Beth and Scott Conner, from her Facebook page
CARMI – Inappropriate conduct with an of-age female has been the catalyst for a Carmi coach to resign from his job with the school softball teams, but did not get him terminated from his teaching job.
Authorities say that Scott Conner, 46, of Carmi, was the subject of an investigation earlier in the summer that brought a lot of reproach upon him, but did not result in any criminal allegations.
That didn’t settle well with a large contingent in White County, whose insistence that more was going on with Conner and the girl in question, Madi Wenzel, 18, bordered on fanatical in the lead-up to the July 24 special session of the Carmi-White County Board of Education wherein Conner’s resignation was the only thing on the agenda…minus his name.
The fanatical harangued Disclosure staff so frequently over the two-week or so lead-up that they actually became part of the story, which, in effect, is about how petty and backbiting some can be when they perceive a rival of any sort has made a mistake – and this “sort,” it appears, is about as bizarre as it comes.
‘Ah hurd eeyut!’
Disclosure was first advised of the situation by a man claiming to be Randy Drone, who obtained a private phone number for Disclosure through unknown means and proceeded to call beginning about the third week of June.
He advised that Conner, a social studies instructor at the high school as well as a softback coach for both middle school and high school, had been “having an affair” with an underage girl on one of his teams.
His information was duly noted and Disclosure staff began making discreet inquiries about the matter.
Madi Wenzel, from her Facebook page (note: She is 18, this photo was public, she was part of an investigation, and with those three facts in mind, it is completely allowable for Disclosure to name her and show her face).
As it turned out, several people had “heard” such a thing, but with varying levels of concern as to the validity of the information.
Drone, however, kept calling and texting Disclosure, continually asking “Have you heard anything yet? Carmi is hot with rumors” and other such phrases, many of them as goading as the latter appears to be.
Finally, at the beginning of July, Disclosure was able to confirm through Carmi officials from Illinois State Police that the “rumors” were just that – rumors – and that there was no wrongdoing on the part of Conner…at least, nothing illegal.
White County authorities advised that Illinois State Police had been called to investigate the matter. Upon interviewing both Conner and the girl, both of them had advised that the two had, at one point in mid-June, kissed; and the girl had sent Conner some texts and/or photos that apparently his wife, Beth Blackford Conner, had found, which kind of set in motion the whole thing.
ISP had been very thorough in the investigation, obtaining both phones in question, and examining them as well as questioning pretty much everyone around the two.
The takeaway was that while what had happened between the two was upsetting for Mrs. Conner and was of course immoral, it was not illegal…there wasn’t even the impropriety of a teacher-student relationship (which might’ve been cause for charges even if the girl was 18 if there had been sexual contact between the two, under Illinois law that precludes sexual contact between two people if the perpetrator is in a position of trust, supervision or authority over the victim), since there was no contact of a sexual nature; and additionally, she was no longer part of the school softball team that he had been coaching, taking the “trust, supervision or authority” out of the equation.
Ridiculous claims
Disclosure related this to Drone, explaining that because this was the official word from investigators, there was effectively “no story” and the rumormongers would just have to find something else to rumor about.
Drone was unhappy with this.
On July 6, he perpetrated his own rumor, since the initial one had for all intents and purposes died an ignominious death.
“Disclosure,” he texted, “there is a rumor going around Carmi that Scott Conner’s dad paid off Disclosure in a large sum of cash to keep quiet and not report on him.”
Because of the ridiculous nature of the text, Disclosure staff didn’t take it seriously and blew it off with the response “Buahahahaa…we should be so fortunate as to have that kind of pull. Give me the dad’s name and number and I’ll call him for comment.”
There was no response to that text, naturally.
However, a couple of hours later, Drone texted back: “Usually Disclosure is on top of a story and not one word about Conner.”
“That’s because if we publish something that authorities are saying has no basis in fact, we can be sued,” Disclosure returned. “As can anyone else who is perpetuating it,” the staffer added, hoping Drone would get the hint.
Zing…right over his head
Apparently he did not.
On Saturday, July 15, Drone texted again, asking if Disclosure would be attending the Carmi school board meeting the upcoming Monday.
“Rumor has it Conner is going to bring down other staff with him,” Drone continued with the ‘rumors.’
By this time, a number of others had been messaging or emailing Disclosure with similar “information,” with none of them responding when they were advised that ISP had already conducted the investigation and that the findings were conclusive that there was no wrongdoing.
Disclosure advised Drone that there was no point in attending the meeting.
