THE GRYPHEN FILES: Did Anti-Palin Blogger Get Paid For No-Show Job?

That is the question raised by Dan Riehl's newest discoveries about anti-Palin blogger Jesse Griffin, a/k/a "Gryphen," whose false "exclusive" report Aug. 1 began this investigation:

A business enterprise, Clinica Sierra Vista, Inc. (CSV), linked to [Catherine New and Eligio White] recently collected over $4 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars as part of an overall effort in support of community-based health care centers being touted by Barack and Michelle Obama. . . .
Former Alaska resident Catherine New is married to the head of CSV, Eligio G. White. New is also linked to the Puffin Heights Montessori School identified as Griffin's employer. . . .

It's a 2,400-word blockbuster, so read the whole thing and remember: Dan is just asking questions, the way Griffin/"Gryphen" has been doing for months.

UPDATE: Several of Dan's commenters seem unable to connect the dots in his very long article. It helps if you will print out the article and go over it with pen in hand, as I did. In Dan's comment field, I posted this summary for the benefit of anyone who didn't get the picture:

1. Jesse Griffin's "employer of record" is Puffin Heights Montessori school.
2. Employees of that school told Dan that they have never seen Griffin at the school.
3. Former Alaska resident Catherine New was once listed as "primary contact" for the Puffin Heights school.
4. The Puffin Heights school was apparently bankrupted by IRS tax judgments and reorganized circa 2002, with "Yolanda Baber" listed as head of the LLC.
5. Joseph Culligan has been unable to verify the existence of a "Yolanda Baber" in Anchorage.
6. Meanwhile, Catherine New and her husband, Eligio White, have prospered in the health-care industry and are "progressive" activists whose business recently received $4.3 million of stimulus money.

We could speculate about what all this means, but if this Puffin Heights Montessori was indeed paying Griffin for a "no-show job," the big question is: Why?

'GRYPHEN': TIMELINE of the INVESTIGATION

UPDATE II: People who aren't familiar with what Dan Riehl does may need to understand that (a) an amazing amount of data is available as public records; (b) there are research methods that don't involve Google; and (c) most people don't even know how to use Google very effectively.

While not at liberty to discuss Dan's methods, I can now tell you that he told me about this Montessori thing more than a week ago (late Aug. 2 or early Aug. 3) but at that time we had no idea what it meant.

Given the value of Griffin's home (more than $300,000) and his salary from his part-time public-school job at Trailside Elementary in Anchorage, it was obvious that the financial picture didn't add up. The way Puffin Heights Montessori was listed on the public records, it wasn't clear whether Griffin was working there simultaneously with the Trailside job, or if it was a previous employer.

Meanwhile, on his own "Immoral Minority" blog, Griffin was saying different things and it was hard to know what was true or not, as Griffin appears to be a compulsive liar. At one point, Griffin said that the Anchorage public-school gig -- which he resigned Aug. 4 -- was not his main employer.

Means, Motive, Opportunity
Griffin's money situation had intrigued me from the beginning. Why? Because in his big Aug. 1 "exclusive," he'd referenced a National Enquirer story, talked about one of his "best sources," and mentioned vaguely that Alaska newspapers were working on some kind of related Palin scandal story.

Hmmmm. Everybody in journalism knows that the National Enquirer is willing to pay for information. Had Griffin parlayed his status as an anti-Palin blogger into some sort of freelance work for the Enquirer? I mentioned that possibility to Dan Riehl -- just wild speculation on my part -- but Dan was so busy going over the public records that he laughed off that suggestion.

Still -- and hey, we're just asking questions -- who is Jesse's "best source"? Why was Jesse willing to risk a libel suit by passing along that source's gossip? And what is the source's motive for dishing dirt? This is where Dennis Zaki's confirmation by "multiple sources" raises more questions.

Zaki specified that one of his sources was a "former Palin staffer"; days later, Zaki reported that a former Palin staff was trying to sell a tell-all book. (Remember that it was Zaki who stupidly outed Griffin as an Alaska kindergarten teacher; if he has now idiotically put the finger on his "former Palin staffer" source, it just goes to show what a subnormal geek Dennis Zaki is.)

All of this goes to the "motive" part of the classic formula of "means, motive and opportunity" when detectives are trying to solve a crime. Some of my commenters have speculated that Levi Johnston -- the hockey goon/baby daddy who gave an interview to Radar Online today, dishing dirt on the Palins -- may be one of Jesse's sources.

A moron feeding tips to a liar? Hey, if I was threatened with a libel suit and "one of my best sources" was none other than Levi "Ricky Hollywood" Johnston, I'd retract in a New York heartbeat. (And if I was somebody who cared about Levi Johnston, I'd tell him to stay away from Alaska henceforth.)

Celebrities and Sell-By Dates
If you know anything about what Hollywood is like nowadays, every two-bit D-lister in L.A. will tell you his agent's trying to get him a reality-TV gig. Probably 90% of reality-show "development" deals go nowhere, so Levi Johnston's 15 minutes of fame are likely to end without him ever cashing any big checks. Ditto the ex-Palin staffer who is hustling a tell-all about Sarah.

Meanwhile, here is Jesse Griffin, one of the left-wing Alaska blogospheric myrmidons who've spent the past 11 months trashing Palin online for the amusement of PDS-affected "progressives" worldwide. Now that Palin's resigned as governor and the spotlight has shifted, the blog-o-bucks are harder to get for the Alaskasphere, and everybody -- ex-staffers, "Ricky Hollywood," Griffin, his blog buddies -- is trying to cash in before the sell-by date expires on this dirt-dishing bonanza.

Just a guess, but Griffin's evident belief that the Anchorage Daily News was about to publish its own "Palin scandal" story probably tells us something about who Griffin's sources are. And speaking of "just asking questions," if I was the editor of the Daily News, I'd be asking my reporters if any of them were hustling book deals or talking shop with "friends" outside the newsroom.

Unfamiliar with the methods of actual journalists, Griffin recklessly posted that idiotic "exclusive" Palin divorce rumor, without realizing how easily and completely it would be debunked. Nor did Griffin suspect that, by claiming to have such an "exclusive," he would attract the attention of a veteran journalist who didn't appreciate having his Saturday ruined by that bogus scoop.

And I guarantee you that when "Gryphen" hit the orange "publish post" button on his phony "exclusive," he didn't even know such a person as Dan Riehl existed. Say hello to the law of unintended consequences, Jesse.

Have a nice day! :D

P.S.: Thanks to all the readers who hit the tip jar today, and please keep hitting it. Depending on how this "Gryphen" story plays out, I may someday be able to sell a freelance article about it, but it would take weeks or months before I'd see a paycheck. The cell-phone company, the Internet service provider and especially the finance company on my car loan need to be paid sooner than that. So please hit the tip jar!

UPDATE III (11 a.m. 8/12): Edited to delete a minor error.

UPDATE IV (1:20 p.m. 8/12): EXCLUSIVE! ALL RUMORS ARE TRUE, IF YOUR STANDARDS ARE LOW ENOUGH!