, 26 were sexually explicit, while another 17 included references to sex acts or sexually explicit photos.

Although Sebring, who is married, has said the affair didn’t interfere with her district duties, the emails indicate the conversations spanned the clock on some workdays. One message, sent at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, was nearly 700 words. The emails also indicate that the two met at least twice during working hours.

The man, in one email exchange, cautioned Sebring to be careful about not revealing their relationship.

“You are a public figure … and I’m in the military. I will ensure you that our close friendship remains a quiet … close friendship,” he wrote on April 24. “This means that every test, email, picture… anything will be gone the minute I am done reading it.”

He also told Sebring that he would be “cautious” not to reveal their relationship, adding “…and I expect the same from you.”
OOPS. Her bad.

The debt Omaha owes the Register for exposing this stuff -- and what a reckless flake its almost-superintendent turned out to be -- is, to say the least, enormous.

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