“Nothing like that will happen,” Drone was told regarding ‘bringing down other staff with him.’ “And if anything even remotely close happens, it’ll happen in closed session and nothing will be announced to the public. Now, if you guys who are insistent that this is real would provide a victim to talk to us, and we would NOT out her, then we might do something on this. Otherwise, it’s a non-issue.”
“Send someone to ask about status of Conner,” Drone continued to tell Disclosure how to do their job.
“I’ve already asked Denton” (Aud, the state’s attorney and also counsel for the county’s public bodies – ed.) “He doesn’t know anything about the status, and as far as he understands, Conner’s still employed,” Disclosure advised.
No listening to reason…and fact
Despite being told – again – that ISP had looked into the matter and had found no wrongdoing, Drone wouldn’t have it.
“Denton doesn’t want to do his job,” he texted. “This will be another Penn state scandle (sic). Wait and see.”
“Right,” Disclosure dismissed him. “Like I said…send us a victim, and we’ll listen.”
“Denton let a Cameron gunter walk after he was drunk and killed his passenger,” Drone continued to goad. “Gunter got a dui a year earlier. The family of the dead kid didn’t want to press charges. Doesn’t do his job.”
Rather than waste time pointing out the obvious – that if the family didn’t want to follow through on charges, the county was best served abiding by that – Disclosure again attempted to be dismissive with “I’m aware of Gunter, we covered that closely. He had Alan Downen as his attorney. You can’t beat Alan.”
“Here is what I was told by a school board member just today,” Drone countered, attempting the ‘inside information’ route. “After Monday Conner won’t be coach.”
Disclosure called him on it.
“Yeah but you were told two weeks ago that he’d resigned, and I have officials telling me he has not,” Drone was told. “This is a lot of hot air based on the Jason Francis thing, I’m thinking.” (An anonymous letter – which doesn’t appear due to it not being signed and therefore, unable to be verified – alluded to former Carmi instructor Jason Francis, who in 2007 was charged with Criminal Sexual Assault of a Victim between the ages of 13 and 17 and Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse of a Victim between the ages of 13 and 16, after it had been confirmed he’d had an affair with a 15-year-old student. Francis was terminated from his job. But unlike Conner, there was actually sexual contact between the two parties, and Francis, who resides in rural Carmi, is now on the sex offender registry. The letter alluded that Conner was somehow behind the discovery of the Francis case, which allegation has no basis in fact.)
More direction on how to run a news outlet
Drone persisted.
“U need to cover the board meeting Monday,” he pressed. “If he did nothing wrong why won’t he be coach anymore? U have a story.”
“Maybe because Ms. Wenzel sent him inappropriate texts and the missus is forcing him to resign?” Disclosure ventured. “Or maybe he’s not going to resign at all.”
“Will u cover meeting?” Drone went on to ask.
“I doubt it,” Disclosure told him. “Have you seen an agenda?” Drone was asked, despite Disclosure being fully aware that if there were a personnel matter, the individual to which it pertained would not be named on the agenda…but most people don’t know that, and just assume.
Apparently Drone was one of those.
“Yes,” he replied. “Conner is news. Sounds like u were paid by conner. U put BS in ur paper but won’t cover this. Bought and paid for.”
“Nice,” Disclosure responded. “You do know that every word of this is going into print as soon as possible, right? Because you don’t call us liars. As well, I might just forward all of it to Conner. It’s a federal tort to accuse someone of sexual misconduct when you can’t prove it. Were you aware of that?”
Oblivious, Drone replied “Y U getting mad? Truth hurts? Make sure u print ur fake news.”
Then a few minutes later, after getting no response, he texted “How do you have conner number?”
Disclosure was busy schooling Drone on how the courts work, however.
“I might make sure we sue YOU for making a false statement like ‘fake news.’ See, you have to prove it’s fake. There is no burden of proof on us…only on you. Maybe we can get some of that farm subsidy action. Now…go away. You’ve taken your shot and it missed its mark. You’re done here. If he’s charged, we’ll cover it. If YOU’RE charged with defamation, we’ll cover that. If nothing at all happens, I have this text convo to show the type of sh!t we have to put up with by people with an axe to grind.”
But Drone was on a single track and couldn’t be budged.
“One last question and I will go,” he texted. “Didn’t you ask me two weeks ago what Conners numbes (sic) was? Now u said u will forward a text to him. How did u go from asking me for his number to having it and going to forward a text.”
“Facebook,” Disclosure replied. “Screencaps.”
(Disclosure had already reached out to both Scott and Beth Conner on Facebook for comment at that point, but as of press time, neither had responded.)
It obviously flew right over Drone’s head.
