[WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 53, Issue 97

[Tom Thatcher]

on 12/15/07 11:48 AM, wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org at
wikien-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

> Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:09:32 +0000
> From: Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Former Wikimedia employee was a felon.
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <BAY103-W1447A14AD4C19BFE091A49E8600 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> 
> Because I thought it would be redundant! That it would be a waste of an email!
> Look, I knew nothing about this Register article. Bored one afternoon, I just
> followed the same trail of deduction and investigation that one has to assume
> the Register followed - all the stuff is there online - and I thought "Oh, no
> wonder they (WMF) kept that quiet!" I realise now that, sadly, I was wrong.
> 
> Jimbo, don't look at me. Look at your staff/Board. Someone there must have
> known - the COO can't just vanish to jail and no one on the staff/Board knows
> anything - \


Forgive me if I have got the timeline wrong, but my reading of the relevant
articles is that she was arrested in May for DUI and driving on a suspended
license but was released the same day on bond.  In July the Foundation
terminated her employment, and in August she was arrested and extradited on
a parole violation (leaving the country in June for a Foundation meeting).
(She was detained by Customs and Immigration in June but does not seem to
have been arrested at that time, otherwise officer Smagowicz would have been
described as the arresting officer, not merely the officer who interviewed
her.)

It certainly was sloppy of the Foundation to hire someone for the position
of "COO" without the simplest of background checks, but the allegation that
she vanished off to jail and no one noticed seems to be a misreading of the
timeline. 

Thatcher