“Calling u fake news is my freedom of speech,” texted the oblivious Drone. “Go ahead and sue me, u can have all of my debt,” he added, evidently not having been advised that debt is taken into consideration when a person is put on a payment plan for the rest of their lives upon losing such a suit.
“I mean, I appreciate your lack of extrapolation abilities…it lets me know what I’m dealing with (as if I didn’t already),” Disclosure responded. “But you’ve already sh!t in your nest with this, so if you don’t stop, the next sound you hear will be Doug Maier calling you.”
It took Drone two minutes to ask “What’s Doug going to do?” while in the meantime, Disclosure was answering the initial idiocy, so the next text combined the responses:
“And no…that’s not freedom of speech. It’s a lie, and there are federal torts against that. And don’t worry what Doug will do, after I tell him how many times I told you to stfu. Got it? Back off, and lose this number.”
Drone may have delivered something quippy at that point, but his number was blocked and that was the end of his gripe session, as Disclosure had advised him it would be.
‘Swayt toof’
He didn’t, however, lose the number.
Instead, he passed it along to a man who identified himself as “Bill Jeffries” calling that Monday of the school board meeting, July 24.
Stating that Conner had a “swayt toof” (translation: sweet tooth), Jeffries, too, began to spout in largely-unintelligible gibberish the “fact” that Conner was lying and had been involved in a sexual relationship with the girl. When he was set straight about the matter – and asked not to refer to sex with an underage person as “having a swayt toof” – Jeffries didn’t get it at all and continued to run at the mouth.
Jeffries was insistent that Disclosure attend the school board meeting that night, and swore up and down that Conner’s name was on the agenda, he’d “sayn it!!” (translation: seen it.)
However, by that time, Disclosure had, too, and Conner’s name appeared nowhere on the agenda for the special meeting that was called for purposes of the resignation of a coach or coaches at the school, as generally, whomever is the subject of a “personnel” matter is never named on an agenda.
“It’s not there,” Disclosure told him, only to be met with insistence that because “Channel 14” out of Evansville was going to be at the board meeting, that meant that Conner was going to be fired and it was going to be a hayseed version of chaos at the meeting.
As it turned out, whether the TV station did show up or not, it appears nothing was produced about the matter, and the school board released only a little paragraph about the fact that Conner resigned his coaching position, and nothing more. No reason was given, and there was no need to mention the fact that he still held on to his teaching position, because it was never at issue.
Jeffries tried one more call on July 26 to harass Disclosure about the Conner matter.
This time, staffers handed off the phone to publisher Jack Howser, who gave Jeffries an earful about using the phrase “swayt toof” to describe a heinous act…and what the consequences were to assign such an act to a man who hadn’t engaged in it, that conclusion already having been reached by investigating authorities.
No more phone calls were received.
School didn’t help; a word for the Conners
In the wrap, the school didn’t help matters much: Disclosure attempted several times to get the school superintendent, Brad Lee, to return calls, to no avail.
The paper was also unsuccessful in its attempts to find a number to reach school board president Kelli Chapman.
As already iterated, neither Conner responded to Facebook queries; as well, neither did Ms. Wenzel when those were sent to her.
While it’s understandable that they might not be interested in talking to a news outlet that actually tells what’s going on instead of glossing over the situation like the “local” media did or ignoring it altogether, each one missed out on an opportunity to get in on the vindication of there having been no illegal conduct going on.
Therefore, Disclosure has a message for them: If the Conners are interested in pursuing a federal tort, they may reach Disclosure at admin@disclosurenewsonline.com
There are very few criteria that a public official (a person whose paycheck is derived in whole or in part by a taxpayer-supported entity) are allowed in order to make a claim against someone for defamation (see front-page story about Kim Buchanan and Helen Dunn in Saline), but allegations of sexual misconduct is one of the five criteria that raises a lie about anyone, including a public official, to a tortious situation that can be litigated in federal court.
With the exception of those who were promised anonymity in advance of producing information, Disclosure has preserved all texts, emails and social networking conversations from others spreading the lies, in case the Conners would like to use them in such an endeavor.
Under the circumstances, while it wasn’t the best of scenarios involving Conner’s indiscretion (which he’d told investigators was “a moment of weakness”), it certainly didn’t deserve to have been turned into the mockery of real justice that it was, and unfortunately, Disclosure was on the front line of it, doing battle in defense of the truth about the coach…so Disclosure staff hopes that the Conners might at least consider such action, and stands ready to side with them on it, strictly on the basis that in the course of the unfolding of it, this publication was every bit as lied about as Conner was.